sprinkle or submerge, baby or believer

Byroniac said...
Well, I'm certainly not going to settle the credobaptist vs. paedobaptist debate. The best I've managed so far is to muddy the waters a little. I do have some problems with paedobaptism as a credobaptist, such as the following:

1. (OK, help me out here Chris) the Greek Baptizo was transliterated instead of translated, as it means "immerse" or "dip" from what I've read.

Yes my brother you are right, to make whelmed (that is, fully wet) to immerse, to dip, to dunk, to submerge.

Joh 3:22-23 After these things came Jesus and his disciples into the land of Judaea; and there he tarried with them, and baptized. (23) And John also was baptizing in Aenon near to Salim, because there was much water there: and they came, and were baptized.

There is no need for there to be much water if we are sprinkling babies like kids splashing at the city pool in the summer.

2. Linking OT circumcision (males only) to NT baptism (males and females). Lydia was baptized (Acts 16:14-15) and in other instances households were baptized, which would include females (the NT pattern as best I understand it is believers-only).

The Gospel of Thomas might help in this - 114 “Simon Peter said to them, "Make Mary leave us, for females don't deserve life." Jesus said, "Look, I will guide her to make her male, so that she too may become a living spirit resembling you males. For every female who makes herself male will enter the kingdom of Heaven." Ha

3. Related to my comment above, there are NO explicitly paedobaptist references in the NT that I know of. All explicit references are Credobaptist in nature (I believe deliberately, in order to establish the apostolic pattern at first).

Your right again. With out a passage saying that they carried the infant down to the spring, that Paul bid them grace and peace as he urged them to wash the tottler for the remission of sins or the sake of the covenant, or Jesus saying for bid not the children for bid the children to be immersed. Additionally if we play out the first Adam and the Second Adam in parallel, we see that Adam was in an adult form, able to be cogent and conscious of the workings of God. Likewise, Jesus at his baptism as was in an adult form. The Jesus baptismal formula show that Jesus was able to believe as “Jesus answering said unto him, Suffer it to be so now: for thus it becometh us to fulfil all righteousness. Then he suffered him.” Matt 3:15
Finally when we see covenants established in the Scripture like God’s with Abraham, we see an adult, who can use logic and make decisions, entering into the bond of a coventant

4. (Calvinist disclaimer) Paedobaptism by its very nature is designed to show membership in a covenant and not necessarily election unto eternal salvation. My understanding of this is probably simplistic, but I cannot see what benefits the infant possibly acquires outside of earthly covenantal membership benefits of the church, if God is truly not obligated to grant salvation to the baptized infant by the act of baptism. Even if Calvinistic election is not true, paedobaptism effectively shows nothing positive in the spiritual realm if the individual does not come to belief and salvation in Christ that I can see (it's simply a case of quite literally "going through the motions" and "joining the club").

What would the purpose of bringing them into a covenant if they were not to be partakers of the Kingdom of God. This would be superfluous head start to no where. It is much like amputating both of a man’s legs during a routine checkup because there might be need in the distance future. Unfortunatly, this leaves its proponents much like the ma, with out a leg to stand on.

5. The strongest arguments for paedobaptism generally come from two areas: historical church tradition (see #3 above) and Scriptural inference (if paedobaptism is true, it is a puzzling difficulty to explain the lack of a single explict paedobaptism in the NT as one would reasonably expect... however, this point is softened somewhat by the paedobaptist focus on the many references to household baptism in the NT).

Paedobaptism and Credobaptism are both positions worthy of respect and study. However, I believe both sides would agree that the two are mutually exclusive: they both cannot be right. In my opinion, that honor falls to Credobaptism alone. However, this is not a fellowship issue among Christian brethren, or at least should not be.

If we go off of history as the basis for Paedobaptism we, must be prepared to embrace heresy. First we must be rebirth ourselves into Roman Catholicism. Next we must deny our history that includes the believers that we persecuted by the Catholic and Protestants. Yes those that they documented as Anabaptist - the rebaptizers and dunkers and the Catabaptist – drowners. Furthermore History has also preached for simony, indulgences and slavey. Please explain why we would follow one and not adhere to the others. What about OT Laws?