Quotations on Baptism

Quotations on Baptism

Luther’s Small Catechism: Baptism signifies that the old Adam in us is to be drowned by daily sorrow and repentance, and perish with all sins and evil lusts; and that the new man should daily come forth again and rise, who shall live before God in righteousness and purity forever.

Calvin’s Commentary on the Synoptic Gospels (3:385): Baptism [is] a pledge of eternal life before God…an outward sign of faith before men.

John Wesley, On Christian Beliefs (p. 63): The new birth is represented by baptism, which is the beginning of a complete restoration of life.

Charles Spurgeon, The Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit (47:351): I am amazed that an unconscious babe should be made the partaker of an ordinance which, according to the plain teaching of the Scriptures, requires the conscious acquiescence and complete heart-trust of the recipient.  Very few, if any, would argue that infants want to receive the Lord’s Supper; but there is no more Scriptural warrant for bringing them to the one ordinance than there is for bringing them to the other.

James P. Boyce, nineteenth-century Baptist theologian: Baptism is an ordinance of the Lord Jesus, obligatory upon every believer, wherein he is immersed in water in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, as a sign of his fellowship with the death and resurrection of Christ, of remission of sins, and of his giving himself up to God, to live and walk in newness of life.  It is prerequisite to church fellowship and to participation in the Lord’s Supper.

Menno Simons, sixteenth century Anabaptist leader: We have not a single command in the Scriptures that infants were baptized, or that the apostles practiced it.  Therefore we confess with good sense that infant baptism is nothing but a human invention and notion.

Taken from John H. Armstrong, Understanding Four Views of Baptism (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2007), 189-198.