Chapter 16. The Great Controversy on Baptism and Its Meaning

The rejection of infant baptism and insistence on the scriptural baptism of believers was a most fundamental point which distinguished the so-called Anabaptists from the state-churches. Luther, Zwingli, and Calvin did not question the validity of the Romish baptism and ordination; they undertook to reform the Roman Catholic Church and in this task they went hand in hand with the state. If infant baptism was unscriptural and invalid, as the Anabaptists believed, the Lutheran and Zwinglian reformation of the Roman Church was clearly inadequate. If the sacraments and ordination of the Church of Rome were unacceptable, a mere reformation of that church along lines approved by the civil authorities was insufficient; a regeneration or renewing of the church along New Testament Hues was in order. The restoration of Scriptural baptism was, in fact, the most fundamental requirement for a true New Testament church. 

Before the beginning of the Reformation movement church and state were united. The leading reformers gave their consent to the establishment of a similar union between the state and the church. Not only in Roman Catholic, but also in Lutheran, Zwinglian, and Calvinistic lands the membership of the church was supposed to be identical with the population; every inhabitant (excepting the Jews) was compelled by law to hold membership in the state-church; hence infant baptism was the foremost requirement in the Protestant state churches as well as in the Roman Catholic Church. The people were through infant baptism made members of the church in their earliest infancy. Martin Luther made this remarkable statement: ‘I truly believe, if [infant baptism were abandoned and] the adults and those who have come to years of understanding were to be baptized, not one out of ten would apply for baptism.” Exclusion from the church was virtually unknown in Catholic, Lutheran and Zwinglian lands, except in the instance of heretics which were condemned to die. Even the criminals who filled the prisons were church members. 

Of the inner history, the real meaning and the strength of the great Anabaptist movement it may be said that “the half has not been told.” There is abundant evidence to show that in various lands the new state-churches, as well as the Roman Church, would have lost the fight, had Anabaptism been tolerated by the state. Not through the reformers’ arguments for infant baptism, but though the sword of the hangman did sate-churchism triumph over Anabaptism. The history of the Anabaptists in the Reformation period (including in certain lands the following centuries) is a story of heroic suffering, of martyrdom without parallel. The principle of faith-baptism was sealed with streams of the blood of the martyrs; it may be said of it that it triumphed in apparent defeat. 

The issue of believers’ baptism or infant baptism was one which primarily concerned the character of the church and the conditions of membership in it. Shall the birth of Christian parents convey the right of membership in the church? Shall the infants be made church members without their knowledge or consent, or shall only those be made members who accept Christ and surrender themselves to him? Is regeneration the result of baptism, or was the ordinance of baptism instituted for those who are saved through faith in Christ? Shall there be an exclusive state-church comprising, by virtue of the strong arm of the state, the whole population, or shall the precepts of Christ and the example of the apostles be followed? Shall the boundary lines of the church be identical with those of the state? Shall “the sword of the Spirit” rule in the church, or the sword of brutal force? Shall the Bible or the hangman be the final authority? Shall the teachings of the church be based on God’s word, or is the word of ecclesiastical and civil authorities an acceptable basis for the faith and practice of the church? Is it the mission of the church to lead those who are within its fold to accept Christ, or is the church a body of believers whose mission field is the world? Shall the church and the world be united or separated? Is the church essentially a hierarchy, or is it a body of believers? These are the questions which lay at the bottom of the great controversy on infant baptism.