To a Thousand Generations: Infant Baptism - Covenant Mercy to the Children of God

by Douglas Wilson

Our concern as Christians should be how the Bible uses bapto and baptizo. We see pouring in Acts 1:5, Acts 11:15–16, and Acts 2:17. We see partial immersion in Matthew 26:23 and John 13:26. We see complete identification in 1 Corinthians 10:1–4. We see sprinkling when we compare Hebrews 9:9–10 with Numbers 19:4, 13, 17–20, and then look at Hebrews 9:13–14. The word translated “washings” is the noun baptismos. The Old Testament washings and sprinklings are described by the author of Hebrews as baptisms: “concerned only with foods and drinks, various washings, and fleshly ordinances imposed until the time of reformation . . . . For if the blood of bulls and goats and the ashes of a heifer, sprinkling the unclean, sanctifies for the purifying of the flesh” (Heb. 9:10, 13). And lastly, we see the possibility of immersion in one of the basic lexical meanings of the word, as well as a possible hint in the burial with Christ taught in Romans 6.