Best Christian Books on Baptism: 6 Classics, Side by Side
If you want one fair, clear chapter on baptism to start with, read J. C. Ryle's paper on it in Knots Untied. Ryle walks through what baptism is, how it should be done and who should receive it, and he admits up front how deeply good Christians disagree. Then read the classics from the tradition you belong to, and at least one from a tradition you don't. You'll understand your own view better for it.
Here is what the old writers agree on. Baptism is Christ's own command: "Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost" (Matthew 28:19). It is tied to union with Christ in His death and resurrection, as Paul says in Romans 6. And no one should trust the water while neglecting Christ. Ryle and Spurgeon both say that last point plainly, each in his own way.
Where they part is on three questions. What does baptism do: does it give what it promises, or does it sign and seal it, or does it picture and confess it? Who should be baptized: the children of believers, or believers only? And how: by immersion, or is the mode left open? Ryle puts the sorrow of it well:
Praying, Bible-reading, holy men, who can agree on all other points, find themselves hopelessly divided about baptism.
Knots Untied, chapter V
The six picks below are grouped by tradition. We present what each one teaches in its own words and leave the weighing to you and your Bible.
Start here
1. Knots Untied, by J. C. Ryle
Ryle was an evangelical bishop in the Church of England, and he baptized infants. His chapter on baptism takes its nature, its mode and its subjects in turn. On mode he is generous: he finds no text that makes dipping, pouring or sprinkling essential, and he reminds Baptist readers that the Prayer Book allows immersion. On its effect he is firm that the water is not the new birth, and that baptism brings blessing when faith and prayer go with it.
Without faith and prayer baptism becomes a mere form.
Knots Untied, chapter V
Read the chapter on baptism or the whole of Knots Untied. Ryle reworked much of the same material as "Thoughts on Baptism" in his later Principles for Churchmen. See also who J. C. Ryle was.
The Presbyterian view
2. Outlines of Theology, by A. A. Hodge
Hodge's chapters on the sacraments and on baptism are set out as numbered questions and answers, which makes them easy to study. He teaches that baptism signifies and seals the benefits of the covenant of grace, that no one mode of washing is essential, and that the infants of believers should be baptized. He also states the Baptist case on immersion and on the meaning of the Greek word before answering it, so you hear both sides. Read Outlines of Theology.
3. A Commentary on the Shorter Catechism, by Alexander Whyte
The Westminster Shorter Catechism gives baptism two short answers: what it is, and to whom it belongs. Whyte's commentary on Questions 94 and 95 adds Scripture and comment from older writers, in the warm style of a Scottish Bible class. Read A Commentary on the Shorter Catechism.
A Puritan and a Methodist
4. A Christian Directory, Part 3, by Richard Baxter
Baxter treats baptism as the solemn entrance into the covenant between God and the believer. Chapter III explains that covenant and how to renew and keep it. Later questions take up cases pastors met: whether baptism enters a person into the universal church, what it means that believers and their seed are in God's covenant, and what can be said of baptized infants who die young. Read A Christian Directory, Part 3, and see Richard Baxter's books.
5. Christian Theology, by Adam Clarke
Adam Clarke was the great Methodist Bible scholar of Wesley's movement. His chapter on baptism, gathered from his writings after his death, defends the baptism of children and holds that the mode is not essential. He counts both immersion and sprinkling in the name of the Trinity as true baptism.
Baptism, however administered, is a most important rite in the church of Christ.
Christian Theology, chapter XVIII
The Baptist view
6. Spurgeon's Sermons, Series 8, and F. B. Meyer's Steps Into the Blessed Life
Spurgeon's sermon "Baptismal Regeneration" opens Series 8. It caused a storm in its day. Spurgeon was a Baptist, and he says he is not arguing about infant baptism here at all. His target is the teaching that the water itself regenerates, which he believed left people resting on a ceremony instead of on Christ. The next sermon, "Children Brought to Christ, Not to the Font," follows it up.
I do beseech you to remember that you must have a new heart and a right spirit, and baptism cannot give you these.
Sermons of C. H. Spurgeon, Series 8, Baptismal Regeneration
F. B. Meyer's short address "Seven Reasons for Believers' Baptism," in Steps Into the Blessed Life, gives the Baptist case in plain words: baptism is for those who believe, and immersion pictures burial with Christ. He adds that baptism does not save.
If a man be as old as Methuselah, yet if he do not believe, he has no right to be baptized; whilst if a little child truly trust in the Saviour, it has an undeniable right to baptism.
Steps Into the Blessed Life, Seven Reasons for Believers' Baptism
For a more devotional Baptist treatment, read chapter IV, "Baptism into Christ," in A. J. Gordon's In Christ. Gordon shows how going down into the water and rising again speaks of dying and rising with Christ. See also Charles Spurgeon's books and F. B. Meyer's books.
A note on "the baptism with the Holy Spirit"
Some readers searching for books on baptism are really asking about the baptism with the Holy Spirit. That is a different question from water baptism. R. A. Torrey's short book is the classic on it; see our article on The Baptism with the Holy Spirit and the guide to the best books on the Holy Spirit.
How to read these books
Read your own tradition's book slowly, with an open Bible, and look up every text it cites. Then read one from the other side. Ryle and Hodge are good for this, since both lay out the arguments they disagree with. You may not change your mind. You will probably be slower to think the other side doesn't care what the Bible says.