Infant Baptism and Confirmation

There is disagreement within the Christian community about the baptism of infants and young children. In part, this is due to the fact that the New Testament never states that children should be baptized, and further, being baptized is a response to the gospel, and small children and infants do not have the intellectual capacity to understand the gospel. Anglicans, however, for very strong reasons, baptize children. The reasons for this will be given in this essay. They are as follows:

1. In the essay entitled, Baptism and Covenant, we learned that baptism is a sign of the covenant and that, beginning with Abraham, Jewish families entered into the covenant through the circumcision of the male children on the eighth day. The New Testament Christians considered themselves descendents of Abraham, heirs of the promises, and bound to God and each other by a new form of the old covenant. Therefore, and this is especially true of the Jewish Christians, it would have been natural for them to baptize their children into the new covenant since their male children entered the covenant of Abraham on the eighth day after birth. If it were wrong to baptize children, one would have expected the Jewish Christians to object to a change in their tradition, just as they objected to the change of no longer requiring circumcision as a necessary sign of the covenant (Acts 15).

2. When non-Jews converted to Judaism, the entire family became members of the covenant people of God. Such persons were called proselytites and are mentioned in Matthew 23:15, Acts 6:5, and 13:43. When this happened, the male members were circumcised and the entire family was baptized, men, women, and children. The language the Jewish teachers used to describe this proselytite baptism was that the person baptized became like a newborn child, a new creation, raised from the dead, born anew, and forgiven of sin. This is the language used of Christian baptism and the most sensible conclusion is that the rite of Jewish baptism, which preceded Christian baptism, influenced the early Christian understanding of baptism itself.(1) It would have been strange for the early Christians who understood themselves as rooted in Judaism to have baptized adults in a Gentile or Jewish family without baptizing the children.

3. Children participated in the principle feasts of Judaism, Passover, the Feast of Weeks, and the Feast of Tabernacles (Deuteronomy 16:1-17). The Passover, in particular, was celebrated by families (Exodus 12:1-4). The first Eucharist was established at a Passover Meal, and it would have been expected that children would participate in the new Passover. Further, the Eucharist was instituted as a rite of covenant renewal and the major covenants described in the Old Testament included the children. The covenant with Abraham (Genesis 17) was a covenant with Abraham and his descendents and the sign of the covenant was circumcision of the newly born males. The circumcision of the males did not mean that only the males belonged to the covenant. Rather, the circumcised males were a sign that all the people were in covenant with God and one another. The book of Deuteronomy is a "book of the covenant" in which Moses narrates God’s mighty acts, his laws, and then, in the final chapter, Moses urges the people to renew their covenant with God. This covenant was to be with all the people, "heads of your tribes, your elders, and your officers, all the men of Israel, your little ones, your wives, and the sojourner who is in your camp, from the one who chops your wood to the one who draws your water, ... " (Deuteronomy 29: 10-11). The covenant of Exodus 19-24 was between God and the people, and this meant all the people. God appeared to all the people on the mountain (19:11), all responded to the words of the Lord (24:3), all were sprinkled by the blood (24:8). There is no hint in the text that the children were excluded from the covenant ceremony. Similarly, the great covenant of Joshua 24 was a covenant between God and all the people (Joshua 24:2, 27). In these covenant ceremonies the children may not have fully understood all that was said and done, but they knew something momentous was taking place and that they were a part of it. The covenant God made with David was a covenant between David and his descendents, a covenant made with his offspring before they were even born (2 Samuel 7).

Since the Eucharist was the New Passover and a rite of covenant renewal, it would have been expected that children would participate in the Eucharist. At no point does the New Testament state that children should be excluded from the Eucharist. The New Testament does teach, however, that one enters the covenant through baptism, and the Church’s orthodox teaching for two thousand years, believed by those who practice infant baptism and those that do not, is that one cannot participate in the Lord’s Supper without first being baptized. One must be born before one can receive the bread of life, and therefore, if New Testament children received the bread of life, they were first baptized.

4. Throughout the whole of Scripture, children participated with their families in the grace and judgment of God. One can think of the Exodus, the gift of the Land, the Exile, the ministry of Jesus extended to children (often in response to the faith of parents), Paul’s instructions to families, including children, and his statement that children are made holy by the faith of their parents (1 Corinthians 7:14), or his belief that all were baptized into Moses and the cloud and in the sea (1 Corinthians 10:1-4), or Peter’s recognition in 2 Peter 2:5 that Noah, a righteous man was saved, along with his family, even though Scripture never claims that Noah’s sons were righteous. If the faith of parents does not qualify a child to receive God’s promises, blessings, and new life, then Jesus would never have healed the children of those who came to him asking that he heal their children. One can remember, for example, restricting ourselves to the gospel of Matthew, how Jesus healed a ruler’s daughter (Matthew 9:18-19, 23-26), the possessed daughter of a Canaanite woman (Matthew 15:22-28), or the demonized son of a man who came to him, knelt before him, and begged that his son be delivered (Matthew 17:14-18).

Even more to the point, if the faith of others cannot enable God’s promises, new life, and mercy, how can believers receive the forgiveness, grace, and mercy of God given by the faith of Christ who died upon the cross for our sins? What sets us right with God is first and foremost the obedient faith of Christ, and although faith is required to receive this gift, the faith does not save. Christ saves. Similarly, when a child is baptized, and the child's parents or guardians intend to raise that child in the grace and mercy of the Lord Jesus, that grace, mercy, and blessing belong to the child since God acts to keep the baptismal promise made on behalf of the child. All the graces of the Kingdom -- teaching, Eucharist, and healing -- belong to a child. Jesus will never turn them away. "Let the little children come to me and do not hinder them, for to such belongs the kingdom of heaven" (Matthew 19:14). In this context it is important to recognize that one of the requirements for baptizing infants is that their parents or guardians intend to bring the child up in the Christ faith. This has been the tradition of the church. In the 1662 Prayer Book baptismal rite, for example, the parents, godparents, and guardians bring the child to the baptismal font and makes vows on the child’s behalf. As the child grows, he or she will need to respond to that promised mercy in order to receive the benefits, but that is also true of adults who are baptized. Baptized persons, children or adults, usually begin as spiritual infants and only if they are faithful will they continue to receive the promises. The beauty of being a child is that children readily receive mercy, and that is why Jesus said, "Truly, I say to you, unless you turn and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven (Matthew 18:3). Or again, "I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that you have hidden these things from the wise and understanding and revealed them to little children; yes, Father, for such was your gracious will” (Luke 10:21). The tragic fact is, and I speak from experience having been baptized at thirteen, that many persons are baptized with hard hearts, having lost the ability to receive and give love.

5. It was common in the ancient world for the head of a household to establish the faith of the entire house, and for that reason, when heads of households became believers, the entire household would be baptized. Further, as in the case of Old Testament covenants, children were brought into the new covenant of grace in Christ Jesus. For example, the covenant promises of Acts 2, studied in previous essays, were "for you and for your children and for all who are far off, ..." (Acts 2:39). Again, when the woman, Lydia, was baptized, her entire household was baptized with her (Acts 16:13-15), and the same is true of the jailor in Acts 16:29-34. In I Corinthians Paul says that he baptized the household of Stephanus. When Paul wrote to the Ephesians, he addressed them as the "saints who are in Ephesus" (Ephesians 1:1). In Ephesians 6:1-4, he gave instructions to children, fathers, masters, and slaves, all members of the household, teaching them how to treat each other. The fathers, masters, slaves, and children were all "saints," that is, members of the covenant community, and when Paul thinks of households, he thinks of all their members as belonging to the new covenant in Christ. The same can be found in Paul's letter to the saints in Colossai (Colossians 1:2, 3:20). Throughout Scripture, children with their families receive the blessings of God, and this includes their belonging to the covenant.

6. Tertullian, who later apparently changed his mind, initially advised Christians to withhold baptism from healthy infants and unmarried women.(2) His initial advice was ignored by the church. None of the church fathers objected to infant baptism and it was known to be practiced in the churches of both East and West at least from the second century until the time of the Reformation. At that time, certain groups in the West, influenced in part by the individualism of the Renaissance, began to baptize only adults. Prior to the sixteenth century, there is no record of anyone denying baptism to children. The Eastern Church has retained the ancient tradition of baptizing children followed by the Holy Eucharist.

7. The primary Protestant Reformers, Cranmer, Luther, and Calvin affirmed infant baptism because they affirmed the priority of grace.(3) The validity of baptism does not depend upon the faith of the person being baptized, but upon God who keeps his promises. Many of us who were raised in churches that do not baptize children, were baptized as adults, but often for the wrong reasons. But the baptism is still valid because God is faithful. If it were necessary to have true faith in order to have a valid baptism, then many times God would promise nothing in baptism because there are many who are baptized for worldly reasons. Even more, there are many who, harassed by their sins and the devil, begin to doubt whether God actually promised to save them in their baptism because they knew that their motives for baptism were not pure. If the validity of their baptism and its promises depended upon their faith, then where would they be? Where would we be? Anyone, in times of trial, can look back on past experiences and wonder if they really ever believed and hoped in God. But even if we doubt ourselves, we need not doubt God. No, God is faithful. The validity of baptism depends first and foremost on God and we receive that gift in faith but not guaranteed by our faith. Even if we were baptized for the wrong reasons, the baptism is still valid because God is faithful. For that reason there is no need to be baptized a second time if one comes to a new found faith later in life. It is often good, however, for those who come to faith to have an opportunity to share their new-found commitment with the church in some form of a ceremony of acceptance and affirmation.

8. Children know when they are included and loved. They can exercise faith in response to goodness, although their response does not possess the strong cognitive element of a mature mind. However, it still is faith, where faith is defined as trust and openness to love.

These are some of the reasons Anglicans, along with other major Christian bodies, have always baptized children. Simply put, children belong to the family of God, and if members of the family, they belong at the Eucharistic table and that requires baptism. Having said this, and recognizing that many churches do not adequately raise their baptized children in the full light of God’s grace, and that infant baptism has so easily degenerated into a formal rite with little substance, the witness of those who practice adult baptism only is a prophetic testimony against the abuse of infant baptism, especially the failure to educate and spiritually form Christian believers. By only baptizing adults, these Christian bodies are testifying to the truth that those who follow Jesus need to be committed, educated, and spiritually ready to overcome the world, the flesh, and the devil. Unfortunately, the churches that practice adult baptism only are usually just as weak in the area of spiritual formation as the churches that practice infant baptism. Let us ask God to have mercy upon us in this matter, blessing his church with strong Christians who love the Lord and act accordingly.

Confirmation

As described in the essay, Baptism and the Holy Spirit, the Spirit works according to circumstances, needs, and the purposes of God. When a child is small the Spirit works to enable a child to grow “in wisdom and in stature and in favor with God and man” (Luke 2:52). In this process the Spirit uses the ministry of the church, especially the parents or guardians of the child. All human beings need ministry and love of others, and it is especially important that the child be loved, including prayers with the child for blessings, healing, forgiveness, and love from God. It is good for the parents to hold their children as needed and pray that Jesus come to them and that they be delivered of evil and filled with the Spirit. Let both parents pray for the child, and let the father take the lead since so many do not spiritually nourish their children. Let love surround the child on all sides, and if the child goes astray, discipline with tenderness and firmness, establishing guidelines for each child according to their abilities and circumstances. The words of Paul are directly relevant here, “Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord” (Ephesians 6:4).

It is difficult for parents to raise their children well, and therefore, the church needs classes on Christian parenting, as well as ministries such as inner healing and deliverance, to break the destructive patterns that parents inherited from their parents. God works by Word and Spirit, the Word of teaching and counsel as well as the ministries of deliverance and infilling of the Holy Spirit.

Eventually the child reaches an age in which they are able to take responsibility for their relationship with the Lord. This is a new stage in the child’s life, the age in which they enter into adulthood. For Jewish children, this is celebrated by a bar mitzvah at the age of twelve. In the churches that baptize only adults, the young person is expected to make a public confession of faith when they reach the age of accountability. They are then baptized. In other churches such as the Roman, Anglican, and Lutheran, there is confirmation, a time in which the child makes a public confession of faith and receives the laying on of hands of the bishop to receive or be strengthened in the Holy Spirit. This is not to say that the Spirit has been inactive all along. Rather, as described in the essay, Baptism and the Holy Spirit, all persons need prayer for the work of the Spirit and this is especially true when entering into a new order of life such as a mature commitment to follow Christ. The same can be said for ordination in which there are prayers and the laying-on-of-hands to receive the Spirit for the work of the ordained ministry.

According to the 1662 Prayer Book, those about to be confirmed, along with all others who have not sufficiently learned the faith, are to be instructed in their baptismal vows, the Apostles’ Creed, the Ten Commandments, the Lord’s Prayer, and the meaning of the two sacraments, baptism and Holy Eucharist. This is important, and if coupled with the ministry of the church and made practical, can ground believers in the fundamentals of the Christian faith. At the same time, however, it is possible to learn these things and never quite grasp their practical relevance to living the Christian life. For that reason, the “Practical Commitments” found in the section, The Believer’s Baptismal Promises, can be a helpful guide to leading the Christian life. If pastors follow this guide, they will soon discover how difficult it is, and this is a blessing as it enables them to have compassion on those in their charge who find it difficult as well.

At the service of confirmation, taken from the 1662 Anglican Prayer Book, the bishop lays his hand on each of those to be confirmed and says, “Defend, O Lord, this thy Child [or this thy Servant] with thy heavenly grace, that he may continue thine for ever; and daily increase in thy Holy Spirit more and more, until he come unto thy everlasting kingdom. Amen.” Here the bishop does not pray for an initial reception of the Spirit, but rather, that the person may “daily increase in thy Holy Spirit.” The Spirit has already been given in baptism and prayer is now made for an increase in the work of the Spirit. This is consistent with what was said in the essay, Baptism and the Holy Spirit, where the Spirit was understood as a living, dynamic person of the Trinity who daily works in every person to the glory of God and their eternal happiness. The “heavenly grace” referred to here is the presence of the Lord Jesus who has conquered every evil by his mighty resurrection.

It would be good for bishops to consecrate themselves before these services, fasting and praying, making their confession, eagerly seeking the anointing of God that those they bless will experience the power of God coming upon them. As stated in previous lessons, however, whatever one experiences of God at a particular moment cannot deny or prove the promises of God received in faith. Still and all, it is good to receive impressions of God’s favor and grace, and it would be good for those to be confirmed and those that present them to pray and fast as well.

Among Anglicans the bishop is present at confirmation because bishops represent the universal church, and further, they represent the apostolic ministry. In the previous section I mentioned that the Christian religion is an incarnational religion, and this implies that the fundamental realities and relationships of the Christian faith need to be represented to the senses by sound, sight, and touch. There is no doubt that the early church was governed by the apostles, authorized by Christ to represent him, and that all churches need persons who represent Christ and the apostolic ministry in their midst.

Bishops also represent the universal church, for in the beginning there was only one church and there is still only one church. It was the apostles (Acts15) who met together to resolve issues that affected the entire church, and it was their successors, the bishops, who dealt with problems facing the church of the first few centuries. In confirmation a person makes a mature commitment to Christ, and as part of that commitment, there is a commitment to his church, the universal church of Christ. Sadly, in our present divided context, we do not have bishops or other leaders from the various churches who are in fellowship with each other, and therefore, we do not make visible the universal fellowship of the undivided church. For Anglicans, however, that universal fellowship is made visible through the office of the bishop, and it is appropriate that the bishop represent the universal church as those to be confirmed commit themselves to Christ and his body the church. This commitment to the universal church always takes a local form, to a specific body of believers, and therefore, confirmation is also a commitment to a particular local church, and for an Anglican Confirmation, that would be the local Anglican Church to which they belong.

In recent years there has been a reconsideration of the relationship between baptism and confirmation. It was the custom, and the history of this was briefly mentioned in the essay, The Believer’s Baptismal Promises, to not allow children to receive Holy Communion until they had been confirmed. What had been an original rite, culminating in baptism and communion for the baptized including children, was broken into pieces, with confirmation occurring at the time of maturity followed by first communion. Baptism, in and of itself, is the rite that begins the Christian life and brings one into the Kingdom of God, the body of Christ, with all its privileges. Michael Green, in his text on baptism, states the following,

Confirmation is not the topping up of baptism as the entry into the Christian life. There is no justification for such a view anywhere in the New Testament. It is no supplementary rite. Repentance, faith, and baptism are the human conditions for receiving the new life in Christ, membership of his family, the forgiveness of sins and the gift of his Spirit. Baptism alone is the rite which initiates a person to the church; not baptism and something else, i.e. Confirmation. This is now widely recognized, ...(4)

An immediate corollary to this is that baptized children should be given the Holy Communion, returning the church to the ancient practice, a practice still followed in the Eastern Church.

Finally, if baptism is the complete and original rite, there is a real question as to whether the church should even practice confirmation. Along these lines, Maxwell Johnson, in his text, The Rites of Christian Initiation, urges the following,

Confirmation should be placed back where it belongs--as the inseparable concluding seal of the baptismal rite itself whenever baptism takes place. As a consequence, all the debates about knowledge, preparation, and age for confirmation should be terminated. Perhaps then the churches can get busy on life-long mystagogy and the life-long return to the font as Christians seek to live out in the Spirit the implications of their new birth!(5)

When Johnson refers to returning confirmation to baptism, he refers to anointing the baptized with oil as a seal of the Holy Spirit immediately after their baptism and as part of the rite itself. This, as seen in The Believer’s Baptismal Promises, was the ancient practice in both the East and the West.

For reasons that will be given in the next essay, Baptismal Rites, it would be best if the rite of baptism not only included the washing with water, but also the anointing with oil representing the anointing of the Spirit. There is no need to have a separate rite of anointing for the Spirit. Having said this, however, at least in the Anglican tradition, the “church has authority to decree forms of worship and ceremonies and to decide in controversies concerning the faith. However, it is not lawful for the church to order anything contrary to God's written Word” (Article 20). A service of prayer for a fresh anointing of the Spirit is not contrary to Scripture. In fact, as seen in the essay, Baptism and the Holy Spirit, Christians are commanded to pray for the infilling of the Spirit, and not just as baptism, but at all times and especially when facing new situations that require God’s power and grace. Further, as discussed in The Consecration of Space and Time, God ordained special times, places, and rites, for the life of his people. Confirmation is not ordained by God as necessary for salvation, but all churches develop rites, ceremonies, and events that enhance their common life. Anglicans do so as well, and passing from childhood to adulthood is an important milestone in the life of a person. At that time, it is wise to seek God’s blessing, that the promises and commitments of baptism become more fully appropriated in the life of a person. If no time is set aside for a renewal of one’s baptismal vows, it is quite likely, human sin being as it is, that the emerging adult will never take their baptismal vows seriously.

If this be true, there is no need in confirmation to anoint with oil as a seal of the Holy Spirit. That occurred in baptism. God’s promises are certain and do not need to be repeated. Rather, there is a laying-on-of-hands by the bishop, praying that the promises and commitments of baptism, centering in the new life in Christ and empowered by the Spirit, would come to fruition in the continuing life of those confirmed.

Endnotes

1. Green, Michael, Baptism: Its Purpose, Practice, & Power (Downers Grove, Illinois: InterVarsity Press, 1987), p. 68.
2. Green, Baptism, pp. 74-75.
3. “Nevertheless, in spite of their individually distinct theological positions, the Lutheran, Reformed, and Anglican traditions were one in their perception that the Anabaptists had exchanged an Augustinian theology rooted in grace for a from of Pelagianism which emphasized baptism as a human rather than a divine act and as the consequence of a deliberate, free, and salvific choice or human decision. In response to this, infant baptism continued to be defended and advocated.” Maxwell E. Johnson, The Rites of Christian Initiation (Collegeville: The Liturgical Press, 1999), pp. 269-70.
4. Green, Baptism, p. 102.
5. Maxwell E. Johnson, The Rites of Christian Initiation, p. 373.