Posted on 03/07/2015 12:04:48 PM PST by Colofornian
Not only did the early church embrace infant baptism without controversy. So did the Reformers: Calvin, Luther, Zwingli, Martin Bucer. John Wesley. Others.
Hey...just in case...better safe than sorry.
God’s insurance policy.
As a paedobaptist myself there is much to like about this article.
As a Presbyterian I would add infants are included in the covenant. As children of the covenant they are to be included in the full life off the church.
Paedobaptism has no salvific value, and indeed leads the individual to think they are Christian by virtue of it, when they are not. Period.
Indeed.
In the Old Covenant, babies were circumcized at three weeks to identify them among the people of God, with their personal confession to follow. Col. 2:11ff calls Christian baptism a "circumcision". Both are a holy seed -- initiated and performed by God thru man.
The Spirit's activity in the womb of the mother of John the Baptist -- Luke 1:15 -- shows the Holy Spirit can indeed move thru His power to plant that gift of faith in infants.
We tend to think only in rational ways to receive Jesus. Yet Jesus Himself said it is the truting relationship of a little child that is saving faith (see Luke 18:17).
Right! Give the babies the benefit of the doubt.
The "flip side" of this is:
CredoBaptisms -- where churches launch unBiblical emphases on "making decisions for Christ" leads the individuals who have repeated such a worship-service or special-event or whatever phrase to think they are "Christian" by virtue of it, when many are not...or others may be for a time...and then fall away. Period.
Where's the "salvific value" of those individuals who wind up in hell?
Yes. Jesus expressly said for us NOT to keep the little ones from coming unto him.
The credobaptists not only tend to keep the "little ones" away from baptism, but toddlers, pre-schoolers, kindergarteners and primary ed aged kids away.
So here we are putting Kindergarteners, first graders, second graders (& sometimes older) all at the mercy of a secular education system minus that planted gift of faith-trust in a young child's life.
Can you say, "School prey?"
See also: The Sacraments: Lecture 3A - The Biblical Case for Infant Baptism Dr. Kim Riddlebarger
Agree!
Plus...it makes the grandparents so happy to see the little ones baptized into Christ and receiving the extra advantages that gives to them as they go out into a secular world.
Why not just believe what the Bible says?
It did not. Jesus commissioned the disciples to go and mke more disciples from all nations, and baptize these disciples as they had been baptized. The fruit of a disciple is more disciples, not more babies.
Infant baptism was not performed by the early churches because baptism was by total immersion, as practiced by Jews for ritual cleansing in the mikvah; and only those sentient and accountable to God for their sins could exercise repentance and faith. Infant baptism divorces this whole requisite from the rite. It's a cheap and ineffective way to assuage a parent's demand to have his/her religion make the child Heaven-worthy.
Infant baptism was first initiated in the late second century, and the practice was strongly urged when Christianity became the state religion. No faith-mechanism needed.
Exactly! Jesus said to "Go and make disciples of all nations" (Greek word there for "nations" is ethne or ethnos ... can't remember which of the two... -- but it's from where we get our word "ethnic")
So Jesus says to go & make disciples of all ethnic groups (IoW, he wasn't just saying to target political boundary countries).
What Jesus didn't say is "Go and make disciples of all ethnic groups, except for the youngest members of those groups -- where you arbitrarily draw a line of outreach exclusion from them because of some unauthorized arbitrary age you attach to them."
Wasn't any real church council focusing on it til the Council of Carthage, 254 A.D.: There, the 66 bishops concluded:
"We ought not hinder ANY person from Baptism and the Grace of God...especially infants...those newly born."
Making adults & teens & pre-teens utter formulaic "decisions for Christ" phraseology is easily reduced to a 'cheap and ineffective way to assuage' the church's responsibility to disciple people in-depth as they try to make the target Heaven-bound minus a Lordship relationship with Christ and full assimilation into His Body, the Church.
I baptized my nephew because I knew he had to be. He has had several tours in the sandbox and Afghanistan as a pilot and has been safe for all of these tours. The hand of God is holding his...
Baptism comes after the intellect-capable commitment to Christ, not before. Anything else is ascriptural.
It is your belief which is not scriptural, but instead a product of rationalism.
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