Joseph Bickersteth Mayor (1828-1916), an Anglican theologian and clergyman, wrote the following, showing the often inconsistent approach to water baptism and baptismal regeneration in many traditions:
The idea of regeneration was
connected by the Jews with their tie of circumcision and also with the
admission of proselytes by the ceremony of baptism. It was therefore only
natural that when baptism became the sacrament of admission into the Church of
Christ, it should be regarded as possessing a regenerative power. St. Peter,
comparing it with the preservation of Noah in the ark, says ‘the like figure
whereunto, even baptism, doth now save us’ (1 ep. iii. 21). St. Paul speaks of
our being saved by the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Ghost
(Tit. Iii. 5), and says that ‘as many as were baptized into Christ did put on
Christ’ (Gal. iii. 27); that ‘ye were buried with Christ in baptism, wherein
also ye were raised with him through faith in the power of God, who raised him
from the dead’ (Col. Ii. 12). So St. John l.c. ‘Except a man be born of water
and the Spirit he cannot enter into the kingdom of God.’ The love of system led
later Church writers to limit the use of the term Regeneration to the special
grace conveyed in Baptism, carefully distinguishing it from Justification,
Conversion, Sanctification, and so on. In our Baptismal Service water is said
to be sanctified to the mystical washing away of sin, and the baptized child is
said to be regenerate and grafted into the body of Christ’s Church. J. B.
Mozley in his treatise on Baptismal Regeneration argues that since regeneration,
strickly taken, implies Christian perfection, the assertion here made must be
understood hypothetically, as expressing a charitable hope that the person is
on the way to perfection. The more common explanation is that all baptized
persons are by the fact of their baptism placed in a new state of spiritual
capacity. It is important to notice here two things: (1) that the same distinction
is made between outward and inward baptism as between outward and inward
circumcision. Of the latter, St. Paul says, borrowing the figure used in the
book of Deuteronomy (xxx. 6), ‘he is not a Jew which is one outwardly; neither
is that circumcision which is outward in the flesh; but he is a Jew which is
one inwardly and circumcision is that of the heart, in the spirit and not in
the letter’; and so St. Peter after saying that ‘baptism saves us,’ adds the
caution not ‘the putting away of the filth of the flesh, but the answer of a
good conscience (συνειδησεως αγαθης επερωτημα) towards God’; and St. John, who
reports the words ‘except a man be born of water and the Spirit, he cannot
enter into the kingdom of God,’ gives a test by which we ascertain who is thus
born in the words ‘every one that doeth righteousness is born of him’ (1 ep.
ii. 28), ‘whatsoever is born of God doth not commit sin’ (ib. iii. 9), ‘whatsoever
is born of God overcometh the world; and this is the victory that overcometh
the world, even our faith’ (ib. v. 4). That baptism was not always a regeneration
in this high sense is shown by such instances as that of Simon Magus, who,
after he had been baptized by Philip, and received the gifts of the Spirit by
the laying on of the hands of Peter, was declared by the latter to ‘have
neither part nor lot in the matter, but to be still in the gall of bitterness
of the bond of iniquity,’ (2) We have to remember that the Apostles wrote at a
time when adult baptism was the rue, and infant baptism the exception. Baptism
was then, as it is now in heathen or Mahometan countries, the confession of the
faith of Christ crucified, when it entailed shame, persecution, even death. It
was of such confession Christ himself said ‘whosoever shall confess me before
men, him will I confess also before my Father which is in heaven’ (Matt. x.
32); and St. Paul, ‘with the heart man believeth unto righteousness; and with
the mouth confession is made unto salvation’ (Rom. x. 10); with which we may
compare the words recorded in Mark xvi. 16 ‘he that believeth and is baptized
shall be saved.’ Faith and repentance (or conversion) were the necessary
preliminaries to baptism; but baptism being the outward sign and seal of the inward
change, being also the confession of Christ before men, and being accompanied
by further gifts of the Spirit, became the summary expression for the new birth
which preceded it. It is evident that in these respects infant baptism now is something
very different from adult baptism then. Yet these differences do not derogate
from the use of Infant Baptism. We rightly regard the offering of the child to
God by the parents in baptism as the first step in the Christian life, the
acknowledgment on their part of their duty toward the child as a creature born
not for time, but for eternity; and the authoritative declaration on the part
of God of His saving will in regard to each child thus brought to Him. In
bringing our infants to the font we only carry out the principle laid down by
St. Paul (1 Cor. vii. 14) in respect to the children of Christian parents, and
obey the word of Christ Himself ‘Suffer little children to come unto me.’ If
all goes on as it should do, we may hope and believe that the child will lead
the rest of his life according to that beginning; that there will be a steady
onward growth, as in the case of Timothy, without any deliberate falling away,
such as to require that entire change of heart and life which we generally
understand by the term ‘conversion.’ In this, which ought surely to be the normal
case in a Christian country, the child is brought up to believe that he has not
to win God’s favour by any special merit of his own, but that he is already
redeemed, already grafted into the true Vine, a participator in the gifts of
the Spirit, and an heir to all the promised blessings of the Gospel, unless by
his own neglect he refuses to avail himself of these privileges. And in such a
life as this it does not seem possible to fix on any other moment as the moment
of regeneration, except that in which the parents proclaimed their intention to
bring up their infant as a member of Christ and a child of God.
It is interesting to observe the acknowledgment
of the necessity f a conversion or new birth even among heathen writers. Some
found this in the initiation of the mysteries, others in the teaching of
philosophy. (Joseph B. Mayor, The Epistle of St. James [3d ed.; 1910;
repr., Alpha Editions, 2019], 201-3)
For a book-length discussion of the biblical evidence for baptismal regeneration, see my book:
“Born of Water and of the Spirit”: The Biblical Evidence for Baptismal Regeneration (2021).
For those who want a free PDF, email me at ScripturalMormonismATgmailDOTcom.