Acts 2:39

39. Peter does not limit the promise of the Holy Spirit to his present audience; but adds, (39) "For the promise is to you and to your children, and to all that are afar off, even as many as the Lord our God shall call." That we are right in referring the word promise, in this sentence, to the promise of the Holy Spirit just made by Peter, is evident from the fact that this is the only promise made in the immediate context.

Some pedobaptist commentators have affected to find in the words, "The promise is to you and your children," a show of authority for infant membership in the Church of Christ. But Mr. Barnes, though of that school himself, has the candor to say of this expression, "It does not refer to children as children, and should not be adduced to establish the propriety of infant baptism, or as applicable particularly to infants. It is a promise, indeed, to parents, that the blessings of salvation shall not be confined to parents, but shall be extended also to their posterity." That this is the true conception of the apostle's meaning is demonstrated by the fact that the promise in question is based upon the conditions of repentance and immersion, with which infants could not possibly comply.

The extension of this promise "to all who are afar off," is not to be limited to all the Jews who were afar off; but it is properly qualified by the additional words, "even as many as the Lord our God shall call." It included, therefore, every individual who should, at any future time, be a subject of the gospel call, and guarantees to us, of the present generation, the gift of the Holy Spirit upon the same terms on which it was offered to Peter's hearers on the day of Pentecost.