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“The child assumes that faith at the age of reason.

Would you rather have your child banned from heaven?”

Except, of course, it very often does not. I’ve known a lot of folks who were baptized as babies but who were atheists as adults.

Nor will lacking water baptism prevent anyone from going to heaven. As it is written:

“11 “I baptize you with water for repentance, but he who is coming after me is mightier than I, whose sandals I am not worthy to carry. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. 12 His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will clear his threshing floor and gather his wheat into the barn, but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.”

Either Jesus baptizes you with the Holy Spirit, or he will baptize you with fire at judgment. And it is by the Spirit that we are placed in Christ:

“12 For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ. 13 For in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body—Jews or Greeks, slaves or free—and all were made to drink of one Spirit.”

“I therefore, a prisoner for the Lord, urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called, 2 with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, 3 eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. 4 There is one body and one Spirit—just as you were called to the one hope that belongs to your call— 5 one Lord, one faith, one baptism, 6 one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.”

Of course, when someone DOES believe, they should be baptized with water - not for justification, but for sanctification, as Peter explained in his letters, and as he described at Pentecost: “ And with many other words he bore witness and continued to exhort them, saying, “Save yourselves from this crooked generation.” 41 So those who received his word were baptized...”