This morning, my brother sent me this text:
“You’ve said before that you think Acts 2:39 implies infant baptism. How do you deal with the objection that it’s just speaking to the universality of the ‘repent and be baptized…and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit’ promise to all generations (your children too) and the nations (all who are far off), and that the ‘promise’ here seems to be both repentance and baptism, which would mean the promise of the Holy Spirit isn’t given to baptized children?”
And he’s right, I have used this in the past, and perhaps uncritically. Everything claimed confidently ought to be critically examined, so that’s what I intend to do here: to critically examine the context and syntax of this verse to determine whether it implies infant baptism.
Options…
One thing of note in what my brother is saying here is that this text is often used as a proof-text for credobaptism, at least in his experience. This is interesting, because I have used this as a proof-text for precisely the opposite position, so some critical examination is certainly necessary!
At first glance, I think I can see how this text might be used to defend Credobaptism, at least in theory. Here, Peter’s response urging his hearers to receive baptism is closely connected to that of repentance, which definitely works within a credobaptistic framework for understanding how the sacrament operates (but of course, any protestant explanation of baptism is going to closely associate baptism and faith, and then by proxy repentance).
But I hope the reader can also see at first glance where I have gotten my paedobaptistic reading of this text — the children of those present are included in what Peter refers to as “the promise,” a subject which will be discussed at length below. And given the close proximity of this promissory language to the command for those present to be baptized, it seems natural to draw the conclusion that the children of those present should be baptized.
But while at a surface-level both implications may seem plausible, ultimately one is right and the other is wrong, or both implications are incorrectly drawn. Both one statement and it’s negation cannot be true, of course. But also the possibility must be kept in mind that neither implication is valid in this instance. This text does not necessarily need to imply one or the other. I’m going to be arguing here that the text does imply paedobaptism, but even if I’m wrong here, that doesn’t necessarily mean paedobaptism is false, because I have other arguments. But, of course, if this text necessarily implies credobaptism, then I am wrong about paedobaptism, since, assuming the text is consistent in its teaching, then one text where it is taught is enough to dismantle the opposite.
The Text
Context
It is first good to begin with a little bit of context about what Peter says, so that we understand why he says it. We must know that Peter’s declaration here in Acts 2.38 is part of a dialogue, so as responsible readers we ought to understand both sides of the dialogue to correctly interpret the text. In a perfect scenario, extended coverage of the entire Pentecost episode would be in order, but for the sake of keeping this post succinct, a brief summary of the events which lead up to this moment will suffice.
Contextually, we find ourselves at the tail end of Peter’s great Pentecost sermon. Jesus, prior to his ascension, instructs his disciples to stay in Jerusalem (being nearby), for there they will receive what he calls, “what the Father promised,” namely, that while John baptized with water, his disciples will be baptized with the Holy Spirit (Acts 1.4-5). After a successor is appointed for Judas Iscariot (1.12-26), the Father fulfills his promise dramatically among his fledgling Church, and all who are given the gift of the Holy Spirit are given the ability to speak in diverse languages (2.1-4). Those in the city, both Jew and God-fearing Gentile present for the feast of Pentecost (2.1) are in shock at this sudden reality that those of clearly Galilean descent are able to communicate in a diverse number of languages to all present (2.5-11). There is a divisiveness in the interpretation of this event, with some in amazement (2.12), and some critical (2.13). Peter, standing up as a leader among the Apostolic band, makes his defense, casting this event in terms of the prophet Joel’s prediction about the New Covenant, which we will take a look at soon. They identify themselves as witnesses to the Messiah, whom they, in some sense, crucified. His audience is greatly troubled, and they do not know what they ought to do, since they have crucified the Messiah. Peter then plainly tells them, which we will look at now.
Acts 2.38-39
Πέτρος δὲ πρὸς αὐτούς, Μετανοήσατε καὶ βαπτισθήτω ἕκαστος ὑμῶν ἐπὶ τῷ ὀνόματι Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ εἰς ἄφεσιν τῶν ἁμαρτιῶν ὑμῶν, καὶ λήμψεσθε τὴν δωρεὰν τοῦ ἁγίου πνεύματος· ὑμῖν γάρ ἐστιν ἡ ἐπαγγελία καὶ τοῖς τέκνοις ὑμῶν καὶ πᾶσιν τοῖς εἰς μακρὰν ὅσους ἂν προσκαλέσηται κύριος ὁ θεὸς ἡμῶν.
Peter said to them: “Repent and let each one of you be baptized in Jesus Christ’s name for the purpose of forgiving your sins, and you will receive the gift, the Holy Spirit. For the promise is for you, your children, and all in a far away place — as many people as the Lord our God may call.”1
A full exegetical treatment of this verse is somewhat out of the scope of this article. In order to keep things succinct, it will suffice to focus upon the last sentence in my translation: “For the promise is for you…” This, after all, is the locus of this discussion.
Are infants included in the reference here to “children”?
This first question is, I think, of primary importance, because if it can be demonstrated that infants are not at all included in whatever group to which Peter here refers, then this text ceases to be of any particular note for the paedobaptistic position.
Firstly, it is notable that there is a fairly exact verbal parallel here, cited in Baker’s Acts commentary, between this text and Psalms of Solomon 8.332, which reads:
ἡμῖν καὶ τοῖς τέκνοις ἡμῶν ἡ εὐδοκία εἰς τὸν αἰῶνα /
κύριε σωτὴρ ἡμῶν, οὐ σαλευθησόμεθα ἔτι τὸν αἰῶνα χρόνον.3
The [Lord’s] good-will is for us and our children forever /
Lord our Savior, we will not ever totter!
For those uninitiated to the Psalms of Solomon (which is probably anyone reading), I’ll discuss the context of this particular song for a little bit. The heading of this Psalm is labeled “εις νεικος,” which could be translated either as “about strife” or “about victory”4. Given the context of the Psalm, I think that “about strife” was probably the intended meaning, but “about victory” (namely, the victory of Israel’s enemies) is not impossible. This Psalm seems to map well onto the siege of Jerusalem by Pompey in 63 BC5, although it describes this event (or perhaps another) in terms of an Exile, not unlike the biblical Exile of Babylon. The author (portrayed as Solomon) hears a trumpet, and the sound of men rising up, to judge Jerusalem for her many sins (1-13). When the Lord comes to his people, he is let into the city as a friend (14-18), but the people are taken by surprise as he ushers in great judgment upon them and lays their city in ruin (19-22). And the Psalm ends with praise for God’s justice in judging the wicked (23-26), a plea for forgiveness and for God to gather his dispersed people (27-32), and finally a declaration of confidence that the Lord will be faithful to his people forever (33-34).
So, in this text, we could ask precisely the same question: are infants included in the “children” here? And I think that here we can unambiguously say yes. The reason why the text employs the language of “our children” is to bolster the Lord’s loyalty to his people as a corporate entity. It is as if to say that “God has made promises to our family, namely, the family of Abraham.” We could gloss the text: “The Lord’s good-will is for us only, but also for our children: the whole people with whom he has covenanted.” And it is of no dispute that, at this time, those with whom God covenanted was not simply individuals, but households including infants. So, here, the reference to “children” cannot be restricted to only those children who can consciously trust in the Lord.
A valid question can then be raised: how significant is this? There are no Christian groups which today hold this text to be of any canonical authority. It would be difficult to prove that Peter was citing this text, and in fact the data does not seem to fit such a hypothesis. However, I think that this parallel is actually quite significant, because it establishes a precedent for this type of language in this context. In Psalms of Solomon, this language is used to talk about God’s people as a corporate entity, which very much included infants: so too it seems likely that Peter’s reference to “your children” has to do with corporate identification with God’s people. It’s not as if there were some little ones present in Peter’s audience that he wanted to make sure also received the same sort of assurance that the adults also received. It is true that there probably were little ones present (the whole family was supposed to be present for the celebration of Pentecost), but that’s probably not what Peter’s getting at. Rather, it seems like Peter is saying that you too, namely, those who crucified the Lord, can join the corporate people of God, on the basis of repentance and baptism. And this in-grafting, like it always has, includes their children.
If this were not what Peter were doing with the “your children,” then the phrase seems to me superfluous. If, say, a teenager were present at Pentecost, would he, being fully able to repent himself, not be included within the “you,” not the “your children”? No, it seems clear to me that Peter has in mind corporate identification which includes households, not merely individuals. And, repeating the common paedobaptistic refrain, if something changed, why wouldn’t Peter have told us?
As an aside, this is also probably how we ought to understand what I have rendered “all in a far away place.” It has been popular throughout history to interpret this as a reference to the Gentiles, who are metaphorically “far off” from God’s people, but are now to be brought in (Calvin takes this perspective6). But a reference more consonant with the point we are in the narrative of Acts seems to be that Peter is referring to the Diaspora. Bock takes this perspective.7 Recall that the book of Acts is structured into three major sections, following the outline of Jesus’ words in Acts 1: the Gospel will go out to Judea, Samaria, and then to the ends of the earth. Right now, we’re still in the “Judea” portion: it will not be until Acts 10, Peter will receive his vision which validates to him that Gentiles can be co-heirs with Jews8. So to take Peter’s statement here as a grand endorsement of Gentile Church-membership seems to be out of place. And, if this is the case, the objection that “the children of the Gentiles are not mentioned,” which I have seen in some places, does not hold any water.
Is membership within “your children” conditioned on calling?
Assuming that children, even infants, are included in the latter half of verse 39, we have not actually sufficiently made the case for paedobaptism just yet. This is because a common objection to this move from “children” to “paedobaptism” is a seeming qualification which the text itself makes.
“Certainly, the text speaks of children…” a Baptist may say, “…but it speaks only of called-children!” The substance of this objection is that the text qualifies that those children which the promise is “for” are those same children which God calls for salvation, therefore making baptism, if it is entailed in the “promise,” to be conditioned upon regeneration. And this is a weighty objection that ought to be dealt with critically, since the text itself adds the phrase “as many people as the Lord God may call.”
In dealing with this objection, I think it is first important to highlight a significant interpretive decision that my example Baptist has made: he has interpreted called to refer specifically to a regenerative calling by which God makes alive a dead heart, usually called in Reformed circles “effectual calling.” Is this the case? What are the options? It is important that this is examined first, since unless we first know to what the “calling” refers, we can’t intelligently say one way or the other what the implications of this are.
The term here is προσκαλέω9. In larger Greek literature, it primarily refers to calling on or summoning, usually a person. In Acts, however, it tends to be used for God setting someone apart for a specific purpose. Significantly, in both other cases in Acts where this verb is used with God as a subject, it takes this meaning:
εὐθέως ἐζητήσαμεν ἐξελθεῖν εἰς Μακεδονίαν συμβιβάζοντες ὅτι προσκέκληται ἡμᾶς ὁ Θεὸς εὐαγγελίσασθαι αὐτούς Acts 16.10
“Immediately we sought to go into Macedonia, confirming that God called on us to evangelize them.”
εἶπεν τὸ Πνεῦμα τὸ Ἅγιον Ἀφορίσατε δή μοι τὸν Βαρνάβαν καὶ Σαῦλον εἰς τὸ ἔργον ὃ προσκέκλημαι αὐτούς Acts 13.2
“The Holy Spirit said, ‘Now separate for me Barnabas and Saul, for the work which I called on them to do.'”
But this is not universal, as it also often carries a more general sense, such as calling on someone to talk with them:
καὶ προσκαλεσάμενοι τοὺς ἀποστόλους δείραντες παρήγγειλαν μὴ λαλεῖν ἐπὶ τῷ ὀνόματι τοῦ Ἰησοῦ Acts 5.40
“And they called on the Apostles, beat them, and commanded them to not speak in Jesus’ name.”
Προσκαλεσάμενοι δὲ οἱ δώδεκα τὸ πλῆθος τῶν μαθητῶν εἶπαν Οὐκ ἀρεστόν ἐστιν ἡμᾶς καταλείψαντας τὸν λόγον τοῦ Θεοῦ διακονεῖν τραπέζαις Acts 6.2
“The Twelve called on the crowd of disciples and said, ‘this is not acceptable: we are neglecting the Word of God to wait at tables!'”
Bock takes the view that the “calling” here does not necessarily refer to a regenerative calling, but rather a “call to service.”10 And I think that the data is rather convincing; the other examples in Acts where God is the subject of this verb certainly tend towards this meaning. It would be interesting to analyze the Septuagint and other NT occurrences, for further study. But, if this is the case, what is the “service” to which those present are called? It must be noted that a foreseeable objection to this perspective could be that there is no “service” explicitly mentioned in the text. But I think that the “service” to which those present are called is simply placement into the Christian community, who are the people dedicated to the service of God.
One could say that such a “calling to service” implies regeneration, but I would say that assumes already that the Christian community is one which is an unmixed community of the regenerate: I would simply point to other texts11 which seem to teach the opposite.
We do not want to, however, make this text mean nothing; God is doing something here; namely, he is setting aside a people for himself, building his Church. This addition is intended as a comfort: namely, as many who “call upon the name of the Lord,” with their children, will also be called upon by God. To join the Church is not a mere human decision, but is to be in-grafted into the very family of God.
But, if all of this is the case then, does this really function as a qualification on the previous parties listed? I don’t think so. I think rather it is simply an affirmation that those to whom the promise is for have been placed there by God: as many men, women, children, there are who are part of this New Covenant community, those same ones God has put there. And God has put infants there, as well.
Does the “promise” being for someone imply they are to be baptized?
Now, even after all that work, there is still one more hurdle which must be jumped prior to making the claim that Infant Baptism can be derived from this text. And that is the jump from “promise” to “baptism.” Assuming infants are part of “the promise,” does that mean they are to be baptized? First, we must examine what the promise is, then afterwards we can determine whether a valid implication of that is their baptism.
Most immediately, “the promise” here must be the pouring out of the Holy Spirit. This is evident from the immediate context in Peter’s sermon, most immediately. When Jesus is exalted, Jesus takes and pours out “the promise, the Holy Spirit” upon the fledgling Church (Acts 2.33). Earlier in Acts, Jesus instructs his disciples to wait in Jerusalem for “the Father’s promise,” which he identifies as the fact that they will be “baptized with the Spirit” soon (Acts 1.4-5).
And so it is clear that when we think of “the promise,” we ought to be thinking along the lines of the Holy Spirit as a gift to God’s Church. A further question is then raised. Why is the Holy Spirit described as “promised”? One could point to the Upper Room Discourse, but such a connection would be a textually remote one if intended, and therefore I do not find it as likely as other options. An easy answer could be found in Acts 1.5, where the “promise” is identified as a phrase otherwise attributed to John the Baptist, “On the one hand, John baptized with water, but on the other hand you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit.” And this is indeed a good answer, but there is certainly textual warrant to ask why this is considered a promise from the Father. And I think the reason for that is explicitly given in Peter’s Pentecost sermon: the Father promised through the prophet Joel to pour out his Spirit upon all flesh, at the time of the New Covenant.
Given the strong association of the gift of the Spirit with the New Covenant throughout the OT’s prophetic corpus, it is the case that when we come across language of the gift of the Spirit, we ought to be thinking about the New Covenant. And this is no more explicit than in Acts 2, where Peter’s entire sermon is framed around Joel 2.
And given what we have established thus far, as we looked at the language of “you and your children,” and the language of “calling,” it is not surprising at all that Peter would attribute the ultimate blessing of the New Covenant, the gift of God’s own Spirit, to all of those within.
It is uncontroversial to say that baptism is the entry rite into the New Covenant, at least in a visible sense. Therefore, since infants of believers are said to be valid members of that covenant, they ought to receive the entry rite.
Conclusions
In conclusion, I think that this is works as a proof-text for paedobaptism, but it definitely took a lot more work than I was thinking! For me, some of the work which I’ve done here raises further questions which I would like to look at, which may come in the future. But leave a comment if I’ve made any egregious errors or missed anything.
- New Testament text is taken from https://www.greekbible.com. I believe, since this is non-commercial, that I can use this. All translations are my own. ↩︎
- Bock, Acts (Baker Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament), p. 145. ↩︎
- Septuaginta: A Reader’s Edition, Volume 2, p. 741. Translation is mine. ↩︎
- LSJ: νεῖκος. The reason why this could be translated either way is because, in later Greek texts, “νεῖκος,” “strife,” begins to be used in place of “νῖκος,” “victory.” ↩︎
- Charlesworth, Old Testament Pseudepigrapha Volume 2, p. 641 ↩︎
- https://ccel.org/ccel/calvin/calcom36/calcom36.ix.vii.html ↩︎
- Bock, Acts (Baker Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament), p. 145 ↩︎
- Although it should be noted that Peter probably never thought that Gentiles are to be absolutely anathema, since even in the Old Testament, Gentiles could become part of Israel. However, what Acts presents as shocking to Peter is decidedly different: Gentiles can be part of God’s people, and they don’t have to becomes Jews. ↩︎
- LSJ: προσκαλέω ↩︎
- Bock, Acts (Baker Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament), p. 145 ↩︎
- My go-to is more-so a theme, represented by a couple of important texts. The constant way in which the NT church seems to understand itself is as the wilderness generation of a new Exodus (the whole book of Hebrews, 1 Cor. 10), a connection which seems to imply that the Church, until the consummation, is a mixed community, just like Israel of old. ↩︎