SECTION IV

THE BAPTISM OF FAMILIES

Our Lord’s commission to his disciples, which we have just considered, naturally leads us to expect that the apostles, in the discharge of their duties under that commission, would not infrequently baptize families. We will expect when a parent is baptized to hear something of the baptism of his children. And such is invariably the case. We never once read of a parent being baptized in the presence of his children without the children also being baptized.

In the New Testament we have the record of ten separate instances of Baptism.

1. Three thousand baptized on the day of Pentecost. (Acts 2:41)

2. The Ethiopian eunuch. (Acts 8:27‑38)

3. Saul of Tarsus. (Acts 9:1‑18)

4. The baptism of the Samaritan converts. (Acts 8:12)

5. The baptism of the disciples of John at Ephesus. (Acts 19:5)

6. The baptism of Lydia and her family (oikos). (Acts 16:15)

7. The baptism of the Philippian jailer: “he and all his straightway.” (Acts 16: 32-33)

8. The baptism of Crispus with all his family (oikos). (Acts 18:8)

9. The baptism of the family of Stephanas (oikos).  (1 Cor 1:16)

10. The baptism of Cornelius. “Thou and all thy family (oikos).”  (Acts 11: 14) 

Of these ten separate instances of New Testament baptisms, two were those of single individuals, Paul and the Ethiopia eunuch, who had no children to be baptized; one was the baptism on the day of Pentecost when families as such were not present, the vast congregation being composed of persons from different places, many of them coming from a great distance. Still, though not present as families, the hearers are reminded that the promise is unto them and their children. (Acts 2: 39)

There are still seven instances left, and now mark this very significant fact, in no less than five of these seven instances we have a clear inspired affirmation of family baptism. Does not this clearly evince that the baptism of families was a common practice in apostolic times?  When the apostles baptized a parent, they always baptized his family also, if the family was within reach. Never once do we read, in the New Testament, of parents acting on the modern Baptist principle—leaving their children unbaptized after they themselves had become members of the Church of Christ. Baptists cannot produce from the New Testament one solitary example of such baptism as they practice—that of a child of a professed Christian parent allowed to grow up to adult age without baptism, and then baptized on the profession of his own faith in Christ.

Baptists may tell us that we are not able to prove that there were children in the families referred to. One thing is certain, they can never prove that there were not children in them. And on which side lies the probability? Would it not be a most extraordinary thing that there should not be a single child in one of those five families? Go to any city, town, village or district of country, and enter into the first five houses you come to, and if you will not find a child in any one of them it will be something very extraordinary indeed. But if there was a single infant in any one of these five families, then infant baptism is proved, and the whole Baptist theory falls to the ground.

Then again, provided all the members of these five families were adults, as Baptists contend, would it not be a vary extraordinary thing that every one of them should profess faith just at the very time when the head of each family believed.  How often does such an event happen in the experience of modern Baptists?  I have before me the work of the great Peter Edwards. He was for ten or twelve years a Baptist minister in England. Having been led to give serious attention to the subject of infant baptism, he was thoroughly convinced of the falsity of the Baptist system. He immediately left the Baptist denomination, and in explanation to his congregation he emphasized this fact: “That in all the Baptist missionary reports we never read of the baptism of whole households at one and the same time.”

Now how does it come that the baptism of whole families was so common in apostolic times but a thing rarely if ever heard of in the experience of modern Baptist missionaries? The reason is evident. The apostles, acting upon the well recognized principles of God’s Church from the beginning, and carrying out the well understood meaning of the commission they had received, went forth discipling the nations by applying the seal of discipleship not only to believing parents, but to their infant children as well, while modern Baptists, seeking to improve upon the apostolic and divine plan, refuse to recognize by any outward rite, God’s proprietorship in their little ones.

And here, be it observed, that the word used by the Holy Ghost is not oikia which signifies a man’s household or servants, but oikos which, when relating to persons, means “family,” and has special reference to infant children. Taylor, editor of “Calmet’s Dictionary of the Bible.” gives no less than fifty examples of oikos in the sense of family. The word oikos, relating to persons, always includes little children. See Gen. 34:30; Num. 16:27,32; Deut. 25:9: Ruth 1:12: Psalm 113:9; 1 Sam. 2:33. When the Jews then read that Lydia and her house (oikos), the ,jailer and his house (oikos). and the house (oikos) of Stephanas were baptized, would they not attach the same idea to the word oikos that their sacred writers had done for upwards of two thousand years, and understand it to mean a man’s or a woman’s children—infants included?

Indeed, Baptists themselves, when reasoning on another matter, maintain stoutly that oikos includes little children. In this they are right: but in this we have one of many instances of their glaring inconsistency, in adopting a principle and putting it forward as an argument on one subject, and then renouncing it and setting their faces against it on another. Are they so blind that they cannot see that if oikos (family, including little children) ate of the Passover, oikos (family, including little children) were baptized? Or are they so perverse as to continue including children in the former case, and then for the sake of their Peculiar Principles excluding them in the other case?

Lydia was the only believer, but she was baptized and her children (oikos). Mark well the inspired narrative, “The Lord opened her heart.” “She attended to the things spoken by Paul,” and she was baptized and her children, “and “she besought the apostles,” saying, “if ye have judged me faithful to the Lord.” She was the only believer, but she and her children were baptized.

So also with the Philippian jailer—he believed, he rejoiced but he and all his  were baptized straightway. The record in the original says not a word about any one else either believing or rejoicing. The verb for rejoiced  is in the singular number, and agrees with the jailer and no one else, while the participle for believing is in the masculine gender and singular number, and agrees with and depends on no one but the jailer. The word with is not in the original at all: the expression “with all his house” is one single word—panoki—an adverb, modifying the verb rejoice. He rejoiced domestically—or over his family, just as any Christian parent would do on a similar occasion—seeing his children with himself within God’s covenant and the Lord’s mark put upon them.  

The baptism of families is in accordance with the invariable practice of God’s Church under the ancient economy; it is a faithful carrying out of our Lord’s parting commission; it is in perfect harmony with the whole of revelation; and it demolishes the unscriptural, narrow, repulsive theory of the Baptist.