Pentecost, Baptism, and the Promise to Children
S. Joel Garver
At the end of his sermon on the feast of Pentecost, Peter addresses his hearers and says:
Repent and be baptized, every one of you, into the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of sins, and you shall receive the Holy Spirit--for the promise is to you and to your children and to all who are afar off, as many as the Lord our God will call. (Acts 2:38-39)
This passage has been used by paedobaptists to support their view that the children of believers are to be baptized, since the promise is even to the children of believers. Credobaptists, on the other hand, contend that the statement implies no such thing--in fact, quite the opposite in view of the required repentance and the mention of those "who are afar off." So, does the passage lend itself to one view over another?
Let's begin by situating Peter's sermon within the events of Pentecost and the overall context of Acts (the following is quite liberally borrowed from Gaffin's Perspectives on Pentecost). Several points are in order. First, the event of the Spirit's outpouring is an event with the history of redemption (historia salutis) and is not determinative of the experience of the individual believer in the application of redemption (ordo salutis). It is important to note, therefore, that it is Jesus who baptizes the 120 with the Spirit at Pentecost as the outworking of His redemptive work. In fact, the entirety of Christ's work can be quite accurately described in terms of His receiving and then communicating to His people the promised gift (baptism) of the Holy Spirit (see, e.g., Luke 3:15-19; John 1:29-34; Luke 12:49-51; etc.).
Second, this is also the basic thrust of Peter's sermon at Pentecost, which he summarizes by saying:
God has raised up this Jesus, to which we are all witnesses. Therefore, having been exalted to the right hand of God, and having received from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, He has poured out what you both see and hear. (Acts 2:33)
Pentecost is part of a unified complex of events which includes the earthly ministry of Christ, His Passion, death, and resurrection, and finally His ascension and pouring out of His Holy Spirit whom He received from the Father. Thus, when Peter offers the promise to his listeners, the promise is the reception of the Holy Spirit. This gift of the Spirit itself indicates the forgiveness of sins, since only in union with the saving work of Christ can we receive the fiery Spirit of judgment and not be consumed (compare Luke 3:3-22; 4:1-18; 12:49-53; 24:44-49). Moreover, this gift is received through repentance and baptism (not two distinct actions, but two sides of single movement).
Third, Pentecost is the definitive establishment of the Church as the New Covenant people of God, the Body of Christ. This Church is catholic in that it encompasses within itself all the nations and all peoples. Thus, we find Paul presenting the Good News and the mystery that was hid as identical with the gift of the Spirit to all flesh (Jew and Gentile together) within the New Covenant (e.g., Galatians 3:8, 14, 26-29; Ephesians 1:9-14; 3:3-6; etc.).
Fourth, the "Pentecostal" events recorded later in Acts (8:14ff.; 10:44ff.; 11:15-18; 19:1ff.) ought to be interpreted in this light. They are not simply curious little snapshots of Church life back in the early days. Rather they portray the once for all foundational establishment of the Church among the nations by the Apostles (and thus are on a continuum with the definitive, once for all, redemptive work of Christ in historia salutis). They are also the fulfillment of Jesus' promise and program in Acts 1:8 as that is handed over to the Apostles:
But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea, and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.
This promise is definitively fulfilled within the scope of the book of Acts as the Gospel goes to all the nations of the earth (see, in particular, 8:14; 11;1; 28:11ff.; cf. Colossians 1:6, 23).
Peter's Pentecost sermon itself and the description of his audience pick out these very themes. The gathering of hearers, though composed of devout Jewish males (and some proselytes), already represented "every nation under heaven" (2:5). Thus the first converts themselves, by anticipation, represented the pouring out of the Spirit upon all flesh, in every nation. This is confirmed by Peter's quotation of the prophet Joel:
"And it shall come to pass in the last days," says God, "That I will pour out of My Spirit upon all flesh..." (Joel 2:28; quoted in Acts 2:17)
Thus the quotation from Peter with which I began these thoughts offers the promise (that is, the promise of baptism by the Spirit) to all flesh--to the hearers, but also to their children and all who are afar off. The reference to those "afar off" is, in context, obviously a reference to all the Gentile nations (cf., e.g., Ephesians 2:13; there may also be some implications regarding women and slaves as well, but I shall largely pass over those). It is not primarily a reference to future generations of Christians, even down to our present day (though that's an acceptable application). Rather it's primary referent must be to the nations and their definitive incorporation with the Jews into the New Covenant, Spirit-baptized people of God.
If that is the case, however, this promise is fulfilled, by anticipation, upon the very day of Pentecost itself through the granting of the Spirit by water baptism to the priestly (Jewish) representatives of every nation on earth. Thus, these first baptisms are an event that is both an example of the ordo salutis application of redemption for anyone--answering "what shall we do" to be saved (Acts 2:37)--and, more importantly for my present purposes, a definitive event in historia salutis that anticipates the ingathering of the nations.
This initial, foundational Pentecost event is worked out in the rest of the book of Acts in "Pentecostal" reverberations, as what was established by anticipation is made into reality. Thus the further outworking of Pentecost in the household of "afar off" Gentile Cornelius was already certain and set in motion on the first day the New Covenant Church existed. Of course, in another sense, the fulfillment of Peter's proclamation in Acts 2:38-39 awaited the baptism of Cornelius and his household. It would only be then, I suppose, that Peter would understand the significance of what he had said at Pentecost while "filled with the Holy Spirit...[speaking] as the Spirit gave [him] utterance" (Acts 2:4).
It is helpful now to pause and consider, in light of what we have already seen, Peter's statement that "the promise is to you and to your children and to all who are afar off."
Given the context of the immediate fulfillment of this promise to the Jews (you) and those afar off (the nations, by anticipation and shortly to come to pass), it would be peculiar that children would not somehow have been included on the day of Pentecost or shortly thereafter in some fashion or another. Many Jews were literally baptized on this day. The nations (those afar off) were included on Pentecost by anticipation and literally in short time. On the credobaptist view, how were children included on the day of Pentecost--were they literally baptized on the day of Pentecost and, if not, where in Acts do we see their later literal baptism that was anticipated on Pentecost (as was the baptism of Gentiles)? We have the promise fulfilled to Jews and to Gentiles. Where is it fulfilled to children?
At this point paedobaptists will (rightly, I think) underline the parallel to Old Testament promises made to parents and children and the inclusion of children, in that context, within the covenant community (e.g., Genesis 17:7; Psalm 103:17). They will also draw attention the immediate context of Peter's sermon and his quotation of the prophet Joel:
"...I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh, your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your young men shall see visions, your old men shall dream dreams. And on my menservants and maidservants I will pour out my Spirit in those days..." (Joel 2:28-29; Acts 2:17-18)
The reference to "all flesh" includes not only Jews and Gentiles, slave and free, male and female, but also parents and children. How, in the greater inclusiveness of the New Covenant, could God begin to exclude those who never were before excluded--as the credobaptists seem to maintain? Why isn't there some verse in the N T to indicate such a radical shift in the administration of the covenant? Moreover, in the Old Covenant, God's people sang:
From the mouth of infants and nursing babes you have established strength. (Psalm 8:2)
For you are my hope; O lord God, you are my confidence from my youth. Upon you I have been supported from birth; you are the one who took me from mother's womb; my praise is continually in you...O God, you have taught me from my youth (Psalm 71:5-6, 17)
Yet you are He who brought me forth from the womb; you made me trust when upon my mother's breasts. Upon you I was cast from birth; you have been my God from my mother's womb (Psalm 22:9-10)
Is it now, under the New Covenant, not an expectation of God's people that their children know God from the womb? Moreover, if infants could praise and trust God in the Old Covenant and if the New Covenant promise of the Spirit to all flesh by baptism into the Church will lead sons and daughters to prophesy, then how can we exclude infant sons and daughters from this promise?
The reasonable expectation, on the paedobaptist view, is that children would have been brought into the covenant community by baptism immediately in the New Covenant Church and that this promise to the children was literally fulfilled by the baptism of children as part of the household baptisms throughout the rest of the book of Acts (10:44-48; 11:14; 16:15, 31-33; 18:8; cf. 1 Corinthians 1:16). But we don't even need to appeal to the ambiguities of household baptisms throughout Acts to establish this point. It can be established on the day of Pentecost itself.
Acts 2 begins by telling us that "the Day of Pentecost had fully come" (2:1) and that "there were dwelling in Jerusalem Jews, devout men, from every nation under heaven" (2:5). These men were in Jerusalem, of course, in fulfillment of the obligation of the Law for festival attendance:
Three times you are to hold pilgrimage for me, every year...the Feast of Cutting [i.e., Pentecost], of the firstfruits of your labor, of what you sow in the field...And three times in the year are all your males to be seen before the face of the Lord Yahweh. (Exodus 23:14, 16-17)
The Feast of Weeks [Pentecost] you are to make for yourselves, of the firstfruits of the wheat cutting...At three times in the year are all your males, that is, sons, to be seen before the face of the Lord Yahweh, Yahweh, the God of Israel. (Exodus 34:22-23)
You are to observe a festival of Weeks to Yahweh your God according to the sufficiency of the free-will offering of your hand that you give, as Yahweh your God blesses you. And you are to rejoice before the face of Yahweh your God--you, your son, your daughter, your manservant, your maidservant, and the Levite that is within your gate, and the sojourner, the orphan, and the widow that are among you--in the place that Yahweh your God chooses to have His Name dwell. (Deuteronomy 16:10-12)
While Peter's sermon at Pentecost was clearly directed to the males who were attending the feast ("devout men," 2:5; "men of Judea," 2:14; "men of Israel," 2:22), we know from the passages cited above that the crowd would also have included male children. Thus, when Peter says that the promise is "to you and to your children" he is addressing a crowd that included men attending the Feast of Pentecost with their male children, at the very least.
I say "at the very least" since the passage from Deuteronomy indicates the possible presence of daughters, servants, and Gentiles. Also note the echoes of this passage in the prophecy from Joel. When Peter extends the promise of the Spirit by baptism "to you and to your children and to all who are afar off," he is, therefore, not only echoing the prophecy of Joel, but also the description of the Feast of Pentecost itself as that is found in Deuteronomy. The very feast that celebrated the firstfruits of the harvest included men, women, children, servants, and Gentiles. And, since this is a type of the great harvest of the Spirit through the Church by baptism, would it not make sense that this great Pentecostal harvest would also include men, women, children, servants, and Gentiles?
How then are we to interpret Peter--given the audience, given the context, given the Old Testament precedent--except to be saying that the children of these men are to be included in the covenant promise through baptism? How else could his audience have possibly understood Peter, given that many of them stood there with their toddlers on their shoulders and, most likely, with their infants in their arms? If the promise was for all flesh--sons and daughters, manservants and maidservants, Jews and Gentiles--how could those children not be included that very day? It seems clear to me that the practice of paedobaptism is a natural conclusion from Peter's statement and that the baptism of small children and infants was the practice of the New Covenant Church from the first day of its existence.