By Walid Shoebat
Andrew asks: “Walid, I know this may come across as a silly question, but is the water baptism of babies by sprinkling, considered valid? Or must that baby go thru a full water baptism when he grows up?”
Answer: Tell me Andrew, did the blood on the doorposts and lintels for the Hebrews protect the Hebrew babies as well as the adults from the angel of death, even though they knew not how to speak or believe? Was the mark of circumcision only for Abraham, or was it also for his children? Can one find in the New Testament where when entire households were baptized that they only baptized adults? (1)
So Andrew, to answer your question, I would ask you a Jesus-style question: if you were circumcised as an infant, and you believed that a baby should be re-baptized as an adult, then would you like it if your were re-circumcised?
God forbid, you’re lovely wife would be the first to object and believe in infant baptism.
SOURCES AND ARGUMENTS
(1) “…he was baptized, with all his family” (Acts 16:33). And in his greetings to the Corinthians, Paul recalled that, “I did baptize also the household of Stephanas” (1 Cor. 1:16). The argument that says: “Faith in Christ is necessary for salvation” is countered with another Jesus-style question: are all the aborted babies in hell? They neither have faith or were baptized. God is sovereign and will judge based on each and every case. Therefore, even the anti-infant baptism make an exception for infants regarding the necessity of faith for salvation and by that their argument is null and void. Why then criticize infant baptism for making the exact same exception?
Irenaeus who was the student of Polycarp, who was a direct disciple of the Apostle John was taught:
“He [Jesus] came to save all through himself; all, I say, who through him are reborn in God: infants, and children, and youths, and old men. Therefore he passed through every age, becoming an infant for infants, sanctifying infants; a child for children, sanctifying those who are of that age . . . [so that] he might be the perfect teacher in all things, perfect not only in respect to the setting forth of truth, perfect also in respect to relative age” (Against Heresies 2:22:4 [A.D. 189]).
Paul notes that baptism has replaced circumcision (Col. 2:11–12), Luke 18:15 says, “Now they were bringing even infants to him”. “For the promise is to you and to your children and to all that are far off, every one whom the Lord our God calls to him” (Acts 2:39). But infants are not at an age of awareness and Christ sanctified them too. Never was infant baptism condemned until the heretical cults of Waldenses and Catharists came prohibiting infant baptism, later, the Anabaptists (“re-baptizers”) claiming that infants are incapable of being baptized validly. This creates another Jesus-style question: should a Christian follow the first church or the heretical Cathars? No one can enter heaven unless he has been born again of water and the Holy Spirit (John 3:5). “Let the children come to me, and do not hinder them; for to such belongs the kingdom of heaven” (Matt. 19:14). Babies cannot come physically on their own and is why scriptures says: “they were bringing even infants to him that he might touch them; and when the disciples saw it, they [as anti-infant baptism err today] rebuked them. But Jesus called them to him, saying, ‘Let the children come to me, and do not hinder them; for to such belongs the kingdom of God’” (Luke 18:15–16). Infants were circumcised under the Old Law as well as adult converts. Likewise in the early church with baptism. Preventing infant baptism is as we tie up our infants from coming to Him. We traditionally circumcise, yet we reject to baptize. This is utter hypocrisy.
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