Discussions over infant baptism often begin in the wrong place. The debate is usually framed around a simple question: Should infants be baptized? While that is certainly an important question, I have become convinced that it is not the fundamental one. In a recent conversation with a Baptist friend from my church seeking to understand Presbyterian covenant theology, it became apparent that every objection ultimately traced back to a much deeper issue. The real question is not infant baptism. The real question is the nature of the visible church. Once that distinction is understood, the Presbyterian position begins to make sense, even if one ultimately disagrees with it.
The conversation started with my friend reaching out to me asking to know more about the denomination called the CREC, in which I am seeking to plant a church, and its distinction from the doctrine we believe (Baptistic theology in our present church) and what Roman Catholicism teaches (though we didn’t get into that), specifically the things that make continued fellowship at our current church difficult, like infant baptism and paedo [child] communion. My friend asked for a few podcasts or YouTube videos that he could listen to. So, I sent him one about the CREC, one on infant baptism, and another on paedo-communion.
Each conversation stems from my friend listening to each video, then offering his summary along with clarifying questions. I think those riding the fence on this topic, or just have no idea about it, will find these back-and-forth discussions very helpful. Each heading pertains to the question my friend asked in our text messages. I reformatted and rearranged our text discussion for better readability.
Do Presbyterians Assume Their Children Already Have Saving Faith?
Friend: “Okay, the covenant aspect aside, and trying to put it in the most simplistic terms possible, is this an accurate understanding of your position on infant baptism?
God promises that children whose parents train them up in the Lord will not depart from Him, and it is possible for infants and small children to have a relationship with God before they have the ability to profess it. Thus, you take hold of that promise, trusting that your children will ultimately profess Christ as they have the growing ability to do so because of how they are being raised. So you baptize them based upon that promise, trusting that, if not already, they will profess a saving faith.”
My Response: First, I wouldn’t say we baptize our children because we believe they already have a saving relationship with God or because we presume they are regenerate. Rather, we baptize them because God ordinarily works through families and includes believers and their children within the visible covenant community (Gen. 17; Acts 2:39; 1 Cor. 7:14). Baptism is the covenant sign marking them as belonging to God’s covenant people, just as circumcision did under the old covenant. It is a sign of God’s covenant promises, not a declaration that regeneration has already occurred.
We certainly hope and pray that our covenant children will embrace Christ from their earliest days and never know a time when they did not trust Him. We trust God’s ordinary covenant dealings with families, but we also recognize that not every baptized covenant member is elect.
Are Baptism and Communion Unrelated to Personal Faith?
Friend: “Okay, so basically as a covenantalist, you understand baptism and communion in the Scriptures as completely unrelated to belief in Christ, but rather just something that anyone who either chooses to become part of the covenant by a personal profession in Christ or is 'born' into the covenant because they have believing parents is able to participate in?”
My Response: Not exactly. I’d actually say they’re inseparably related to Christ, just not in the same way Baptist theology understands. We believe the covenant signs don’t primarily answer the question, “Has this person believed?” Rather, they answer the question, “Whom has God identified as belonging to His visible covenant people?” Adults enter that community by a credible profession of faith, while their children belong to it by virtue of God’s covenant promises. Salvation, however, still comes only through personal faith in Christ. Covenant membership and election are not identical categories.
I think this distinction is where Baptists and Presbyterians often talk past one another. Baptists generally ask, “Has this individual exercised saving faith?” Presbyterians ask, “Whom has God marked off as belonging to His visible covenant community?” Those are related questions, but they are not the same question. Consequently, our respective understandings of baptism flow from the different questions we believe the covenant sign is intended to answer.
What Is the Difference Between Covenant Membership and Election?
Friend: “So then how would you define or explain in a simple way that distinction between covenant membership in God’s eyes and being His elect? Like what does that look like long term for the one who grows up as being part of His covenant people in the church but is not actually elect and is not saved?”
My Response: The first thing I’d say is that I wouldn’t frame it as “covenant membership in God’s eyes.” God alone knows who His elect are. What He has given us is a covenant framework by which we recognize who belongs to His visible covenant people. We don’t presume everyone in that covenant is elect, nor do we presume they aren’t. Rather, we receive them according to the covenant God has established.
So someone who grows up within the covenant may never experience a dramatic conversion because they have known Christ from their earliest days. That’s actually our hope. But whether someone is a covenant child or an adult convert, both must ultimately persevere in faith. Baptism no more guarantees salvation than circumcision did under the old covenant.
Scripture repeatedly shows that someone can truly belong to God’s covenant people and yet later prove to be a covenant breaker. Jesus speaks of branches that are cut off (John 15). Paul speaks of branches broken off the olive tree (Rom. 11). Hebrews warns of those who “profane the blood of the covenant by which [they were] sanctified” (Heb. 10:29). Those warnings only make sense if covenant membership is real, even though it is not identical with election.
This same pattern appears in Acts. Peter says that Judas “was numbered among us and was allotted his share in this ministry” (Acts 1:17). Judas wasn’t merely pretending to belong. He genuinely belonged to the visible covenant community of the apostles and shared in its covenant privileges, yet he ultimately became a covenant breaker. So we live within the covenant order God has given us, recognizing that the visible church contains both wheat and tares until Christ returns. God alone knows His elect, and He alone will reveal them in the end.
This is also why Matthew 18 is so significant. We do not possess infallible knowledge of who is elect, yet Jesus still commands the church to bind and loose on earth, with the assurance that what is bound on earth is bound in heaven. The church therefore acts according to the covenant order Christ has established while leaving the secret reality of election to God.
So, What Is the Fundamental Difference Between the Baptist and Presbyterian Views?
My Response: I think the biggest difference between our views is this: Baptists generally view baptism primarily as a testimony about an individual’s profession of faith, whereas Presbyterians primarily view baptism as God’s covenant sign identifying who belongs to His visible covenant people. That difference in what baptism fundamentally signifies is what drives the different practice. In other words, the debate is not fundamentally about infants. It is about the nature of the visible church. Once that distinction is understood, the differing practice of baptism follows quite naturally.
What Happens If a Baptized Child Ultimately Rejects Christ?
Friend: “And so long as they continue to profess Christ throughout their life, that baptism was sufficient and there does not need to be another one. If, however, they reject God and walk away, then they are like the adult we might baptize in the church who seemed to profess faith but later walked away, proving they were never of us?”
My Response: Just as some circumcised Israelites fell away, and just as Simon Magus was truly baptized yet proved unbelieving, some baptized members of the visible church may ultimately reject Christ. Their apostasy doesn’t invalidate baptism any more than Israel’s unbelief invalidated circumcision.
A baptized covenant member who later abandons Christ demonstrates what Scripture repeatedly teaches: covenant membership is real, but it is not identical with election. Baptism marks one’s entrance into God’s visible covenant people, but like circumcision under the old covenant, it does not guarantee perseverance or salvation. Those who ultimately reject Christ reveal that they were never among God’s elect, even though they truly belonged to the visible covenant community for a time.
What About Communion?
Friend: “And then regarding communion, again, covenants aside... Having made the assumption that baptized babies and young children of believers have been set apart for salvation and will profess Christ when able, and understanding that the only reason a person who has been baptized should abstain is if they are not reconciled with another believer, then there is no reason for them not to participate in communion?”
My Response: As for communion, this is a separate issue. Presbyterians don’t all agree. Most Presbyterian churches practice what is commonly called fencing the Table, meaning that baptism alone does not admit someone to the Lord’s Supper. Before coming to the Table, a person must be able to examine himself, discern the body, and make a credible profession of faith (1 Cor. 11:27–29). For that reason, many Presbyterian churches admit children to the Supper only after a public profession of faith before the elders.
Others, including many in the CREC, practice paedocommunion, admitting baptized covenant children to the Table from an early age. So, while baptism and communion are certainly related, Presbyterians do not necessarily answer both questions the same way.
What If a Baptized Covenant Child Walks Away and Later Returns?
Friend: “If a child who was baptized walks away and later chooses to return on their own as an adult, would they then be baptized as would any other adult convert, or would their initial baptism be seen as sufficient?”
My Response: No, they wouldn’t be baptized again. That baptism was their baptism. I think marriage is actually a helpful analogy. If a husband or wife leaves the marriage and later repents and returns, they don’t get remarried. They return to the covenant they had abandoned.
In the same way, if a baptized covenant child walks away and later returns to Christ, we wouldn’t baptize them again because they aren’t entering a new covenant. They are returning to the covenant community they had forsaken.
This illustrates once again the distinction between covenant membership and election. Baptism marks entrance into the visible covenant community. It isn’t repeated because someone later comes to genuine faith, just as circumcision wasn’t repeated when an unbelieving Israelite repented.
Doesn’t First Corinthians 11 Require a Prior Profession of Faith?
Friend: “This was kind of addressed in one of the videos, where I think they argued the issue in view would be disunity in the body, but how do you view 1 Corinthians 11:27–32 through a covenantal lens? How does an infant or small child examine himself or recognize the body if they have not made a personal profession in Christ?”
My Response: I think the context is really important. Paul is addressing a specific abuse taking place in Corinth. Some were eating ahead of others, some were getting drunk, and they were dividing the body instead of coming together as one. That’s why he concludes, “Therefore, my brothers and sisters, when you come together to eat, wait for one another” (1 Cor. 11:33). In other words, Paul tells us exactly what the problem was.
So when he tells them to “examine themselves” and to “discern the body,” I don’t think he’s introducing a universal requirement that every participant attain a certain age or level of theological understanding before receiving communion. Rather, he’s confronting the sinful behavior that had been destroying the unity of the church. The self-examination is aimed at correcting the very abuse Paul has been addressing throughout the chapter.
As for those who became weak, sick, or even died, I understand that, similarly to other unique acts of divine judgment during the apostolic period, such as Ananias and Sapphira. God was powerfully establishing and protecting the holiness of the New Covenant church. I don’t think Paul is teaching that every time someone partakes unworthily throughout church history we should expect the same immediate judgment.
One observation that also caused me to rethink this passage is a matter of consistency. If 1 Corinthians 11 is primarily teaching that every individual must perform a particular kind of inward self-examination before coming to the Lord’s Table, then churches should never omit giving that warning, as some have done so (and maybe still do). That suggests we’ve often treated the warning as a liturgical tradition rather than asking what Paul was actually correcting in Corinth.
I still think this is one of the strongest passages advanced in favor of credo-communion, so I don’t dismiss it lightly. At the same time, I don’t think Paul’s primary concern is establishing an age requirement for participation in the Supper. His concern is how the covenant community comes to the Table together. That distinction is an important one.
Conclusion
One of the things I appreciated most about this discussion was my friend’s willingness to ask thoughtful questions rather than make assumptions about the Presbyterian position. As the conversation progressed, it became increasingly clear that the real issue was not infant baptism itself but the nature of the visible church.
That, I believe, is the question too often missing from the infant baptism debate. The discussion is frequently framed around who should receive baptism when the more fundamental question is who constitutes God’s visible covenant people? Once that covenantal framework is established, the Presbyterian understanding of baptism follows naturally. One may ultimately disagree with that conclusion, but at least the discussion has moved to the issue that actually distinguishes the Baptist and Presbyterian traditions.
For me, these conversations have only further confirmed my transition to covenantal Presbyterianism. I have become convinced that it provides the most coherent understanding of the continuity between the Old and New Testaments and of God’s covenant dealings with His people throughout redemptive history.
Romans 11:33
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