There is another thing now to be considered. The testimony of Scripture as to the baptism of the houses of those who were received.
Here we find that God has graciously observed a principle in His ways since the Deluge, which was not discontinued when Christianity came in. This was enunciated to Noah in the words, “Come thou and all thy house into the ark, for thee have I seen righteous before Me in this generation.” And his house is brought into the sphere of privilege with its head who had found grace with God.
This was what Satan’s power in Pharaoh tried to hinder in the case of the “little ones” of Israel. The proposition was, “Go ye that are men” (Ex. 10:1111Not so: go now ye that are men, and serve the Lord; for that ye did desire. And they were driven out from Pharaoh's presence. (Exodus 10:11)), thus seeking to hinder them taking their houses out of Egypt to the same ground with the heads of the families of Israel. This Moses refused — God would not separate the head of the house and those attached to him thus. In result we have — “They were all baptized to Moses in the cloud and in the sea” (1 Cor. 10:22And were all baptized unto Moses in the cloud and in the sea; (1 Corinthians 10:2)).
Alas! how frequently do we find the sad results of the departure from this divine principle. Parents allowing in their children what they must refuse for themselves, looking on them as on a different ground before the Lord.
When the House of God was first constituted by the Holy Spirit sent down from heaven (Acts 2), Peter announces to the Jew, when telling them to repent and be baptized, that “the promise is unto you and to your children.” The Holy Spirit had come and had manifested His power and presence amongst the disciples on that day. Peter had quoted the prophet Joel (Acts 2:28-3228Thou hast made known to me the ways of life; thou shalt make me full of joy with thy countenance. 29Men and brethren, let me freely speak unto you of the patriarch David, that he is both dead and buried, and his sepulchre is with us unto this day. 30Therefore being a prophet, and knowing that God had sworn with an oath to him, that of the fruit of his loins, according to the flesh, he would raise up Christ to sit on his throne; 31He seeing this before spake of the resurrection of Christ, that his soul was not left in hell, neither his flesh did see corruption. 32This Jesus hath God raised up, whereof we all are witnesses. (Acts 2:28‑32)) and said — “This is that which was spoken of” him. It was not, I need hardly remark, the accomplishment of the prophecy, but that character of thing of which he spake: the fulfillment of the prophecy is yet to come. Still, the Holy Spirit had come and was amongst those who spoke. The remnant of Israel were called on to repent of their rejection of their Messiah that they might receive the Holy Spirit and the remission of their sins.
Baptism of water was the mode of entrance administered by the apostles and those with them. But a blessed word was added then which next to their own personal blessing nothing could be a greater mercy. They were told that the promise is unto you and to your children (Acts 2:3939For the promise is unto you, and to your children, and to all that are afar off, even as many as the Lord our God shall call. (Acts 2:39)). It was a true mercy which I do not think any Jew would have refused that day. He was being received by baptism into God’s House where the Holy Spirit dwelt, built in the name of the Lord Jesus whom they had rejected and crucified. It was a true mercy that his children were not to be left outside in the world that Satan governed. To leave them there would be to leave them in a sphere in which God was not working, instead of bringing them in to be participators of the operations of the Holy Spirit who dwelt there.
It may be said that this was for Jews only and their children after them as such. Granted, but when we come to the Gentiles we find the same principle carried out with them. Of the house of Cornelius there is no question. God was marking His reception of the Gentiles so plainly that no Jew could deny their right of reception to the place of blessing in which he was Himself. The Holy Spirit fell on all them who heard the Word (Acts 10:4444While Peter yet spake these words, the Holy Ghost fell on all them which heard the word. (Acts 10:44)). So also was the house of Crispus (Acts 18) who believed on the Lord with all his house.
We are, however, on strictly Gentile ground with Paul — the Apostle of the Gentiles — in Acts 16. In this chapter we read of two “houses” being baptized: Lydia’s —whose heart the Lord opened, and she attended to the things spoken of Paul, and when she was baptized, and her house (ό οἴχος αὐτῆς). There is not a word said as to their believing, or of hearing the Word, or of having their hearts opened. It is said distinctly of her. I cannot state that they did or not; the Word goes no further.
When we find cases where a house is all said to have believed with its head, as in the case of Crispus, &c., Scripture is careful to state it so particularly, and “Scripture is more accurate than we are generally aware of.” Here Lydia is called into blessing and we read of her house all having been received with her —all were baptized. When we turn to the case of the gaoler (jailer) at Philippi, we find that the man came trembling and fell down before Paul and Silas crying out, “What must I do to be saved?” Paul enunciated to him these words — “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved and thy house.” Then he was baptized, he and all his straightway. In Acts 16:3434And when he had brought them into his house, he set meat before them, and rejoiced, believing in God with all his house. (Acts 16:34) we read literally “and rejoiced with all his house [or householdly] having believed in God.” The verbs are all singular, agreeing with the man who did so. Now here it is plainly stated that the man rejoiced, believing in God, and there is no statement as to the house believing at all. I have (said) before that when a house did believe, with the head, it is so stated. I do not say that they did not — that would be drawing a negative conclusion from a positive statement of Scripture, that is, that in houses where all believed it is so stated, and in Lydia’s and the Gaoler’s, when the head of the house believed, or attended to the things spoken, such (belief) is distinctly stated of them only, and nothing is said about the others, yet all were, in each case, baptized. More still — when it might have been left an open question, the writer precludes the thought by using a singular verb when he speaks of the Gaoler “believing” and “rejoicing” — of Lydia, there can be no question. Now these two houses plainly show the principle of the admission of houses was not confined to the Jews.
Then we find in 1 Corinthians 7:1414For the unbelieving husband is sanctified by the wife, and the unbelieving wife is sanctified by the husband: else were your children unclean; but now are they holy. (1 Corinthians 7:14) that if but one parent was a Christian, the children were holy (ἄγιά). Some have tried to interpret this as “legitimate”, but the word would not admit of this in anywise. They had a relative holiness with respect to others, as the Jew of old had with respect to the Gentiles — “afar off” from God in a dispensational way. It has been observed that in Nehemiah, the Jew under the law who had married a Gentile wife, had to put her away and her children. But the grace of Christianity changed all, and they were to abide with each other, if one only had believed in the Lord; Christians having been called to peace, the unbelieving husband being sanctified (ἡγίασται) by the wife and the wife by the husband, the children of such a marriage were not merely sanctified, but holy (ἄγιά); as having this character of relative holiness, it makes the case still more plain why God, in His grace, should accord them a place in His House where the Holy Spirit dwells — where their parents are, if even one of them was a believer: making them also subjects of the exhortations of the Holy Spirit, which belong to those who are “within” where He dwells; to be brought up there meanwhile in the discipline and admonition of the Lord, and the precepts of His House addressed to them. In due time they would have a place at the Lord’s table — this latter, of course, only belonging to those who are truly members of the body of Christ. 1 Corinthians 10:16-1716The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not the communion of the blood of Christ? The bread which we break, is it not the communion of the body of Christ? 17For we being many are one bread, and one body: for we are all partakers of that one bread. (1 Corinthians 10:16‑17) teaches us that the Lord’s Supper has now the significance (as well as other features) of being the symbol of the unity of the body of Christ.
In bringing up his child in the discipline and admonition of the Lord, the Christian parent refuses for his child what he cannot allow for himself. Baptized unto death — the death of Christ — which proved the condition in which all lay (“if one died for all then were all dead,” 2 Cor. 5:1414For the love of Christ constraineth us; because we thus judge, that if one died for all, then were all dead: (2 Corinthians 5:14)), he refuses to reinstate him in “the world,” in the status of the first man. He does not put him in the world of which Satan is the prince. He has to work and pass through it and he must do so in such a sphere in which he may “abide with God.” He refuses and disallows for his child all that as “dead with Christ” himself, he cannot allow for himself. He looks upon his child as in God’s house with himself, and there under the acknowledgment and recognition of the Lord, he brings him up under the yoke of Christ.
It is said that there is no command to baptize the children of Christians. To this I reply that there is no command to baptize believers as such either. The only command given was to baptize nations, having discipled them and I may safely say that there were children in them.
It is simply a question, are the houses of believers to be received “within” in Christ’s name, unto (into?) the House where the Holy Spirit dwells, or to be left “without” in a world where Satan governs? The parents had received them on the ground of nature, and they cannot present them to God on that ground —the death of Christ ends that. God can have nothing to do with man now, apart from the death and resurrection of Christ, except judicially, even in an outward way — all providential dealings of course excepted. They are received in Christ’s name into God’s House through baptism, and the parents accept the charge of them, as it were, from the Lord on totally new ground; to be brought up in God’s house under the yoke of Christ, in the discipline and admonition of the Lord. Then it is said — “Can we not do this without baptism?” I reply — “It is inconsistent to seek to do this with one hand while you have left them still on the ground of paganism with the other”. No doubt the children with or without it are relatively holy, but they are not Christians — nor are they formally in God’s House where the Holy Spirit dwells, until they are baptized.
Three points will now have been established, I trust, in the mind of the reader from the direct teaching of Scripture.
First: Baptism, as Scripture views it, is never the confession of, or witness to a state in which the baptized is already — the state may be there by real faith, but it never enters the thought of Scripture that baptism is the confession of it.
Second: It is the act of the baptizer, and one of administrative reception to privilege of the baptized, by those who are within.
Third: The houses of those who were received were also baptized, and the children of believers being holy, makes it still more plain why they should have a place in God’s House with their parents.