Schaeffer’s Infant Baptism Vows

Questions to be asked at an infant baptism

These are the questions that are found at the end of Francis Schaeffer’s excellent little booklet on Baptism. Individual copies can be bought from Great Commission Publications but it is available online. Although our BCO has changed the vows on Baptism, our session asked that these original ones be kept at the back of the BCO.

Parents

1. Do you acknowledge that you are saved only through faith in Jesus, that you trust not in anything you have done or will ever do, but only in His finished work – His death upon the Cross, by which He took upon Himself the penalty for Your sins?

2. Do you realise that baptism is not a saving ordinance, and though it signifies your children’s membership in the covenant community, it is not a matter of magic? Do you understand that your children are themselves responsible to receive Christ as Saviour and Lord as they become accountable to Him?

3. Do you in this sacrament covenant together with God to raise your children in the instruction, obedience, and worship of the Lord, to pray for and with them, to keep them in the fellowship of God’s people, to be faithful and loving in your home, to be immediate examples of faith, and therefore to do your utmost to lead them to a saving knowledge of Christ at an early age?

4. Do you acknowledge that your children are a gift of God, who are of course to be cherished and enjoyed, but who belong at last not to you but to God? Do you undertake to assist your children in every possible way as they seek to lead a life of devoted service to his Lord and Saviour?

5. Do you, with God’s help, undertake not to hinder your children should they feel called to serve God in a far-away place?  Do you, with God’s help, undertake not to complain against God should your children die before you?

Congregation:

Do you, the members of this congregation, agree to pray for these parents as they raise their children in the Christian faith, and to support them in their efforts by providing their children with further examples of obedience and service to God? Should these parents neglect their God-given task, will you in all humility rebuke and correct them?