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To: Dr. Eckleburg; wmfights
It is an act of obedience to baptize our children as a sign and seal of God's promise to His family.

All well and good, except the act of baptizing and being baptized is wedded to discipleship. Infant baptism can only be seen as a blessing, not true baptism, since baptism is an immersion into Christ.It is not a "sign and a seal", that is what you have accused me of thinking. It is a deliberate act done by one who hears Jesus say "Follow me".

Luke 14:26

If any man come to me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple.

14:27 And whosoever doth not bear his cross, and come after me, cannot be my disciple.

842 posted on 03/06/2008 8:57:07 AM PST by 1000 silverlings (Everything that deceives also enchants: Plato)
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To: 1000 silverlings
All well and good, except the act of baptizing and being baptized is wedded to discipleship

And that must be where we differ because baptism isn't tied to what we do, but who we are.

If we are a member of His family, we will become disciples. And not because we were baptized by some moment in time alteration of our destiny, but because salvation is His will for our lives.

One way or another, that is made known to us and we receive that Good News with repentance, obedience and belief.

The verses you give don't support baptism, per se; they tell us what we are required to do -- pick up His cross and follow Him. And by the Holy Spirit within us, we will.

Infant baptism recognizes and gives thanks for the new and better covenant, the promise that was given to believers and their seed. We're no longer waiting for our Saviour; He has come and salvation has been won on the cross.

And if a person is a member of Christ's flock, determined by God from before the foundation of the world, then baptism is a sign and seal of that eternal birthright in which we have faith.

So unlike in the RCC, it doesn't really matter when baptism happens from our perspective. Your fear for those who were baptized as children just seems to me to be more fear from Rome -- do this work or else you stand a good chance of dying in condemning sin.

Which, of course, is not true. Anyone who is God's will see heaven at the moment of his death, baptized or not. Because those who are God's have been baptized with the Holy Spirit and with fire. The ceremony of baptism is a stand-in for the real thing; it isn't salvation itself.

843 posted on 03/06/2008 9:50:01 AM PST by Dr. Eckleburg ("I don't think they want my respect; I think they want my submission." - Flemming Rose)
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