Baptism

To go along with our study on the book of Acts, Pastor Bob flared up another topic in my head, baptism.  A little background, our church does not do infant baptisms.  It is a concept I had never really put much thought to before I had (or was going to have) an infant.  Both Justin and I were baptized as infants and I'm not trying to say there is anything wrong with that process.  However, last Sunday as we studied chapter 2 of Acts, I really started thinking about baptism.  In verse 38, Peter says "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."  Our pastor pointed out that it doesn't say, "if you don't get baptized, you don't go to heaven," but explained that the repentance part was the key and that baptism was just the symbolism of that repentance. 

I really thought about baptism the rest of the day.  I did some more Bible reading and some research.  I'm really glad that we had a child dedication service for Aria instead of a baptism.  I think it is important for her to make her own decision to follow Christ and to be baptized.  In fact, I've thought a lot about being baptized again myself.  For me, it makes sense according to what I read in the Bible that people who chose to cross the line of faith, put all their trust in Jesus Christ, and repent of their sin to then be baptized kind of as a declaration of that faith.  Infants can't do that.  They can't make a decision to follow Jesus.  They don't have the capacity.  That's why I like how our church does a child dedication because it shows that the parents are dedicated to raising their child to know Jesus.  The parents are making a decison at the child's birth (or conception) not the child.  There should be another ceremony when the child makes his or her own decision!

I'm still wondering and trying to grasp why some churches baptized infants.  I found this website that explains a lot of information about baptism within the Catholic church.  It was long, a bit hard to follow, and had a lot of info I wasn't very interested in.  However, what I learned was that in John 3:3 Jesus says, "I tell you the truth, no one can see the kingdom of God unless he is born again." and that is the verse this website claims the Catholic church uses to point out that everyone must be baptized.  On the website it says there are no exceptions, even for infants.  If a person is not baptized, the person does not go to heaven.  I have a hard time with that because I don't interpret that verse the same way, but who am I to argue.  If there is anyone out there reading this who can provide me with more information or resources to help me understand, I would greatly appreciate learning!

Then I found this website and it seemed to be speaking more my language.  I'm going to copy and paste what I read because I think my summary would be quite similar. 

"A natural question would be, “does your age make a difference?” More specifically, you may ask whether infants or young children should be baptized. It may help if you understand where the idea and practice of baptizing infants came from. Around 400 AD, a man named Augustine came up with the idea of “original sin.” This basically said that everyone inherits the sin of Adam at birth and is therefore separated from God from the beginning of their life. Of course, this caused parents to become concerned over the fate of their children, should they die before “getting right with God.” Since only one of the four steps required to get right with God could be done by (or to) an infant, they decided to baptize them to “take care of the original sin.” Since it is risky to immerse an infant, these people decided to sprinkle them with water instead. Thus, both baptizing infants and baptizing by sprinkling came from human ideas. They did not come from the Bible.


If we look in the Bible we see that children are never seen to “accept Christ” (and therefore get right with God). It is also interesting that God never tells us what to do to keep a child safe. Did He just forget this important point, letting many children go to Hell and suffer eternally? No. A child is safe in the arms of God until they can understand how to be saved by accepting Jesus as their savior. (See 2 Samuel chapter 12, verses 22 and 23 along with Matthew chapter 18, verse 10.) Thus, only adults and older children (who can understand separation from God because of sin and so forth) are at the age when acceptance of Christ is possible."

To me, this website makes a lot of sense.  I don't know much about the credibiltiy of either website.  I looked into it a little bit and they seemed legit, but I'm not an internet junkie.  I will say that I did learn quite a bit about baptism and I am really happy with the fact that Aria can choose for herself someday when to be baptized.  I haven't done any research into being baptized again for myself, but I'm sure it will remain a topic of interest.

In closing, I'd just like to say that I don't mean to disrespect or pass judgement to those who baptise infants or who have had their infants baptized.  This is just something that has been on my mind a lot lately and this is where I post what is on my mind.  If anyone can point me to more learning and understanding of baptism, please do!