[JoeCanada76]

Everybody has different beliefs and belong to different denominations. My question is for parents. Have you had your baby baptised when he/she was a baby. Or have some of you decided to wait until the child is older to make up his/her own mind on what they want to do.
What are your beliefs on baptism, when should it be done, or approximately?

Thank you in advance!

Joe

[Starman]

It's not a matter of whimsical personal choice.

[Fr_Chuck]

We do baptism of all ages, we do teach and practice baby baptism.

[J_9]

All 4 of my children were baptised into the Catholic religion at a very tender age. They were all infants.

As the two oldest grew older and wanted to experiment with other religions I did not hold them back. The oldest was recently "baptised" (his choice) into the Baptist religion.

So I guess it is all a matter of personal preference really.

[shygrneyzs]

My children were all baptized when they were infants. At that time, I had converted to Lutheranism and they taught infant baptism as well as my Catholic upbringing did. So I was in agreement. When we (as a family) started attending an Assembly of God church and were taught about water baptism, we took classes about that and wanted to be baptized again.

I do not see anything wrong with infant baptism and I do not see anything wrong with waiting until the child is old enough to understand what baptism means and can make his/her own decision.

Hope this helps you!

[ATYOURSERVICE]

Acts 19:4:

Then 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.
Repentance is the key word here. A sinless child can not repent.

[Nosnosna]

Some denominations don't practice infant baptism at all, nor do the parents have any binding say on when or if... I think that was part of what Starman was indicating.

[shygrneyzs]

There is a correlation between infant baptism and the teaching of original sin - at least that is what I was always taught was the reason why infants were baptized. Now one can argue, successfully I think, that infants cannot sin and if they died, they would enter heaven. However, if your Church doctrine states that man is born with original sin, then you take the necessary steps and baptize your child when he/she is still a baby.

[NeedKarma]

Had the first one baptised at about 8 months, mostly due to mother-in-law pressure. Our second child is now 2 years old, not baptised and not likely to be.

[kp2171]

Son, 3 isn't baptised. Wife and I grew up catholic, so it feels a little odd to both of us not to have done it. Some things we miss, like the weekly eucharist and other rituals of our childhood.

We are now protestant, and we could have baptised our son, there was no pressure not to... but I think I wanted him to be able to make a choice. If I'm wrong and my God looks down on my son for my decision... well then I'm very mistaken about the love of my God.

By the way, I was actually baptised twice. Once in the hospital neonatal unit (preemie 2.5 mo early, nobody thought id live) and then again when I was old enough to understand what it meant, before my first communion.

[Morganite]

Everybody has different beliefs and belong to different denominations. My question is for parents. Have you had your baby baptised when he/she was a baby. Or have some of you decided to wait until the child is older to make up his/her own mind on what they want to do.
What are your beliefs on baptism, when should it be done, or approximately?

Thank you in advance!

Joe

Peter told his hearers on the day of pentecost that they had to repent and be baptised. Infants are bnot capable of repentance, and no one else can make promises on behalf of someone who is not conscious of the arrangement. Paedobaptism is unbiblical.

There is a correlation between infant baptism and the teaching of original sin - at least that is what I was always taught was the reason why infants were baptized. Now one can argue, successfully I think, that infants cannot sin and if they died, they would enter heaven. However, if your Church doctrine states that man is born with original sin, then you take the necessary steps and baptize your child when he/she is still a baby.

Original sin is Augustinian, not biblical. The Bible knows nothing about original sin. It knows that it is our nature to sin, but not because we are born depraved, but because we are human and imperfect. Unbaptised infants are not barred from heaven and you will not find any hint that they are in the Bible. There is no record of babies and little children being baptised in the NT. Paedobaptism is a practice that crept into the church long fater the apostolic era.

[Retrotia]

Baptism is a symbolic. It is an outward act to identify yourself with Jesus. It is not necessary for salvation. That would be "works", and we do not obtain salvation by works. Ephesians2:8-9 tells us that we are saved by 1) faith in Jesus Christ 2) God's grace. Nothing else.
If a baby should die, every church and Christian writer would tell you that the a baby will be judged on its light and will be with the Lord forever.

What is proper, is to dedicate your baby to the Lord. That is Biblical. A great example is in 1Samuel- of Hannah dedicating her baby Samuel to the Lord.

MORGANITE: I do not agree with you. The fall of man was the original sin. Both for man and for earth. Even in the O.T. we see Psalm 51:5- Surely I was sinful at birth, sinful from the time my mother conceived me.

[sexybeasty]

I think babtising an infant can be respected by God, and I think it has far more meaning when the baptising is done out of repentance by the person being baptised. I think though, a lot of Catholics do have repentance and therefore, in knowing they were previously baptised, are totally covered. The baptism would mean nothing for the baptised child that never repents though. Acceptance of Jesus CHrist is still and always will be the only way to the Father. Blessings to everyone.

By the way, I enjoyed your posts. I was raised Baptist, am married into a wonderful Catholic family and practice the non-denominational way.

[JoeCanada76]

Thank you for your answer. It must have been a coincidence but my wife just asked me again today when would we like to get Joshua baptized but I am not sure about it. I am happy that you enjoy my posts. I hope you stick around lots. You have some really excellent posts yourself. (;

Joe

[sexybeasty]

Thanks Joe. God bless your family,

Cindy

[Morganite]

MORGANITE: I do not agree with you. The fall of man was the original sin. Both for man and for earth. Even in the O.T. we see Psalm 51:5- Surely I was sinful at birth, sinful from the time my mother conceived me.

READF THIS Before THE POST ABOVE SO AS TO READ IT IN ITS PROPER ORDER...


David might well have thought he was conceived in sin, but if so he is simply making excuses for huis terrible sinfulness in the affair concerning the adultery with Basheba and the death of her first husband, who David consinged to the thick of the battle and made an order that no one was to go to his aid, resulting in his death, which because of the way David engineered it is counted as an act of murder. What David is not saying is that all men are sinful from birth or before. He is speaking on a personal level, out of his grief, and because he feels the blessings of God have been withdrawn from him.

Jesus speaks of baptism as essential to salvation. It is a modern understanding that either he didn't mean what he said or else he wasn't talking about baptism when he said "Except a man be born again of the water and of the spirit .... "

One thing is certain, and that is that those who joined the NT church were baptised into it as an essential admission rite, and that baptism was by immersion. Saint Paul is no less sure about this as witnessed in the sixth chapter of Romans. Paedobaptism is a late entrant in the rituals of the post NT church, and was not widespread until the fourth century, although it had been practiced here and there before that.

If we look at all the NT literature connected with baptism, cioming to Christ, and entering the church, we discover a pattern that always includes immersion, which is what 'baptism' means, from the Greek 'baptiso' meaning to immerse or cover with water. Only immersion baptism matches Paul's simile in Romans 6. Sprinkling and pouring do not fit his model.

Jesus Christ established but one true mode of baptism, "One Lord, one faith, one baptism," and if one mode is right, then all other modes are wrong.

Concerning the baptism of Jesus, who is the pattern, we have Matt. 3: 16, which says, "And Jesus when He was baptised went up straightway out of the water." It is not likely that John would be baptising in Jordan and that Jesus would have gone down into the water if anything less than immersion would have fulfilled the law. This also agrees with the account of the Ethiopian's baptism by Philip (Acts viii: 38): "And they went down both into the water, both Philip and the eunuch, and he baptised him." As making still plainer this using a river of water and going "down into the water" to receive the sacred rite, we quote from St. John iii: 23: "And John also was baptising in Enon, near to Salim, because there was much water there." A statement so plain as this really needs no comment because it speaks for itself. He was baptising not only in Enon, but at a certain point in the stream "because there was much water there." Such a reason could not have been given if sprinkling or pouring had been a proper mode.

There are other New Testament statements where not only the mode of baptism is indicated by the language, but where it is made plain that baptism symbolises the birth into the world, the death, and the resurrection of the body. To Nicodemus, Jesus said: "Verily, verily, I say unto thee, except a man be born of water, and of the spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God." (John 3: 5.) When man comes forth into the world, he is born or brought out from the watery element, being first buried in it, and this constitutes his birth. To be "born of water,” as a sacred ordinance would be impossible if the rite of sprinkling or pouring were the mode employed. Only complete immersion will answer the ordinance indicated in the language of Jesus to Nicodemus.

Paul also said to the Romans, "Know ye not that so many of us as were baptised into Jesus Christ were baptised into His death? Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death; that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life. For if we have been planted together in the likeness of His death, we shall be also in the likeness of His resurrection." (Rom. 6: 3-5.) The foregoing shows that baptism is a likeness of burial. When the body is laid lifeless in the tomb it is covered completely; it is not left partly buried and partly uncovered; and as the body comes forth in the resurrection, immortal, and free from the conditions of mortality, thus walking in "newness of life," so by the remission of sins through faith, repentance and baptism, the obedient candidate comes forth free from sin, and walks in a new life, prepared for the birth of the spirit, thus symbolising in beautiful similarity the death and resurrection of the body.

This is still farther emphasised by the language, "For if we have been planted," etc., thus using a word which implies a complete burial as in planting seeds in the earth.

Again, we quote the words of Paul to the Colossians, 2: 12: "Buried with Him in baptism, wherein also ye are risen with Him through the faith of the operation of God, who hath raised Him from the dead." This corresponds with the statement before quoted from Romans, and also the teachings of Christ to Nicodemus.

In addition to what the Bible tells, and reason emphasises, we have the statements of archaeologists and historians, to the effect that baptism, in the first ages of Christianity, was a dipping or submersion in water. This, in fact, is the meaning of the Greek word from which the English word "baptism" was derived.

Ancient baptistries and other monumental remains in Asia, Africa, and Europe, show that immersion was the act of baptism. The Christian churches of the Orient—Greek, Russian, Armenian, Nestorian, Coptic and others, have always practised immersion and allow nothing else for baptism. The Western churches preserved this form for thirteen centuries, and then gradually introduced pouring or sprinkling—ceremonies in no way symbolical of birth and resurrection, and therefore not in harmony with the divine purpose for which baptism was instituted.

Baptisms by pouring or sprinkling were exceptional in the early ages of the post-apostolic Church. They were called clinic baptisms, because administered as a rule to the sick, who could not be taken from their beds to be immersed; but they were rare, and were regarded only as quasi-baptisms.

Baptism by immersion was practised regularly in the Roman Catholic Church until the year 1311, when the Council of Ravenna authorised a change, leaving it optional with the officiating minister to baptise either by immersion or by sprinkling. Even infants were baptised by immersion until about the end of the thirteenth century, when sprinkling came into common use.

Martin Luther favoured immersion and sought, against the tendency of the times, to restore it; but Calvin, while admitting that the word "baptism" means immersion, and that this was certainly the practice of the ancient Church, held that the mode was of no consequence. A Greater than Calvin, however, had decreed otherwise, and had set the example that all were to follow.

Pouring is the present practice in the Roman Catholic Church; sprinkling in the Church of England and in the Methodist Church. A choice of modes is permitted by the Presbyterians, though sprinkling is the regular form. The Baptists, as their name implies, are strong advocates of immersion while insisting that it is not an essential rite. The Quakers repudiate baptism altogether.

Membership in the New Testament Church was obtained by faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, repentance from sin, baptism in water, and the laying on of hands for the gift of the Holy Ghost (Acts 2:37-38). Baptism was by immersion administered by one having authority, just as Jesus was baptised in the Jordan River by John the Baptist (Matt. 3:11-16), and, as has been noted, Jesus said, "Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God" (John 3:5).

The following is taken from "News Week" of January 22, 1940:

Professor Gindo Calza archaeologist, exhuming the extinct harbour town of Ostia, Italy, from the silt that has covered it for 15 centuries uncovered, he believes, a Christian church. Inside the basilica was a marble tank with the water pipes intact, indicating parishioners were immersed.

There are several old churches in Europe which still retain their baptismal fonts indicating the practice of immersion. The fact is, many advocates of paedobaptism and affusion baptism confess that originally immersion was the practice in the Church. Such testimony comes to us from the early fathers. This evidence is recorded by Neander, Mosheim, and other historical writers.

Luther, the great "reformer," who practised affusion has said: "That the minister dippeth a child into the water, signifieth death; that he again bringeth him out of it, signifieth life. So Paul explains it... On this account, I would wish that such as are to be baptised should be completely immersed into water, according to the meaning of the word, and the significance of the ordinance, as also without doubt it was instituted by Christ."

Continued in next post... SEE NEXT POST ABOVE FOR CONCLUSION...

[Morganite]

MORGANITE: I do not agree with you. The fall of man was the original sin. Both for man and for earth. Even in the O.T. we see Psalm 51:5- Surely I was sinful at birth, sinful from the time my mother conceived me.

Continued...

From the pages of the Bible it is clear that baptism is for the remission of sins. Matthew declares that the people from all Judea and the regions round about came to John confessing their sins, and he said to them, "I indeed baptise you with water unto repentance: but he that cometh after me is mightier than I, whose shoes I am not worthy to bear." Mark says: "John did baptise in the wilderness, and preach the baptism of repentance for the remission of sins." Luke says: "And he came into all the country about Jordan, preaching the baptism of repentance for the remission of sins." The baptism commanded by Peter on the day of Pentecost, was the same, and Paul declared that when he was converted, Ananias, a devout man, said to him: "Now why tarriest thou? Arise, and be baptised, and wash away thy sins, calling on the name of the Lord."

No baby is capable of repenting, and if one was, because it has not sinned it has no need of repentance, for sin is in most cases a deliberate act of rebellion against God. There is no doctrine of original sin as expounded by Augustine in the Bible, and if any find it there it is because, like Augustine, they have read it back into it. That being so, and baptism serving the function – among others – of remitting sins, no baby or young child needs it.

It is a subject that has occupied many over the centuries, but when we stick to the scriptures we do not find any confusion or instruction to baptise those who do not know what the rite means.

Eusebius records the first known instance of pouring water and calling it baptism. This case occurred in A.D. 252, or 253, and is recorded by this early historian as follows: "Novatus, being relieved by the exorcists, fell into a grievous distemper; and it being supposed that he would die immediately, he received baptism, being besprinkled with water, on the bed whereon he lay (if that can be called baptism), neither when he had escaped that sickness, did he afterwards receive the other things which the canon of the church enjoineth should be received; nor was he sealed by the bishop's imposition of hands."

Eusebius adds: "This baptism was thought imperfect and not solemn, for several reasons. Also they who were thus baptised were called ever afterward clinici; and by the 12th canon of the Council of Neocaesaera, these clinici were prohibited the priesthood."

This clearly indicates that in the middle of the third century sprinkling or pouring was considered an innovation. Neander in his "Church History," Vol. I, says:

In respect of the form of baptism it was, in conformity with the original institution, and the original import of the symbol, performed by immersion, as a sign of entire baptism into the Holy Spirit, of being entirely penetrated by the same.

In speaking of "infant baptism," the same author says:

Tertullian appears as a zealous opponent of infant baptism, a proof that the practice had not yet come to be regarded as an apostolic institution, for otherwise he would hardly have ventured to express himself so strongly against it. * * When the notion of a magical influence, a charm connected with the Sacraments, continually gained ground, the theory was finally evolved of the unconditional necessity of infant baptism. About the middle of the third century this theory was generally admitted in the North African Church. * * But if the necessity of infant baptism was acknowledged in theory, it was still far from being uniformly recognised in practice. Nor was it always from the purest motives that men were induced to put off their baptism. * * It is certain that Christ did not ordain infant baptism. We cannot prove that the apostles ordained infant baptism from those places where the baptism of a whole family is mentioned, as in Acts 16:33; I Corinthians 1:16. We draw no such conclusion, because the inquiry is still to be made, whether there were any children in these families of such an age that they were not capable of an intelligent perception of Christianity, for this is the only point on which the case turns.

Many advocates of sprinkling and "paedobaptism" have admitted that there is no evidence in the scriptures upon which to base their practice of sprinkling. The most frank admission with the weakest apology for the practice that has yet come to light is the one made by Revelation Henry Ward Beecher. He says:

I concede and I assert, first, that infant baptism is nowhere commanded in the New Testament. No man can find a passage that commands it; and if it can stand only on that ground, we may as well give it up first as last. Secondly, I affirm that the cases where it is employed, as in baptism of whole households, are by no means conclusive and without doubt; and that, if there is no other basis for it than that, it is not safe to found it on the practice of the apostles in the baptism of Christian families. Therefore, I give up that which has been in-judiciously used as an argument for infant baptism.

Nonetheless, the Reverend gentleman practised it himself!

A fascinating subject, eh?



M:)RGANITE

[sexybeasty]

Sorry morganite. Was your post a cut and paste? I don't believe many people will read that long of a post. Can you give the jist?

[Morganite]

Sorry morganite. Was your post a cut and paste? I don't believe many people will read that long of a post. Can you give the jist??

Those who are sufficiently interested in the question of paedobaptism will not mind the length.

It is often impossible to do justice to a subject by putting forward the gist without supporting evidence, etc. This subject merits fair treatment.

:)

[JoeCanada76]

Personally no offense intended, but I skipped over your posts. Way too long for me.

Joe