What is the significance of infant baptism?

ExTiff said:

In addition to the mention of whole families being baptized, (which 'Baptists' try to explain away by insisting that there were no infants in these 'families', and that everyone had a 'Baptist style' conversion followed by a 'full immersion' dunking, even though no mention is specifically made of any of these extra-biblical events), there is the fact that there is neither a single mention throughout the entire New Testament of any Adult member of any previously believing parent being baptized at a so call 'age of reason'. It simply is not recorded or never actually happened. Jewish parents who had become Christians would never had tolerated being told they were now forbidden to consider their children Covenant Covered from birth. The only 'sign' of the covenant is circumcision or as it later became onder the New Covenant, baptism. There was obviously a time period of some years in the Christian community when baptism slowly replaced circumcision at 8 days old. The Epistle to the Galatians may even be alluding to the difficulties this change over posed for some believers. Gal.2:1-21.
.

Click to expand...

ExTiff said:

It would seem from this statement of yours that you wrongly assume that infant baptism, "is based upon the parents faith and position". It is not, because that would not accord with scripture. No one is 'saved' by another's faith. In fact no one is 'saved' by faith. In fact every one is saved by God's Grace. Rom.3:21-26. Were God's Grace not freely available to all there would be nothing whatever to believe in.

Infants are baptised only on the understanding that the parent(s) have faith in God's Grace, but the grounds for baptism are the promises of God in scripture, to the children of believing parents. If you choose not to believe those promises, that is your affair. We chose to believe them. If you are ignorant of those promises of God in scripture, it is because you never bothered to read the references given in my previous post.



I understand and believe God's promises to both believers and their 'seed'. I copied and pasted an argument citing the scriptures that the Biblical Doctrine is actually based upon. Your inability to accept the Doctrine unfortunately results from your misuse of scripture. (The unwarranted assumption that Doctrine must be based only upon scriptural examples or commands.) If this illogical rule were consistently applied then no woman would be permitted to receive Communion. The Bible does not give one single example or command of any woman receiving communion anywhere.

I have no desire to argue this with anyone and you are welcome to accept your faith denominational teachings but the concept of adult only baptism, (and therefore exclusion of 'little ones' of covenanted parents Matt.19:14.) is totally foreign to the Holy Scriptures. This practice stems from the erroneous teaching of “Baptism requiring human intellect.”

Not all 'little children'. Eph.2:12.

The children Jesus used as an example were not gentile children. Eph.2:12. They were Jewish children, whose parents were covenant bound to God. Ezek.16:20-21. Covenant children belong to God, they are His children from the get go. Covenant parents have covenant children, that is why they are 'Holy' 1 Cor.7:14. If the children of just one believing parent, (even if it is the mother), are 'Holy' but others with unbelieving parents are therefore not 'holy', how does your understanding of scripture explain that?

Upon what scripture do you base the supposition that ALL infants are born 'Holy'? Rom.6:23? Are you trying to tell us that babies from conception are exempt from death, until they actually sin? Everyone is guilty in Adam, and are therefore born with a corrupt nature. Job.14:4; Jer.17:9; Isa.6:5; Rom. 8:5-8; Eph.4:17-19. Ps.51:5.

Not that baptism of infants is carried out specifically to remove the inherited sin of Adam. As I explained previously that is not the premise upon which the children of believers are baptised. It is the promises of God to their believing parents which permit it.



No it's not, it is because the letters were written at a time most people joining the church were adults. Adults which often had children, who were baptised along with their parents and their slaves.



I agree only with #3. Infants have no personal sin of which God requires them to repent.



Only in the case of adults, infants are not baptised on the ground of any assumed 'faith' their baptism is on the grounds of God's promise that they will in due course, if they keep covenant with Him, receive 'saving faith' as their inheritance, freely gifted to them as promised to their parents in Holy Scripture. The only thing which might prevent faith following baptism for them , would be ignorance of God's covenant with them, resulting in neglect of their salvation and subsequent rebellion. That is why it is important that they be brought up in the fear and nurture of The Lord, learn his commandments, know His Son Jesus Christ, repent of their sins, believe in the great salvation they have received from God from birth and continue to keep Gods covenant by faithfully serving Christ according to the principles of His Kingdom on Earth, as also in Heaven. (If only this happened with all baptised infants).



Hence all the unnecessary anxiety among 'Baptists', whose children (they say) are no longer heirs to the promises, indeed they are not in the covenant since, (they say), it no longer exists; they are no longer in the Church, which cannot embrace them because of their unconscious state; the Church becomes a society of adults to which their children are only admitted as proselytes at the time when each on their own volition believes and is converted and sanctified. Until then they have a dangerous and imaginary liberty which they are always in danger of abusing, and an inevitable slide into sinfulness which is hoped by the parents, (and the Church presumably), will respond to the rebuke of God, as on all who have sinned.

This is in fact a profoundly unscriptural theology. Far less scripture based than infant baptism under covenant theology.

Infants of believers are actually a supreme example of salvation by 'faith alone' and not 'works, that any can boast of'.

In adults there must be a confession of faith and repentance of past sins, followed by at least a desire for baptism if they have not already undergone that ritual.

This leaves room for a false view of how salvation is obtained. It is tempting for such believing adults to attribute salvation to (a) their faith, (b) their repentance, (c) their determination to live according to God's law, or any combination of or all three. None of these reasons provide salvation. It is God's Grace that guarantees our salvation, (the atoning sacrifice of God in Christ), nothing else can secure it. The aforementioned 'a,b,c' only allows the transmission of God's Grace by the removal of the blockage from our end of the relationship. The free gift was always there for the receiving "while we were yet still sinners". Rom.5:8.

Infants receive baptism solely on the grounds of God's grace, in that God has promised those who will trust God's Word, that their children will be 'saved', under the terms of the same covenant God has made with the parents by their faith in God's Grace, through their repentance and their determination to allow God's spirit to Sanctify them.

Infants are incapable of ratifying and confirming their own covenant relationship with God. They therefore cannot have false views 'a,b or c'. They have a purer relationship with God than even a 'believing' adult is capable of. They are utterly dependent upon God's Grace, incapable of faith or works of the law and have as yet nothing for which personal repentance is required by God.

This indeed is perfect 'salvation' which cannot be enhanced, but only neglected, if they are careless enough to allow it to fall into abeyance or actually reject it.

All being well they will voluntarily come to God at the time of God's choosing and freely take upon themselves the full responsibility of keeping God's covenant, which is faithful service to our Lord Jesus Christ.

Meanwhile they belong to God, God has claimed them for Himself, to give to Christ. John.6:37.
.

Click to expand...

SkyWriting said:

No more baptism for the ladies then.
And women preachers? Out mit-tocken!

Click to expand...

SkyWriting said:

Except for all the "entire families" documented.
Acts 18:8
Acts 16:33
1 Corinthians 1:16
Acts 16:15
Matthew 28:19

Click to expand...

SkyWriting said:

No more baptism for the ladies then.
And women preachers? Out mit-tocken!

Click to expand...

ExTiff said:

In addition to the mention of whole families being baptized, (which 'Baptists' try to explain away by insisting that there were no infants in these 'families', and that everyone had a 'Baptist style' conversion followed by a 'full immersion' dunking, even though no mention is specifically made of any of these extra-biblical events), there is the fact that there is neither a single mention throughout the entire New Testament of any Adult member of any previously believing parent being baptized at a so called 'age of reason'. It simply is not recorded or never actually happened. Jewish parents who had become Christians would never had tolerated being told they were now forbidden to consider their children Covenant Covered from birth. The only 'sign' of the covenant is circumcision or as it later became under the New Covenant, baptism. There was obviously a time period of some years in the Christian community when baptism slowly replaced circumcision at 8 days old. The Epistle to the Galatians may even be alluding to the difficulties this change over posed for some believers. Gal.2:1-21.
.

Click to expand...

ExTiff said:

Have you been paying attention at the back there?

There are many things that 'Baptists' do without any specific New Testament scriptural instance being described and defined. Women receiving communion being one of them. Services of 'Dedication' of infants, being another.

The fact that there is no specific reference to infants being baptized may be just as indicative of the fact that no Apostle or New Testament writer saw fit to condemn the practice, which took over naturally from 8 day circumcision of males to shortly after birth baptism for both male and female infants of believers.

If whole families were baptized as scripture attests, why would the writers of NT scripture think to specifically make a point of recording that the families contained infants? Most families did and no one would have excluded them, because the families were mostly Jewish at first, and were expected to include their male children, even as infants, in The Covenant. A NEW Covenant would have seemed to them to be less gracious and less beneficial than the Old Covenant, which included their children both spiritually and physically under it. Scripture clearly states though that The New is a 'Better' Covenant, more gracious than the old that it grew out of.

It is a very lazy way to understand the scriptures if all you want is a verse giving you permission to copy a practice or a verse that actually precludes you from doing something. That seems a very 'legalistic' attitude, if I may say so.

We prefer a comprehensive understanding of the whole of Holy Writ, rather than base our praxis on a pointless search for one or two 'proof texts'. In the case of women receiving communion they just don't exist. The fact that women regularly have done so from the beginning in The Church, does not depend upon one single NT Text. That does not cause us any concern whatever. Just the same as no NT texts describe any kind of service of 'Dedication of the infants of Believers' concocted by the Church. That however should be of greater concern, but not much. I don't think you will find any example of a 'Harvest Festival' or a Christmas Carol Service in the New Testament either.

So what?
.
.

Click to expand...

Major1 said:

1 Tim. 3:1-2 is the Bible answer...………
"This is a faithful saying: If a man desires the position of a bishop, he desires a good work. A bishop then must be blameless, the husband of one wife, temperate, sober-minded, of good behavior, hospitable, able to teach".

Click to expand...

Major1 said:

"IF" an infant is in a family then there is no promise of that infant being saved.

Click to expand...

Major1 said:

The new covenant is ratified by the blood of Christ, his death. Its not water, baptism is the seal of the covenant but not the covenant itself. The veil of the temple was ripped open when he died not when he was baptized. There is no forgiveness without the blood of Christ, there is forgiveness without baptism.

Water baptism always comes after salvation. It does not precede salvation. When water baptism precedes salvation it becomes a religious practice, a ritual without substance. Believer's baptism is not a religious ritual in itself, but a indicates that one has a relationship with Jesus Christ.

Click to expand...

The new covenant is ratified by the blood of Christ, his death.

Click to expand...

It's not water, baptism is the seal of the covenant but not the covenant itself. The veil of the temple was ripped open when he died not when he was baptized. There is no forgiveness without the blood of Christ, there is forgiveness without baptism.

Click to expand...

Water baptism always comes after salvation. It does not precede salvation. When water baptism precedes salvation it becomes a religious practice, a ritual without substance. Believer's baptism is not a religious ritual in itself, but a indicates that one has a relationship with Jesus Christ.

Click to expand...

Major1 said:

Sorry but I can not agree with you.

You said...……….
"If whole families were baptized as scripture attests, why would the writers of NT scripture think to specifically make a point of recording that the families contained infants? "

Acts 16:33...……...
"And he took them that very hour of the night and washed their wounds, and immediately he was baptized, he and all his household".

Notice, the whole household was baptized. So people who believe in infant baptism reason like this:

The household was baptized.

The household included infants.

Therefore, infants were baptized.

The problem with that argument is the second premise. It is pure speculation. The Biblical texts do not say there were infants in the household. As Ben Witherington comments:...………..

“It is improbable that one can extract a theology of ‘household’ baptisms from a text like Acts 10, if by household one means including infants and very small children…it is an argument from silence, since infants and small children are not specifically mentioned…” (The Acts of the Apostles, p. 155, n. 94).

Click to expand...

Major1 said:

Sorry but I can not agree with you.

You said...……….
"If whole families were baptized as scripture attests, why would the writers of NT scripture think to specifically make a point of recording that the families contained infants? "

Acts 16:33...……...
"And he took them that very hour of the night and washed their wounds, and immediately he was baptized, he and all his household".

Notice, the whole household was baptized. So people who believe in infant baptism reason like this:

The household was baptized.

The household included infants.

Therefore, infants were baptized.

The problem with that argument is the second premise. It is pure speculation. The Biblical texts do not say there were infants in the household. As Ben Witherington comments:...………..

“It is improbable that one can extract a theology of ‘household’ baptisms from a text like Acts 10, if by household one means including infants and very small children…it is an argument from silence, since infants and small children are not specifically mentioned…” (The Acts of the Apostles, p. 155, n. 94).

Click to expand...

ExTiff said:

Why should small children and infants be mentioned? They would automatically be included (if there were any), in the words "All his household". Unless you intend to insist that every single individual of whatever age and maturity, responded positively to the Gospel narrative and fully understood the implications of it by what Theological reasoning can this passage concerning baptism be understood.

Under the Old Covenant, infants would have been automatically included and the males circumcised. Under the New Covenant, we believe, infants are still included, (though with some conditions), baptism being a direct substitute for circumcision. The Theology is there in scripture, in the New Testament.

How do 'Baptists' explain 'Whole Families', which may have contained infants, being baptised. They are forced by their 'individualistic modern theology', to resort to assuming that 'the whole household' contained exclusively only adults, and that every single one of them responded positively to the gospel message.

There are as many scripturally unwarranted assumptions there as they accuse infant baptisers of.
.

Click to expand...

ExTiff said:

It seems to me that those who strongly oppose infant baptism also see and assume a basic opposition between Old and New Testaments. They often see no connection between The Christian Church and the Church of Israel. Indeed the very term 'Church of Israel' would seem to them to be a contradiction in terms. They see no connection between the sacraments of the Old Testament and those of The New.

For them, it seems, the whole doctrine of the covenant of grace disappears and is replaced by an entirely New concept.

The most disturbing aspect of this new mindset that they seem to have adopted is the fact that they seem to have altered either implicitly or explicitly their entire concept of the biblical notion of grace. Nor is it merely a question of a devaluation of what is called "prevenient" grace, but an active mutilation of the whole doctrine of grace as it is revealed to us in the Old and New Testaments, and, together with it, of the doctrine of sin - for the two doctrines are intertwined.

It is as if they have passed, in fact, into an entirely different theological world!

In this new 'dispensation of theirs', they admit that their infants and young children are no longer "heirs of the promises", indeed they are not even in a Covenant which has such promises, since they say 'it no longer exists'. (This in spite of the fact that God has sworn in scripture, by His own name that it is an "Everlasting Covenant".)

Their children are no longer in the Church, which cannot embrace them because of their 'unconscious state'.

Their families are spiritually and organically disintegrated and disrupted as far as their infant's 'Holy' status is concerned, with a now redundant, even non existent, (according to their reasoning), God given covenant promise.

The believer is now alone in the presence of God, separated from all collectivities, (even though divinely instituted and of which they form a part), and God acts only toward the individual believer and on their behalf alone, no longer to the family as a whole.

It is desired to bestow upon their children a dangerous and imaginary liberty which they will eventually abuse and misuse, requiring repentance and faith before receiving anything in terms of forgiveness of sins, and only perhaps acceptance into the Covenant of Grace by eventually responding positively to The Gospel.

The Church has become for them a society of adults to which their children are admitted only as proselytes at the time when each on their own believes and is converted and sanctified.

The ministry and discipline of the Church are not the same as previously; the concepts of the responsibilities of individuals, of parents, of children, and of the Church are quite different, because the methods of divine action are no longer the same and God no longer addresses Himself to the believer and the Church in the same manner. The cure of souls is deprived of powerful means. For some, the sacraments are no longer seals; they no longer remain for any the sacraments of the Covenant of Grace as revealed to us in scripture.

When we examine the theology of the opponents of infant baptism and all that they find themselves obliged to sacrifice or ignore, we discover that they are in a dismantled building and obliviously accepting the most desperate spiritual impoverishment, yet not merely recommending it but implying that others should likewise adopt it.
.

Click to expand...

SkyWriting said:

Here's a legitimate point: How often do you hear of entire households being baptized today?

So the real point is, are we focusing on water-baptism incorrectly? Is water-baptism intended to be an entire family event?
Scripture models for us that everyone in the family should be baptized!
It's hard to argue against that.
It seems that everyone is taking the water splashing too seriously. In scripture, it's a family outing to the river!

Click to expand...

ExTiff said:

Why should small children and infants be mentioned? They would automatically be included (if there were any), in the words "All his household". Unless you intend to insist that every single individual of whatever age and maturity, responded positively to the Gospel narrative and fully understood the implications of it by what Theological reasoning can this passage concerning baptism be understood.

Under the Old Covenant, infants would have been automatically included and the males circumcised. Under the New Covenant, we believe, infants are still included, (though with some conditions), baptism being a direct substitute for circumcision. The Theology is there in scripture, in the New Testament.

How do 'Baptists' explain 'Whole Families', which may have contained infants, being baptised. They are forced by their 'individualistic modern theology', to resort to assuming that 'the whole household' contained exclusively only adults, and that every single one of them responded positively to the gospel message.

There are as many scripturally unwarranted assumptions there as they accuse infant baptisers of.
.

Click to expand...

SkyWriting said:

If you are to treat other people as you would wish them to treat you
Then how does that allow for sex discrimination?

Are these following passages not more to the point than a behind the back side not a legit ban?

Luke 6:31
And as you wish that others would do to you, do so to them.

Matthew 7:12
In everything, then, do to others as you would have them do to you. For this is the essence of the Law and the prophets.

Romans 13:8
Be indebted to no one, except to one another in love, for he who loves his neighbor has fulfilled the Law.

Romans 13:10
Love does no wrong to its neighbor. Therefore love is the fulfillment of the Law.

Galatians 5:14
The entire Law is fulfilled in a single decree: "Love your neighbor as yourself."

James 2:8
If you really keep the royal law stated in Scripture, "Love your neighbor as yourself," you are doing well.

Galatians 3:28
There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.

1 Corinthians 11:12
For as woman was made from man, so man is now born of woman. And all things are from God.

Genesis 1:27
So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.

Click to expand...

SkyWriting said:

God is not concerned who is damp and who is not.

James 2:10
For whoever keeps the whole law but fails in one point has become accountable for all of it.

Romans 3:20
For by works of the law no human being will be justified in his sight, since through the law comes knowledge of sin.

Click to expand...

Major1 said:

Excellent Scriptures! Every single one of them demands respect and love for our fellow man and woman and I agree 100% with them and your thinking.

Now then, that being said, how does it remove the Scriptures in Timothy which clearly says that an "Overseer/Bishop/Pastor/Deacon" must be a MAN who is the HUSBAND of one WIFE?.

Please understand that I am not disagreeing with you, I am only pointing out WHAT THE SCRIPTURES actually do say on this subject.

Do we ignore those Scriptures because we want a woman to be a pastor based on

1 Corinthians 11:12 …….
"For as woman was made from man, so man is now born of woman. And all things are from God."

Does that Scripture then authorize us to remove 1 Timothy 3 from our Bibles??????????

I am just asking!​

Click to expand...