“As it is, they are holy.”

When the baptism of infants is a topic of discussion, Paul’s exhortation to those living with unbelieving spouses in 1 Corinthians 7:13-14 often comes up.  Inevitably, there is then some debate over whether this could possibly be applied to the question of baptism at all.

Those who are strictly for credo baptism will no doubt point out that while the passage does speak the believing spouse’s children as sanctified, it also speaks of the unbelieving spouse as sanctified.  So to say that since Paul calls the children holy they ought to be baptized is to prove too much, since he also calls the unbelieving spouse holy, and surely he is not suggesting they ought to be baptized as well!  I think this is a reasonable point, given how the passage is often presented.

Which brings me to the question of how proponents of infant baptism use the passage.  I think we are often guilty of reversing Paul’s logic in here, if not in our own reading of the passage, then in how we represent his line of reasoning.  I know I am guilty of having done so in the past.  Just so we’re totally clear on what he says, here’s verse 14:

For the unbelieving husband is made holy because of his wife, and the unbelieving wife is made holy because of her husband. Otherwise your children would be unclean, but as it is, they are holy.

What I want to point out in this post is that Paul’s burden here is not about the status of the believing parents’ children!  It is rather the status of a believing person’s unbelieving spouse that is in question.  Paul is not making an argument here for the holiness of a believing parent’s children.  Instead, he is doing something much more powerful:

He is assuming it.

In order to bolster his main point that an unbelieving spouse of a Christian is in some way sanctified, Paul appeals to what he evidently considers obvious and well accepted by all—that the children of believers are holy.  Paul tosses the point regarding children into his argument as almost an afterthought, and he never brings children up again.  It’s almost an incidental feature of his case, and he expects all his readers to grasp it without further elaboration.  Notice how he phrases things:

Otherwise, Paul says, your children would be unclean, but as it is, they are holy.

In other words, “Corinthians, you must accept that an unbelieving person is sanctified by a believing spouse, for if you reject this possibility, then by conclusion you must also say that your children are also unclean, but you of course know and understand that they, at least, are holy.”

Paul then goes right back to discussing the relationship between a believer and an unbelieving spouse.  So while the set-apartness of a spouse may be a question of debate here, the holiness of a believer’s children is not.

Does this by itself prove infant baptism?  No, it doesn’t.  But I think it strongly supports the case.  For unless the children of believers are baptized, recognized members of the covenant family, and so definitively sanctified, how else could Paul so readily appeal to their sanctified state as a given (as he here does) in order to argue for the apparently less obvious sanctification of an unbelieving spouse?

In short: if children were not baptized, then Paul would likely need to make a case for their holiness first.

Names and Roman Weddings

“Ubi tu Caius, ego Caia.”
“Wherever thou art Caius, there I am Caia.”

I first came upon this phrase when reading Quo Vadis, and thought it was the sweetest thing ever.  After having given it some thought, I like it even more.  These are the words that were spoken by a Roman bride at her wedding, probably in response to the groom’s question, “What is your name?”

After the bride’s response, the groom would then (ideally) sweep her off her feet and carry her across the threshold into his home.

I think the phrase is pretty much the most succinct and, at the same time, possibly the most romantic one I have ever heard or read of in a wedding.  But there are specific reasons I find it so, which transcend mere sentimentality.  Those Romans were not much for bandying about words.  Not like the Greeks, in any case.  The less said the better, if it got the point across.  And these words are loaded.

We are all familiar with the traditional wedding vows, and the Roman one is much like them.  One might even find that our modern form originates here in part.  In this phrase, the bride vows to go and to be wherever her husband is, whenever he is.  Eternity is implied.  The phrase encapsulates the marriage vow (at least the bride’s side of it) into five words in the Latin.

It is also a symbolic renaming.  The bride declares that she is taking the name of her groom.  In this case, not literally.  There were dudes not named “Caius” who got married in Rome.  The name Caius/Caia (or Gaius/Gaia) means happiness and rejoicing.  An appropriate description of a wedding, intended to portend the fortunes of the new couple.

But no matter the given names of the couple, the symbolism remains.  The bride declares that she will henceforth be identified with her husband, as she has been identified with her father until this point.  In fact, by using the name Caius/Caia, she pledges not only her physical presence but her heart and her emotions as well.  Wherever he rejoices, there she also will find her joy.

To a Christian, what does this mean?  Can we possibly learn anything from the pagan Romans?  Sure, why not?  In the same way that the bride pledges her life to her groom and takes his name upon herself, we also have pledged our lives to Christ and taken His name.

The Church is the Bride of Christ, and every one of the baptized community is a member.  From the point of our entrance into that body to now, and until Christ returns, we should ever be saying:  “Wherever thou art Christ, there I am Christian.”

In fact, we do something like this every week before we come to the Lord’s table, our earthly foretaste of the Lamb’s marriage supper.  When the officiant asks the congregation: “Christian, in whom do you believe?” we respond, “I believe in one God the Father Almighty . . . And in one Lord Jesus Christ . . . And in the Holy Spirit.”

“In whom do you believe?” is a question very much like “What is your name?”  For we become identified with that in which we believe.  Our Credo is an affirmation of our baptism into the name of the Triune God.  And having confessed Christ and having declared our identity in Him as a body, we are then welcomed to the wedding feast at His table.