Acts 19:4Then said Paul, John verily baptized with the baptism of repentance, saying unto the people, that they should believe on him which should come after him, that is, on Christ Jesus.
19:5When they heard [this], they were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus.
Baptism is an outward sign of an inward transformation..it is a source of Gods Grace (as is the Lords supper)..
It is a sign to all that you have died and rose again with Christ....
Some churches use Baptism as a "sign" of membership in the community.I have no problem with that.But to attribute to it some supernatural ability to regenerate is totally unscripitual!
"In respect to the case of infants, which you say ought not to be baptized within the second or third day after birth, and that the law of ancient circumcision should be regarded, so that you think that one who is just born should not be baptized and sanctified within the eighth day, we all thought very differently in our council...we ought to shrink from hindering an infant, who being lately born, has not sinned, except in that, being born after the flesh according to Adam, he has contracted the contagion of the ancient death at its earliest birth, who approaches the more easily on this very account to the reception of the forgiveness of sins-that to him are remitted, not his own sins, but the sins of another (Adam)."-Cyprian of Carthage, martyred 258
I think we agree, but I am troubled by the first statement quoted above. It is not a source of God's grace. That is the RCC position and is wholly necessary for them to purport to "control" the "means" of grace.
It is rather a testimony to or, as you put it, a sign of God's grace, but no more.
Similarly, the Lords' Supper is a remembrance -- no more. "Do this in remembrance of me ...."
I really have to wonder about some people's motives and desperate need to assault another's denominaton. FWIW, I think you are both very, very wrong about infant baptism but unlike you I don't make a habit of nitpicking fellow believers. As a Missouri Synod Lutheran, I don't believe that there will only be Lutherans in Heaven. Perhaps your time would be better spent pleasing God than berating His children.