Crossing the Waters: From Paedobaptism to Credobaptism Part II

Part 2 - Covenant Child

I was baptized as a baby in a Korean Presbyterian church. Although I have no memory of that moment, I know I was profoundly loved and prayed over before I ever learned how to pray. At the time, my family’s faith commitment meant I would be raised under the Word, inside the household of God.

Looking back, it makes sense to me that infant baptism would flourish in a collectivist culture like Korea’s. There’s something beautiful and weighty about seeing faith as something you inherit in the context of a people, not merely as an individual awakening, but as a covenant passed down. The responsibility was shared. The promises were communal.

Soon after, we immigrated to the U.S. and briefly attended a Pentecostal church. By the time I was six, we had moved to Boston and were attending a Baptistic non-denominational congregation. It was there that I was baptized by immersion. The church’s statement read:

“We believe that baptism is, whenever possible, by immersion into water in the Name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit in proclamation of their faith. This shows forth a solemn and beautiful emblem—our faith in the crucified, buried, and risen Savior—with its effect in symbolizing our prior death to sin and resurrection to a new life. Water baptism is a prerequisite to the privileges of church membership.”

I was asked if I believed in Jesus. I did—at least, in the way a six-year-old could. I remember loving stories about Jesus, knowing He died and rose again, and wanting to follow Him. Looking back, I think the church could have waited longer to discern the fruit of genuine repentance and the maturity of that confession. But they took my profession seriously, and so did I. Even at six, I knew something was different. The water was cold and startling, but it marked me. I knew I was buried with Christ in baptism and raised with Him to new life. My parents and I had no objections to this framework at the time. (Though to be fair, I think Presbyterians are less exclusive on the mode and manner of baptism than Baptists are.)

Not long after, our family moved south. After a brief stint at a Methodist church, we joined a Presbyterian Church (USA) congregation. This is where my theological convictions began to take shape. In middle and high school, I read Calvin’s Institutes and the Westminster Standards—initially out of curiosity, and eventually out of growing conviction. I watched Ligonier sermons and devoured R.C. Sproul’s books. I appreciated the seriousness with which Presbyterians treated history and theology. For the first time, I began to grasp the larger narrative of Scripture—a story held together not merely by themes or moral teachings, but by covenants.

“The covenant of grace is a single, unchanging covenant. It is the same in substance from Genesis to Revelation, but it is administered differently in the Old Testament and the New Testament. The covenant is a unity that holds together all of redemptive history, showing God's faithfulness and the continuity of His promises.”
— R.C. Sproul, The Holiness of God

“The covenant of grace is the thread running through the whole Bible. It is not a series of disconnected arrangements but one unified plan of salvation worked out in different ways under the old and new covenants. The administration of the covenant may change, but its essence and promise remain unchanged, centered on Christ.”
— Sinclair Ferguson, The Whole Christ

The Reformed view sees the whole of redemptive history as a unified unfolding of God’s one covenant of grace. The New Testament does not discard the Old—it fulfills and transforms it. The Abrahamic covenant wasn’t set aside, but expanded through Christ. In this light, the Presbyterian view is that baptism replaces circumcision as the covenant sign (Col. 2:11-12), and the church, like Israel, is a mixed community made up of visible and invisible members, some possessing faith and others yet to believe.

In Genesis 17, God commands Abraham to give the covenant sign of circumcision to his sons, not after they profess faith, but based on their relationship to a believing parent. This wasn’t mere cultural ritual; it was God's appointed way of marking out His people. In Acts 2:39, Peter proclaims, “The promise is for you and for your children and for all who are far off, everyone whom the Lord our God calls to himself.” The echo of Genesis is unmistakable. The logic of inclusion—bringing households in—continues.

The Reformers picked up on this. Calvin wrote in Institutes 4.16.6:

“If the children of believers are partakers of the covenant without the help of understanding, it is not strange that they should be admitted to baptism... For he who declares that the children ought to be deprived of baptism, is as much as to say that they are not to be reckoned among the people of God.”

Similarly, Francis Turretin argued that the right to the covenant sign is grounded not in individual faith but in the covenant promise. In his Institutes of Elenctic Theology (17.15), he writes:

“Infants of believers are to be baptized because they are already within the covenant and church of God; therefore they have a right to the sign of the covenant and of church membership.”

This view doesn’t confuse the sign with the thing signified. Reformed paedobaptism isn’t a claim that the child is regenerate, but a recognition that they belong to the visible church and are being raised under the means of grace. It’s not presumption—it’s promise. And it calls for faith and repentance as the child grows. The sacrament marks, but does not guarantee, the grace it signifies.

God’s dealings with His people have always included families. The New Covenant certainly brings change, but it also brings fulfillment, not abolition. For Presbyterians, paedobaptism is not a departure from Scripture, but a deeply biblical extension of God’s covenantal faithfulness.

I began to perceive (albeit unfairly) that the Baptist tradition leaned heavily toward what I saw as American individualism—emphasizing personal decisions, personal testimonies, personal assurance. I loved the Reformed emphasis on God’s sovereignty, the church as a covenant community, and the continuity of the covenants. Believer’s baptism, to me, felt disconnected from that richness.

But it turns out that wasn’t accurate at all.