Matthew 19:13-15

Christ and little children (Mark 10:13; Luke 18:15). A touching incident teaching the same lesson as the birth and infancy of Jesus Himself, viz. the sanctity of childhood. The disciples thought that children were not important enough to claim the Master's attention, and this aroused His just anger (St. Mark). We may learn from this that catechising and other ministrations to children are not to be despised, even by the most intellectual.

Most Christians find in this passage the leading principles upon which infant baptism is based. These are, (1) that children, however young, are capable of receiving divine grace. This is made clear by the fact that Christ blessed them (Mark 10:16). (2) Christ commands infants to be brought to Him, and we know of no way of bringing them except by baptism. (3) He declares infants to be specially fitted—more fitted even than adults—for admission into His kingdom (Luke 18:16; Mark 10:14), but the only covenanted admission into that kingdom is by baptism (John 3:5).

The chief objection to infant baptism is that it is not expressly commanded in the NT. But if the principle upon which it is based is found, that suffices. The NT. was not intended to be a code of law, like the Pentateuch. Moreover, the idea that infants could be brought into covenant with God during unconscious infancy was already familiar. Every male Israelite was circumcised on the eighth day after birth (Genesis 17:12; Leviticus 12:3), and the apostles certainly regarded baptism as, equally with circumcision, a federal or covenanting rite (Colossians 2:11). It is also worthy of note that baptism as an initiatory rite is older than the time of Christ. When a Gentile was converted to Judaism, he was admitted into covenant with God by three rites—baptism, circumcision, and sacrifice, and his infant children were baptised with him. This is expressly testified by the oldest rabbinical code, the Mishna. When, therefore, the apostles baptised the 'households' of their converts (Acts 16:15; Acts 16:33; 1 Corinthians 1:16), they were only conforming to the usual Jewish practice in the case of converts. It is no valid objection to infant baptism that infants cannot have repentance and faith, because they are taught to exhibit these as soon as they reach the age of reason.