ViaCrucis
Confessional Lutheran
- Oct 2, 2011
- 37,462
- 26,892
- Country
- United States
- Faith
- Lutheran
- Marital Status
- In Relationship
- Politics
- US-Others
For one, I'm against infantile baptism. And yes, I'm not a Christian *right now*, but I've been raised around it for more than 20 years. So I have some idea of what I'm talking about.
Baptism isn't necessary for salvation. It is something you do after you've taken that step. It's more a confirmation of your faith than an act of salvation. After all, if you could save yourselves using a bit of water, who would ever need your god?
Two, infants and very young children cannot make that conscious decision. Therefore, baptising them is an effort in futility, because it does literally nothing for them. They're not making any commitment, and you can't make that commitment FOR them.
Also, I have never read anywhere in the bible that baptism is what saves you. It's always been focused on "Christ".
With all due respect it sounds like you were raised within a particular kind of Christian tradition; Roman Catholics, Lutherans, Anglicans (that includes Episcopalians in the US), Presbyterians, Methodists, Eastern Orthodox, Moravians, and the Oriental Orthodox (this list isn't completely exhaustive) all baptize infants. Baptism being understood in all these churches as the means by which a person is brought into Christian faith and community.
I'm guessing you are unfamiliar with Scripture about Baptism as being involved in salvation because it's not what your upbringing focused on. But as just a couple examples:
"Peter said to them, “Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ so that your sins may be forgiven; and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit." - Acts 2:38
"For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ." - Galatians 3:27
"Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life." - Romans 6:3-4
"Baptism, which corresponds to this, now saves you, not as a removal of dirt from the body but as an appeal to God for a good conscience, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ," - 1 Peter 3:21
Further traditionally Christians also look at these passages as being pretty clear indications of the importance of Baptism:
"Jesus answered, 'Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God.'" - John 3:5
"Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself up for her, so that He might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word," - Ephesians 5:25-26
"But when the kindness of God our Savior and His love for mankind appeared, He saved us, not on the basis of deeds which we have done in righteousness, but according to His mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewing by the Holy Spirit, whom He poured out upon us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that being justified by His grace we would be made heirs according to the hope of eternal life." - Titus 3:4-7
The idea that Baptism is unconnected to God's grace and our salvation in Jesus is an entirely modern idea that goes back less than five hundred years to the Radical Reformation. The position, throughout Christian history, is that Baptism is the normative means by which God takes people and makes them Christians, Baptism is the means by which God applies the saving work of Jesus to an individual, as an act of grace, through faith.
Further, the idea that Baptism doesn't do anything apart from an individual's conscious choice is foreign from the historic Christian understanding. Baptism was understood very early on in Christianity to be, among other things, a kind of circumcision of the heart; and in the same way that infants were circumcised as part of the covenant God made with ancient Israel Baptism is the sign and seal of God's covenant toward us. St. Paul makes this association in his letter to the Colossians, chapter 2.
Baptism is efficacious because of the God who is at work, not account of the one being baptized. God's grace doesn't discriminate between the very young and the very old, the healthy or the sick. God embraces everyone, invites and calls everyone. So we baptize our infants and we baptize our old. We baptize the well and we baptize the ill. We baptize the poor and we baptize the rich.
We baptize our children for the same reason that we have our children vaccinated, buy our children clothes, and feed our children.
-CryptoLutheran
Last edited:
Upvote
0