"fake" baptism

[Christ+a]

But his parents can. As I said in a previous post: Infants are baptized on the faith of the Church as expressed by their parents. Whether or not one is below the age of reason and capable or incapable of belief is not the issue. The issue is, “Can God confer his grace upon an individual based on the faith of another?” The answer is a resounding “Yes.” The Bible is filled with examples of this.

In Matthew 8:5–13 we read: “As he entered Capernaum, a centurion came forward to him, beseeching him and saying, ‘Lord, my servant is lying paralyzed at home, in terrible distress.’ And he said to him, ‘I will come and heal him.’ But the centurion answered him, ‘Lord I am not worthy to have you come under my roof; but only say the word, and my servant will be healed. For I am a man under authority, with soldiers under me; and I say to one, ‘Go,’ and he goes, and to another, ‘Come,’ and he comes, and to my slave, ‘Do this.’ and he does it.’ When Jesus heard him he marveled, and said to those who followed him, ‘Truly, I say to you, not even in Israel have I found such faith. . . . And to the centurion Jesus said, ‘Go; be it done for you as you have believed.’ And the servant was healed at that very moment.”

Here we see the servant healed based on the faith of the centurion. But not only that, the text also tells us that Jesus “marveled” at the faith of the Roman soldier. Would he not also approve of the faith of parents who have their infants baptized? Absolutely

the slogan i once heard comes to mind: God does not have grand-children, but only children.

is to say, that no-one can come to God through s.o. (= some-one) else. relationship with Jesus by faith has to be established by every person individually.
i cannot repent for my daughter's original sin-nature, nor can i repent for her wrong doings as she grows up.
i can and did bring her up in the ways, principles and truths of the word of God. certainly. but from an age of understanding onward, SHE is responsible for confessing and repenting of her sins.

 

[OrthodoxyUSA]

We repent of our sins... not Adams. We are cleansed of the stain of his sin.

Forgive me...

 

[E.C.]

If we say that children can not be baptized because they do not 'understand' repentance, sin, God and so forth; than wouldn't that be doing a few things? A few things like...

1) Putting a limit to God's love and mercy.

2) Placing an intellectual requirement to said love and mercy.

3) Excluding mentally disabled and similar because of said intellectual requirement.

God loves and has mercy towards and for all. Enough so that He will accept us even before we have a chance to know Him. Who are we to put a limit on that?

 

[sunlover1]

It is interesting how the groups who see baptism in terms of a means of grace and it being God's work do not see most baptisms as invalid. For how could man make God's work invalid.

And those who see it as an ordinance that man should obey but not doing anything concerning grace consider many baptisms to be invalid.

Such is life under grace compared to law.

Those who do infant baptism look on it as an ordinance just
as much or little as those who dont.

Hi,

I was "re-baptised" - baptised by immersion - when I was at college about 27 years ago. I did it because at the age of 3 months I knew nothing about my baptism and had had no say in the matter. I did choose to be confirmed, but that was far more about belonging to the church than about wanting to be filled with the Holy Spirit. In fact, I would say that I wasn't a Christian when I was confirmed. I was a sincere and enthusiastic churchgoer who wanted to learn about God and please him, but not a Christian. (If that makes sense?)
The vicar and deaconess at my church didn't like that I did this (though they didn't chuck me out); and a couple of years later there were a number of articles/letters in a Christian newspaper that that we should repent of this "re-baptism." I stand by it and the reasons I did it, and it was a lovely experience.

Crazy stuff isnt it?
I think we'll all be quite surprised when we find out how God
felt about some of these things.

Blessings,
sunlover

 

[CaliforniaJosiah]

.


It seems to ME that if the requirement is that we first 'understand' then no one could be a Christian. I tend to regard that FIRST we believe (a gift of God) THEN (perhaps) we partly understand.

1 Corinthians 2:14



.

 

[BigNorsk]

the slogan i once heard comes to mind: God does not have grand-children, but only children.

is to say, that no-one can come to God through s.o. (= some-one) else. relationship with Jesus by faith has to be established by every person individually.
i cannot repent for my daughter's original sin-nature, nor can i repent for her wrong doings as she grows up.
i can and did bring her up in the ways, principles and truths of the word of God. certainly. but from an age of understanding onward, SHE is responsible for confessing and repenting of her sins.

I think that's representative of some black/white thinking that isn't really biblical. Was it worthless to be one of the infants of Israel carried across the Red Sea? No, it was not worthless at all, yet if the infants had not had faith, they would not have received the promise just because they were carried.

Incidentally, God baptised those infants while they were being carried across the Red Sea (he poured rain down on them).

God did not exclude the infants.

And we can see with Abraham, that when God gave circumcision, Abraham was circumcised, but so were all males above 8 days in the household. After that, circumcision was done on infant males, except when there were new converts.

God did not exclude the infants.

Was circumcision worthless, was being a child of Abraham worthless? No, of course, not, but that didn't mean it was a guarantee of salvation.

Then we come to Pentecost. Again we see baptism, and again infants were included in the promise. Do we have a passage that spells out that the infants there that day were baptised? Well no, it doesn't give that detail, but we see again the promise includes the children. God never excluded the infants before.

Why would the new, superior covenant, exclude infants that had never been excluded? How would that be superior. One of the main points was that it did not exclude those who had been excluded before. It was not just with the Jews, though it included the Jews.

And so we see people continued to bring their children. Having believing parents is not worthless, we see for instance the believing spouse sets aside the children, so don't leave your marriage with an unbeliever. Having a believing parent does not guarantee you salvation, but it is not worthless.

Do we say, my children do not believe, therefore, I will not take them to church? Why not?

 

[LutheranChick]

An infant has nothing to repent of.

Forgive me...

We repent of our sins... not Adams. We are cleansed of the stain of his sin.

Forgive me...

Actually, the Bible has something different to say concerning this.
Romans 5:12: "Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned—"

and

Psalm 51:5; "Surely I was sinful at birth,
sinful from the time my mother conceived me."

All are born with original sin, inherited from Adam.

 

[Christ+a]

repent and be baptised

John the Baptist said it
Jesus said it
Peter said it

why do we seek to say sth. else or sth. more? it is clear and simple:

repent and be baptised

 

[ezek33]

If we say that children can not be baptized because they do not 'understand' repentance, sin, God and so forth; than wouldn't that be doing a few things? A few things like...

1) Putting a limit to God's love and mercy.

2) Placing an intellectual requirement to said love and mercy.

3) Excluding mentally disabled and similar because of said intellectual requirement.

God loves and has mercy towards and for all. Enough so that He will accept us even before we have a chance to know Him. Who are we to put a limit on that?

No we wouldn't be doing any of those three things because they are under God's mercy and love therefore they have no need of repentance or baptism.

 

[SummaScriptura]

When I was converted at the age of 16, I was not converted from "Roman Catholicism" to "Evangelicalism". I was converted from going to hell when I die to going to be with God when I die. I was converted from living in sin, to being opposed to sin in my life and walking in repentance. I was converted from being dead in my spirit toward God to receiving His Spirit to live within me. I was converted from dead works to walking in good works for which he had ordained I'd walk in them. I was converted from being under the power of Satan, to having him cast out of me. I was converted from being alienated from the love of God in Christ to being indwelt by Him.

It was fitting therefore at that time, that I be re-baptised with a baptism which bore significance as I was buried beneath the water signifying the death and burial of God's Son, and fitting that I be raised from beneath the water signifying the total conquest of sin and death by the resurrection of the Lamb of God that takes away the sin of the world.

The dribbling of water over my scalp when I was an infant, pre-cognizant of these realities was not true baptism and therefore my re-baptism at the age of 16 was not truly a re-baptising but rather the first ever since I'd been included in the Beloved and was therefore included in the likeness of his death and resurrection by immersion in the waters of baptism.

 

[Tu Es Petrus]

the slogan i once heard comes to mind: God does not have grand-children, but only children.....

Then why did God require that infants be circumcised as a sign of his covenant in the Old Testament? Apparently God DID have grandchildren, to borrow your euphamism

 

[LutheranChick]

repent and be baptised

John the Baptist said it

Scripture please?

Jesus said it

Scripture, please?

Peter said it

Acts 2:38-39: And Peter said to them, "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. For the promise is for you and for your children and for all who are far off, everyone whom the Lord our God calls to himself."
You are only quoting part of the scripture that Peter spoke when all you say is 'repent and be baptized'.

Peter's passage is clear and simple- baptism is for everyone including children- which of course would include infants as well. Everyone means everyone- just as in the following verse, all means all:

Matthew 28:19: "Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,"

If one argues that infants are not specifically included in that command, then one could just as well argue that there is also no specific command to baptize women, teenagers, old men, young ladies, Americans, Germans, Chinese, Africans or British!

 

[SummaScriptura]

Then why did God require that infants be circumcised as a sign of his covenant in the Old Testament? Apparently God DID have grandchildren, to borrow your euphamism

Because under the Older Covenant circumcision DOES NOT signify the new birth, but rather it signifies being marked with the physical sign of a descendant of Jacob's being chosen of God regardless of whether they are regenerated or not.

 

[Tu Es Petrus]

Because under the Older Covnenant circumcision DOES NOT signify the new birth, but rather it signifies being marked with the physical sign of a descendant of Jacob's being chosen of God regardless of whether they are regenerated or not.

But baptism replaces circumcision as the sign of covenant. When viewed from the persepective of "covenant" - which is the means by which one enters a family (in this case the family of God) - children in the OT were marked with the sign on the covenant in the OT, and now baptism is the means by which we enter the new covenant. If one was not withheld from babies, then why the other?

BTW: Did you read this post of mine?:

But his parents can. As I said in a previous post: Infants are baptized on the faith of the Church as expressed by their parents. Whether or not one is below the age of reason and capable or incapable of belief is not the issue. The issue is, “Can God confer his grace upon an individual based on the faith of another?” The answer is a resounding “Yes.” The Bible is filled with examples of this.

In Matthew 8:5–13 we read: “As he entered Capernaum, a centurion came forward to him, beseeching him and saying, ‘Lord, my servant is lying paralyzed at home, in terrible distress.’ And he said to him, ‘I will come and heal him.’ But the centurion answered him, ‘Lord I am not worthy to have you come under my roof; but only say the word, and my servant will be healed. For I am a man under authority, with soldiers under me; and I say to one, ‘Go,’ and he goes, and to another, ‘Come,’ and he comes, and to my slave, ‘Do this.’ and he does it.’ When Jesus heard him he marveled, and said to those who followed him, ‘Truly, I say to you, not even in Israel have I found such faith. . . . And to the centurion Jesus said, ‘Go; be it done for you as you have believed.’ And the servant was healed at that very moment.”

Here we see the servant healed based on the faith of the centurion. But not only that, the text also tells us that Jesus “marveled” at the faith of the Roman soldier. Would he not also approve of the faith of parents who have their infants baptized? Absolutely

 

[Kristos]

were circumcised lepers allowed into the city to make sin offerings?

Just something to think about...

 

[SummaScriptura]

But baptism replaces circumcision as the sign of covenant. When viewed from the persepective of "covenant" - which is the means by which one enters a family (in this case the family of God) - children in the OT were marked with the sign on the covenant in the OT, and now baptism is the means by which we enter the new covenant. If one was not withheld from babies, then why the other?

BTW: Did you read this post of mine?:

Are you saying baptism replaces circumcision based upon what you know of the traditions of the RCC, or is there a passage in the Bible where the two are connected in that way? I did an in-no-way-exhaustive search just now and could not find a scripture passage in which the two are connected.

 

[LutheranChick]

Oh I found a wonderful quote by Luther, out of the Large Catechism: "Further, we say that we are not so much concerned to know whether the person baptized believes or not; for on that account Baptism does not become invalid; but everything depends on the Word and command of God. . . when the Word is added to the water, Baptism is valid, even though faith be lacking. For my faith does not make Baptism, but receives it. . . Even though infants did not believe, which, however, is not the case, yet their baptism as now shown would be valid, and no one should rebaptize them. "

 

[sunlover1]

But baptism replaces circumcision as the sign of covenant.

Hi TuEsPetrus,
Where do you get that idea?
So... why are girls baptized but boys
alone were circumcised?
I dont think they're connected.

were circumcised lepers allowed into the city to make sin offerings?

Just something to think about...

 

[Christ+a]

Then why did God require that infants be circumcised as a sign of his covenant in the Old Testament? Apparently God DID have grandchildren, to borrow your euphamism

circumcision in the flesh was a covenant sign in the OT.

the NT speaks of the circumcision of the heart.

Rom. 2: 29
Gal. 5:6

 

[Christ+a]

repent and be baptised

John the Baptist said it
Jesus said it
Peter said it

why do we seek to say sth. else or sth. more? it is clear and simple:

repent and be baptised

Math. 3: 1 - 6
Math. 4: 17 and i apologise, Jesus did NOT say be baptised, He did said "repent"
Acts 2: 38