See also: Credobaptism
📖 Biblical Definition
Credobaptism is the doctrine that baptism is rightly administered only to those who personally profess faith in Christ—hence believer’s baptism—and not to infants incapable of such profession. It is the historic position of the Baptist churches and of much of the broader evangelical world. Its case rests on the consistent pattern of the New Testament, where baptism follows the hearing of the Word, repentance, and belief: they that gladly received the word were baptized; the Ethiopian was baptized upon confessing that he believed with all his heart; throughout Acts faith and baptism are joined in that order. Credobaptists argue that the new covenant is constituted of those who know the Lord, all taught of God, so that the church is to be gathered from professing believers rather than mixed with the unregenerate seed of believers; that baptism signifies a union with Christ in His death and resurrection which only the believer experiences; and that the silence of Scripture concerning explicit infant baptisms is telling. They distinguish their position from the covenantal continuity argued by paedobaptists, holding that the sign of the new covenant belongs to those who have entered it by faith. The mode they commonly press is immersion, answering to the burial and rising imagery of Romans 6.
📜 Webster 1828 Definition
Webster 1828 defines BAPTIST as one who maintains that baptism ought to be administered only by immersion and only to persons who profess their faith in Christ.
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BAPTIST, n. — One who administers baptism; appropriately applied to John, the forerunner of Christ. As a contraction of Anabaptist, one who denies the doctrine of infant baptism, and maintains that baptism ought to be administered only to adults or professing believers, and only by immersion.
(Webster has no entry for the modern term “credobaptism”; the doctrine is described under BAPTIST and ANABAPTIST.)
📖 Key Scripture
Acts 2:41 — "Then they that gladly received his word were baptized: and the same day there were added unto them about three thousand souls."
Acts 8:36-37 — "And the eunuch said, See, here is water; what doth hinder me to be baptized? And Philip said, If thou believest with all thine heart, thou mayest. And he answered and said, I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God."
Mark 16:16 — "He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be damned."
Acts 18:8 — "And many of the Corinthians hearing believed, and were baptized."
⚠️ Modern Corruption
No major postmodern redefinition; this is the credobaptist side of a historic intramural debate. Its characteristic danger is decisional revivalism—baptizing on the strength of a momentary “decision” rather than credible, enduring faith.
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Credobaptism is the conviction of a vast portion of faithful Christendom, and the debate it carries on with paedobaptism is a family disagreement, not a breach of the gospel. The credobaptist reads the New Testament’s order—hear, believe, be baptized—as normative for the subjects of the sign, and constructs the church as a body of professing believers gathered out of the world. The argument is serious and scriptural, and it has produced churches of great fidelity, missionary zeal, and martyr courage. Paedobaptists answer from covenant continuity; credobaptists from new-covenant constitution. Both confess Christ crucified and risen.
The characteristic corruption that haunts credobaptist practice is not the doctrine but its degradation into decisional revivalism. Where baptism is tied to a personal profession, the temptation arises to baptize on the strength of a momentary “decision”—a raised hand, a walked aisle, a prayer repeated—without any testing of credible and enduring faith. This fills the rolls with the baptized-but-unconverted as surely as baptismal presumption does on the paedobaptist side, merely by a different road. The credobaptist safeguard is the very thing his doctrine prizes: baptism upon a credible profession of true and lasting faith, not upon a fleeting emotional response that the next season will forget.
🔗 Greek & Hebrew Roots
The position stresses the New Testament union of believing (pisteuō) and being baptized (baptizō), in that order, as the pattern for the sign.
Usage
"Credobaptism baptizes only those who profess faith, reading the New Testament order as hear, believe, be baptized."
"Their credobaptist conviction guarded the regenerate-church ideal, though decisional revivalism could undermine it from within."
"The eunuch’s baptism on his confession of faith is the credobaptist’s pattern; the household promise is the paedobaptist’s."