Infant Baptism and the Bible: Should Babies Be Baptized?

[westtexas]

Re: Should Babies Be Baptized?

Bob, your statement just doesn't hold water. This is why personal interpretations will lead many down the wrong road. For some reason, you has ignored that entire households were baptized. You can't possibly have a clue as to the ages of the various household members.

This logic and arguement goes both ways. Does it not? If one "can't possibly have a clue" and Bob cannot use this logic for the exclusion of infants, then conversely, your inclusion of infants in these households fails for the same reasons.
Westtexas

 

[Scotth1960]

There are tow ways people view baptism;
1) From the view of their denomination
2) From the Bible.

Dear Cornelius, That pits the Church against the Bible, and the Bible against the Church. That is impossible. Denominations do not exist. They remain for a time, but they are not the Church of Matthew 16:18. They are traditions of men.
The Church of the living God is the pillar and ground of the truth (1 Tim. 3:15) which is led by the Holy Spirit into all the truth (John 16:13). You cannot separate the Bible from the Church. If you do, you get false doctrines. The view of "their denomination" may be the traditions of men "which twist the Scriptures to their own destruction". The Bible does not read itself; it must be read according to the tradition and preaching of some Church. The Church cannot contradict the Bible, because it was the Greek-speaking Church that wrote the Bible. This NT Church continues today among the Greek and Russians and other nations within the Orthodox Church (the Orthodox churches abroad and in the diaspora). In Erie Scott Harrington

 

[Drew]

For parents to perpetrate a baptism on their children who have not received Christ, nor obeyed God's command to be baptized, is an act of spiritual abuse.

You have provided no credible evidence at all against infant baptism.

They send the wrong message that they are saved which they can carry all their lives---and to their graves, and to hellfire.

Strawman - at least in respect to the critique some of us are mounting against your assertions. I have never suggested that baptism is "salvific", so you are putting something in the mouths of your opponents (or at least of me in particular) and then critiquing the view that you have falsely ascribed to your opponent.

 

[Drew]

Seems how you brought this up in another thread to someone else, I would like to step in here and show that sprinkling for baptism is not adequate and therefore those babies being "sprinkled" are not truly baptized in the way the Bible instructed.

Maybe you are right, but this does support the notion that infants should not be baptized. If you are right, then you have shown how baptism is to be carried out. The question of whether infants should be baptized is a different issue altogether.

 

[Drew]

Re: Arguments from silence.

will address this now Drew, In Mark we see that the word "believed" is used, which would mean a past tense and an on-going event. It is a verb that requires action on the person who is believing. If we use your assertion, then this word "believed" would need to be in a different tense, such as "will believe" or "believe in the future".
God is very careful with His Word and in this case He used a word that is past tense/on-going.
God bless.

This is not a correct critique of my counter-argument to the OP. Here is what I said in post 17 again:

The actual text here does not support the assertion that one must believe prior to baptism:

15And He said to them, "Go into all the world and preach the gospel to all creation. 16"He who has believed and has been baptized shall be saved; but he who has disbelieved shall be condemned.

Verse 16 asserts that belief and baptism together suffice for salvation. But there is nothing whatsoever in this text that requires us to believe that a person must already believe at the point of baptism.

Are you using a "paraphrase" as your source for Mark 16:15-16?

The tense of the verb "believed" is entirely consistent with my assertion. Paul talks about a person who "has believed" - past tense. And he also talks about a baptism in the past tense.

These two past events are never set in temporal sequence with respect to one another - the text allows for the possibility that baptism precedes belief. You are reading things in to the text that are not there. The best you can say is that the text allows for the view that belief precedes baptism.

But the text, as written simply does not force us to see belief as preceding baptism.

 

[Drew]

Paul is confirming what I posted a few posts before this one. During circumcision there was a loss of real flesh. It was cut off. Now we do not do that anymore. Now we have to come , after the Father has drawn us : Joh 6:44 No man can come to me, except the Father that sent me draw him:.... (This in itself is enough proof against infant baptism ! No infant has ever been drawn .

No. You, like many others, are making hidden assumptions that are questionable. Here you simply presume that "coming to God" must precede baptism.

Where is the actual evidence for such a position?

 

[Scotth1960]

No. You, like many others, are making hidden assumptions that are questionable. Here you simply presume that "coming to God" must precede baptism.

Where is the actual evidence for such a position?

Dear Drew, Kindly see my new post: Infant baptism http:// The Biblical Basis For Infant Baptism


God bless you. In Erie Scott

 

[Drew]

We loose our "flesh" (circumcision ) in our hearts in the New Testament. Our attitude changes (repentance) We loose our "old man" or "sinful nature" . This circumcision of the heart is demonstrated by the believers baptism when we go under the water, after repentance.

Act 2:38 And Peter said unto them, Repent ye, and be baptized........

No. First, Acts 2:38 does not establish sequence. Luke does not say "repent and then be baptized" - he simply says "repent and be baptized". So we cannot legitimately conclude that this text mandates baptism after repentence.

In fact, as per a detailed argument I provided in post 154, it is clear that Paul believes that repentance must follow baptism, not precede it.

In order for your "baptism follows repentence" position to be sustained, you need to engage the argument of post 154.

 

[whitney]

Drew,
In speaking of post 154, you brought up Romans 6
1 What shall we say, then? Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase? 2 By no means! We are those who have died to sin; how can we live in it any longer? 3 Or don’t you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? 4 We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life.
5 For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we will certainly also be united with him in a resurrection like his. 6 For we know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body ruled by sin might be done away with,[a] that we should no longer be slaves to sin— 7 because anyone who has died has been set free from sin.

Paul is telling these adults that they are no longer living their life in sin, they have been renewed. They were walking in the ways of the world and now have chosen to die to their old self, and live their new life in Christ.

This is not a good scripture for your argument, because it clearly shows these people had a previous, sinful life and now have repented and then were baptized.

And this is the case throughout all the NT, they were always speaking to people who once walked in the ways of the world. An infant does not walk in the ways of the world, they did not have a previous sinful life to turn away from.

 

[whitney]

Maybe you are right, but this does support the notion that infants should not be baptized. If you are right, then you have shown how baptism is to be carried out. The question of whether infants should be baptized is a different issue altogether.

This could be an issue of how baptism is performed, however, the NT and the word baptism itself, clearly shows the person must be immersed in water to wash their sins away, to die and rise again in a new life.

My assertion is the infants being sprinkled are not really being bapitzed and so it is a waste of time and deceitful to parents who believe their child to be baptized when in fact they are not in the Bibical sense.

If sprinkling was adequate, then God would have chosen that word to use, but He did not, He chose the word "baptism". The parents are being misled.
God bless -

 

[Drew]

Drew,
In speaking of post 154, you brought up Romans 6
1 What shall we say, then? Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase? 2 By no means! We are those who have died to sin; how can we live in it any longer? 3 Or don’t you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? 4 We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life.
5 For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we will certainly also be united with him in a resurrection like his. 6 For we know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body ruled by sin might be done away with,[a] that we should no longer be slaves to sin— 7 because anyone who has died has been set free from sin.

Paul is telling these adults that they are no longer living their life in sin, they have been renewed. They were walking in the ways of the world and now have chosen to die to their old self, and live their new life in Christ.

This is not a good scripture for your argument, because it clearly shows these people had a previous, sinful life and now have repented and then were baptized.

No -the text simply does not say this that they repented and were then baptized. I see absolutely nothing in this text that supports the specific conclusion that that baptism precedes repentance - you are clearly reading such a sequence in to the text.

And, of course, you are not engaging my argument.

And this is the case throughout all the NT, they were always speaking to people who once walked in the ways of the world. An infant does not walk in the ways of the world, they did not have a previous sinful life to turn away from.

This begs the question - you simply assume that baptism must follow repentance. And I suggest that post 154 shows the reverse is true - baptism must precede repentance.

Why is no one dealing with the actual content of the argument in post 154?

 

[whitney]

Re: Arguments from silence.

This is not a correct critique of my counter-argument to the OP. Here is what I said in post 17 again:


The tense of the verb "believed" is entirely consistent with my assertion. Paul talks about a person who "has believed" - past tense. And he also talks about a baptism in the past tense.

These two past events are never set in temporal sequence with respect to one another - the text allows for the possibility that baptism precedes belief. You are reading things in to the text that are not there. The best you can say is that the text allows for the view that belief precedes baptism.

But the text, as written simply does not force us to see belief as preceding baptism.

We may never come to an agreement on this.
I truly believe God does not mix up His Words and when something is written to look as if it is a process, such as believe, repent and be baptized, then that is what He meant. Baptism is an obedient act, we do, after we have believed and repented.
I would post scripture but we've seen it several times in this thread.

 

[whitney]

No -the text simply does not say this that they repented and were then baptized. I see absolutely nothing in this text that supports the specific conclusion that that baptism precedes repentance - you are clearly reading such a sequence in to the text.

And, of course, you are not engaging my argument.


This begs the question - you simply assume that baptism must follow repentance. And I suggest that post 154 shows the reverse is true - baptism must precede repentance.

Why is no one dealing with the actual content of the argument in post 154?

I thought I was seriously I did.

Obviously, these people were not infants when they were baptized, correct? Why would they be baptized if they did not believe in the first place?
I will go back and read 154 and see what I am missing. I honestly do not mean to avoid your argument.

 

[whitney]

Drew in Post 154: Now to drive the point home yet again. We know Paul likens baptism to our death. Who is dying? The old Adamic nature, of course! What does Paul say about the old Adamic nature? That is cannot submit to God. That is, it cannot repent.

Unless and until you have put the Adamic identity to death in baptism, you simply do not have capability to repent.

Another way to understand the incoherence of the “repent and only then be baptised†position is to think of the “new creation†model that Paul gives us – if any man is “in Christâ€, he is a new creation. So assuming that we all agree that repentance is part of the expression of that new creation, it hardly makes sense to undertake repentance and then have that new creation be put to death - Paul is quite clear that baptism enacts our death.

Now, of course, this is not a positive argument for infant baptism - it merely shows that one need not, in fact one cannot, be baptized in order to symbolize a past act of repentance. And this belief that baptism symbolizes a "change of life" is one of the primary pillars on which rests the belief that infant baptism is not scriptural.
**********************************************************
Is this your point, Drew?

We are sealed with the Holy Spirit as soon as we believe, so to say we can not repent before baptism is not true, the Holy Spirit convicts us. Baptism is an act of obedience to the indwelling of the Holy Spirit.



Ephesians 1: 13 in whom ye also, having heard the word of the truth, the gospel of your salvation,-- in whom, having also believed, ye were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise, 14 which is an earnest of our inheritance, unto the redemption of God's own possession, unto the praise of his glory.

 

[Elijah674]

Following is an argument that is directly relevant to the matter at issue. I suggest this argument demonstrates that it is simply unBiblical to see baptism as an event which "symbolizes" or "signifies" our past repentance. To the extent that this argument succeeds, it overturns one of the primary objections to infant baptism, namely the notion that one needs to understand and repent prior to baptism. Here is the argument:

The "repent and only then be baptized" position cannot be squared with the teaching of Paul in Romans. In Romans 6, he asserts that baptism enacts a death - the death of the old nature, a nature that needs to be put to death so that the new life can take its place:

We died to sin; how can we live in it any longer? 3Or don't you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? 4We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life

For Jesus, the sequence was death on the cross and then resurrection to new life. Paul clearly has us dying in the act of baptism. Now to the extent that we understand repentence to be constitutive of the new life, it makes absolutely no sense to promote a model whereby we undertake the restorative journey of repentance and then enact our own death through baptism. That would have us putting our repentant "new nature" to death!

If we are following Paul's line of thinking, we understand the act of baptism as our sharing in Jesus' death (as we go down into the water) and emerging, like Christ, out the other side (as we are raised up out of the water). It is only after we have put the old self to death can we begin the process of repentance:

The mind of sinful man is death, but the mind controlled by the Spirit is life and peace; 7the sinful mind is hostile to God. It does not submit to God's law, nor can it do so.

Now to drive the point home yet again. We know Paul likens baptism to our death. Who is dying? The old Adamic nature, of course! What does Paul say about the old Adamic nature? That is cannot submit to God. That is, it cannot repent.

Unless and until you have put the Adamic identity to death in baptism, you simply do not have capability to repent.

Another way to understand the incoherence of the “repent and only then be baptised” position is to think of the “new creation” model that Paul gives us – if any man is “in Christ”, he is a new creation. So assuming that we all agree that repentance is part of the expression of that new creation, it hardly makes sense to undertake repentance and then have that new creation be put to death - Paul is quite clear that baptism enacts our death.

Now, of course, this is not a positive argument for infant baptism - it merely shows that one need not, in fact one cannot, be baptized in order to symbolize a past act of repentance. And this belief that baptism symbolizes a "change of life" is one of the primary pillars on which rests the belief that infant baptism is not scriptural.

Your [post] goofed bigtime as 'i' see it! One needs to 'teach' that 'this is the way that I see it' to stay away from false stuff! Eccl. 3:14 & Rev. 22:18-19.
Parents can rightfully dedicate their young to God, but baptism is not scriptural.

And baptism signifies that sinful man dies & [is BURIED] in the watery grave and has accepted Christ's Eternal Plan by Faith (Phil. 4:13 2 Cor. 12:9) and that he will live 'IN' Christ by His power. (Rom. 8:1)

Christ stated CLEARLY when asked of Saul in Acts 9:6 what 'would Thou have me to do?' and Christ told him what 'thou must do'! Christ sent Saul to the N.T. church to be healed & baptized. ibid. 18 And even that opens up Truth to why He did so? Instead of healing the blind Saul Himself, He sent him to the Church that He had just shortly before intrusted the keys of heaven with!

And that was not any pope Peter either!;) Matt. 18:17-18 finds the church body making the decision if one was to be added to the church by baptism. (or removed if that was the need) Christ gave authority to both bind or loose on earth & in heavens record books. And even the church was saved on CONDITIONAL Obedience! Rev. 2:5, Rev. 3:16, Matt. 23:38

Yes, And this is the way that I see it!

--Elijah

 

[Hardcastle]

No. First, Acts 2:38 does not establish sequence.

You are quite mistaken my friend - Peter was given the ‘keys’ to the kingdom of heaven and whatever he bound on earth was bound in heaven. On the day of Pentecost he commanded those who believed that Jesus was the Christ to “repent†and then be baptized in water ‘for the remission of sinsâ€.

Infants cannot repent – they have nothing to repent from. Infant baptism is a non-biblical concept that should be rejected on biblical grounds. Baptism in the NT is ‘believer baptism’ – only those who first believed where to be baptized. Baptism without confessed faith in the risen Lord only leaves one wet. Baptism preceded by faith and repentance is ‘for the forgiveness of sins’.

 

[Drew]

Re: Arguments from silence.

We may never come to an agreement on this.
I truly believe God does not mix up His Words and when something is written to look as if it is a process, such as believe, repent and be baptized, then that is what He meant. Baptism is an obedient act, we do, after we have believed and repented.
I would post scripture but we've seen it several times in this thread.

No whitney - there is simply no evidence at all in this thread to support your position. You are clearly "reading in" a time sequence, namely believe and only then be baptized, when none of the texts actually say this. Please give me one text that shows that we have to believe before being baptized.

 

[Hardcastle]

Re: Arguments from silence.

Please give me one text that shows that we have to believe before being baptized.

Acts 2:38...

And Peter said to them [who had believed], "Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.
(Acts 2:38 ESV)​

 

[Drew]

You are quite mistaken my friend - Peter was given the ‘keys’ to the kingdom of heaven and whatever he bound on earth was bound in heaven. On the day of Pentecost he commanded those who believed that Jesus was the Christ to “repent†and then be baptized in water ‘for the remission of sinsâ€.

Please tell me the specific text where anyone is told to repent and then be baptized. Then we can talk about those texts. And remember, a statement of the form "repent and be baptized" does not make the case.

If my wife says "take out the garbage and wash the car", is she insisting that I take out the garbage first? No she is not. If sequence were important, she would say this: "take out the garbage and then wash the car"

And you need to address post 154. Why is no one taking responsibiliy for actually dealing with the argument presented in post 154?

 

[Drew]

Re: Arguments from silence.

Acts 2:38...

And Peter said to them [who had believed], "Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.
(Acts 2:38 ESV)
​

With all due respect, this text simply does not say repent and then be baptized. It says repent and be baptized.

You are simply adding a temporal sequence to what Peter has actually said.

Please do not add things to the text that are simply not there. In English, if someone says "do A and B", they are not, repeat not, necessarily saying that you have to do A first.

I really do not know how to explain this more clearly.