Presbyterians and Baptists believe in the same God, Lord, Holy Spirit, 66-book canonical Bible, and the same Gospel. However, we do not agree on baptism. Many Baptists don’t understand the fundamental difference in our disagreement. I didn’t for years. We know the true Church—the body of Christ—is made only of believers. Presbyterians believe the local church is like Israel in the OT, filled with both believers and unbelievers. This is why they are willing to give a sign of a covenant to an unbelieving child—namely, baptism (known as “paedobaptism”)—while we are not.
Our goal is to baptize only genuine converts (Acts 2:41; 8:12; Rom 16:5). We do not baptize in anticipation of a future conversion to Christ. Presbyterians believe that God’s election of those who will be saved is determined along family lines. Therefore, children of believers have a greater probability of coming to faith in Christ. For this reason, they believe paedobaptism points to a future reality that they are confident will come true. Baptists disagree. We do not baptize, leaning forward in the hope that eventually our children will come to faith in Christ. We do not believe the NT allows us to create a special category of children who have not yet been saved but are in a covenant relationship with God, under an assumed “covenant of grace”, as Presbyterians and reformed denominations do.
We would not know what covenant that would be, because no such covenant is mentioned in the Bible. The Bible clearly teaches that from the beginning, God has had a plan to save humanity from their sin by His grace through faith, but we do not call that a covenant of grace; we call it His eternal plan of salvation. Unbelieving children cannot be in the New Covenant (NC). As the Mosaic covenant was made between God and Israel (a specific people), and not all of humanity, so only spiritual sons of Abraham—believers—are in the New Covenant. Simply being children of believers does not make children spiritual sons of Abraham, as Paul makes clear in Galatians 3.
In Scripture, covenants are accompanied by a sign. The rainbow is the sign of the Noahic covenant. Circumcision was the sign of the Abrahamic Covenant. Circumcision was an outward sign of the reality that ethnic, national, territorial (ENT) Israel was God’s chosen people. The weekly Sabbath was a sign for the Mosaic Covenant (Exo 31:13). Water baptism is the sign of the New Covenant. Baptism (and the Lord’s Supper) are signs, symbols, and pictures of a spiritual reality.
Baptism is not the sign that replaced circumcision. Circumcision of the heart (born again, John 3:3) replaced physical circumcision, but no one can see the circumcision of the heart. It is a work of the Holy Spirit. The sign that both believers and unbelievers can see is water baptism by immersion. We invite unbelievers to someone’s baptism to witness this profession of faith in Christ.
We baptize believers by immersion because that is what best illustrates the believer’s identification with Christ. We immerse to signify what has already happened spiritually. Pouring water on the head of an infant, as other denominations do, does not illustrate death, burial, and resurrection with and in Christ. It is only a token representation of a future hope of cleansing. I was baptized as an infant, and then I was baptized again as a believer in Christ by immersion. Really, I was only baptized once—when I believed. I just got wet when I was an infant.
Baptists insist baptism is only for followers—disciples—of Christ (Mat 28:18). We cannot Scripturally baptize someone in the hope that they will become a disciple of Christ. Baptism follows repentance. Baptism does not anticipate a future salvific repentance. Water symbolically represents the cleansing of regeneration (Tit 3:5). Read Romans 6:1-4. Since baptism is part of Christ’s command to make disciples, we believe we must do our best to baptize only true followers of Christ.
Our desire to baptize only born-again followers of Christ (those in the NC) drives us to require a public salvation testimony. It motivates us to provide written instructions (a booklet) and clarity. Baptism has the potential to create a false assurance. Just like the Jews insisting that their physical circumcision somehow proved they were children of God, we can unwittingly create people who cling to their baptism as evidence of conversion, when they have no other evidence. Reliance on baptism as evidence of salvation is a problem, and we must not contribute to that problem.
