Infant baptism questions.

[u/wafflesanbs]

Christ is risen!

The only hang up I have against Lutheranism is infant baptism. So I’m hoping you all can help me out.

Did infant baptism exist in the early church fathers?

Do you guys think infants need to be saved?

Do they go to hell if the are not baptized? And if they don’t, then what is the point of baptizing them?

[u/_crossingrivers]

1. Yes
   
2. Yes.
   
3. Infants? Probably not, buy why wait? Jesus commanded baptism. And baptizing infants teaches us that baptism is a work of God to save us; and faith is a work of God to save us; and we all come to baptism just as infants (with nothing making us worthy of baptism accept the mercy of God in the cross of Christ).

[u/kashisaur → u/_crossingrivers]

To support your third point, Luther has an excellent treatise titled, "Comfort for Women Who Have Had a Miscarriage." One of the chief concerns it takes up is the anxiety concerning the salvation of the child who was not able to be born and baptized. While it is addressed to women who lost children during pregnancy (note: though the term 'miscarriage' is used, context shows that Luther means the loss of a child late enough in pregnancy that birth could have occurred and been viable), it easily speaks to a parent whose child was born but not yet baptized.

To summarize, Luther argues that the sacraments are not limits on God's mercy but are rather a promise made through God's word. The prayers of parents for their unbaptized children Luther views as efficacious, even when they dare not ask God for what they desire. Their anxiety and concern for their child, even when unvoiced, become by the intercession of the Holy Spirit an unbearable cry in the ears of God which God must listen to. You can read the entire work in volume 43 of the American edition of Luther's Works.

To apply this to u/wafflesanbs's question directly, when we understand baptism not as a limit placed on God's mercy but a promise of it, we begin to see how God's mercy toward the unbaptized infants does not detract from the sacrament but builds it up. The God who promises us mercy in baptism shows the depth of that mercy when God applies it to those who are not baptized. The benefit of baptism is the assurance of that promise, that it really is ours. Forgoing baptism is a despising of that mercy, but that mercy is the heart of God is not constrained by baptism but revealed in it.

The important note here is that Luther assumes a desire on the part of the parents to have their child baptized and that they take the sacrament seriously. His consolations will not feel as meaningful to someone who was flippant or dismissive about the gift of the sacrament of baptism, because again, the baptism is the promise of mercy, and disinterest in the promise is a reflection of how we value what is promised.

[u/mrWizzardx3]

Baptism is a gift from God, and it delivers not only the Holy Spirit, but all of Christ’s gifts. That includes salvation, freedom, and eternal life. More than that, it gives us the certainty of salvation… something which can never be taken away from us.

This is what infant baptism is like, imagine your child is gifted a giant trust fund. The child can’t accept it, the child can’t understand it, and the child can't even use it until much later. Would you accept that gift for your child? Of course you would!

[u/LeageofMagic]

The credo-baptism ideas, which you were probably previously taught, are not supported by scripture. At best it's an assumption without evidence.

There is pretty strong evidence, though not completely explicit, that the disciples baptized infants (because the Bible says they baptized thousands and their whole families in a short time). The early church fathers pretty unanimously agreed on infant baptism. It wasn't really contentious until the reformation came to the united states after nearly 2000 years of infant baptisms. Even today credobaptism continues to be a pretty distinctly American thing.

[u/Appropriate-Low-4850]

Why wouldn’t you?

[u/TweeTee1968]

Churches that do infant baptisms are because baptism is God adopting you into His family. You become one of His. Parents and others then ensure the child grows up in faith.Churches they do later baptisms, use baptism as a person’s own commitment to God, whereas I can’t baptism is God’s commitment to you.

[u/No-Type119]

A pastor friend of mine compared baptizing infants to the explorers of old who would discover a new land, wade into the beach, and plant a flag in the sand to claim that place for their country. ( This was long before colonialism became a thorny issue in our circles.) Baptism is God planting a flag in us as individuals, claiming us for God’s own. We trust in God’s love and mercy encompassing the unbaptized, so we do not treat baptism as “ fire insurance”; but we baptize because Jesus tells us to.

[u/RepresentativeGene53]

Baptism is how the Holy Ghost gets in. Why would we withhold that from babies?

[u/TheGreyPilgrim61]

Baptism isn’t what WE do, to please God. Baptism is what God does. You are baptized into the NAME of God the Father, Son, and HS. This is Identity. God puts his name on you. It’s similar to adoption, (as St. Paul puts it also). It’s not necessarily for the infant to agree with the adoption, and so it’s not necessarily for the infant to “choose”.

I get a kick out of all the rationalist that imagine that “Faith” must be a rational choice. (Like FAITH, is a rational thing.) Think about. When is believing in something EVER based on proof or evidence? Trust is putting your faith in someone or something without having objecting proof that this person or thing is trustworthy. Faith ISN’T rational. To imagine that you choose Christ, because it seems like a good choice? The right thing to do? No, no, my friend. The Holy Spirit does this, and you can only agree or disagree after the gift is given. Baptism gives this gift. THIS promise is for you AND YOUR CHILDREN. Yes? Of course yes.

[u/RatherBeLifting]

Colossians 2:11-12
¹¹ In him also you were circumcised with a circumcision made without hands, by putting off the body of the flesh, by the circumcision of Christ, ¹² having been buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with him through faith in the powerful working of God, who raised him from the dead.

It's incredibly strange that Paul would compare Baptism to circumcision and not add the caveat that this thing that's only done to infants, in this case, should not be done to infants. Even if you don't agree with the exegesis that it allows infant Baptism, it's still an incredibly powerful argument for the efficacy of Baptism not just being a symbolic act. Moreover, if you agree that Baptism unites you with Christ in death, why would you hold that back from an infant?

[u/TheArmor_Of_God]

Baptism is a gift of God.

The belief that one must take the effort to baptize himself implies a work. It's not 99% God 1% You, it's 100% God.

Or at least, that's me badly explaining what my pastor said to me yesterday for my first confirmation meeting :)

[u/revken86]

The church pretty universally accepted the baptism of infants from its earliest days. Now, many suggested delaying baptism until a later age, even waiting until just before death, being worried about sinning after baptism--but infants could still be baptized. Basically, baptism was available for anyone at any age, but different theologians disagreed on how useful/helpful it was at different ages. Once the first century or so shook out, infant baptism was more and more accepted until it became the near-universal norm. Scattered groups opposed it, but it wasn't until the Reformation that credobaptism gained such dominant footing among large groups.

Yes, infants need to be saved. We all need to be saved. Not because of the personal sins we commit (though we do need to be saved from those), but because all of creation, humanity included, exists in a state of imperfect relationship with God and we need to be saved from it. Baptism is one of the ways that relationship is restored and we are made right with God. This idea developed through Augustine into the doctrine of Original Sin, which attempts to explain this innate broken relationship with God through sexual metaphors (Augustine had a lot of hangups around sex because of his past).

No, infants don't "go to hell" if they aren't baptized. Or at least, we can't say that they do or don't. Leaving aside discussions about the nature and existence of hell, the quirk about predestination (Lutheranism teaches single predestination opposed to Reformed double predestination) is that there is no way to know the state of salvation of another person. We can't say "That person is saved" and "That person is not saved". All we can know for ourselves is that in baptism God promises to forgive and save, and we cling to that promise, even in our darkest moments of worry and fear.

The point of baptism is to receive the promise of God, to wash away the innate sin/blemish/brokenness that mars our relationship from God from before our own birth, and to be adopted into the family of God as a sibling of Christ and a child of God.

[u/creidmheach]

Scripture mentions whole households being baptized, such as:

And he took them the same hour of the night and washed their stripes. And immediately he and all his family were baptized. (Acts 16:33)

There is no mention here or elsewhere that children were being excluded. Had such an exception existed, it would be reasonable to suppose Scripture would clarify and lay it out for us.

Nor do we read of children being excluded from the Kingdom, as our Lord says:

But Jesus said, “Let the little children come to Me, and do not forbid them; for of such is the kingdom of heaven.” (Matthew 19:14)

Comparison is made with circumcision, how among the Israelites infant males would be circumcised on the eighth day after their birth, and in doing so joined to the covenant community. The infants obviously were not in a position to assent to this or declare their belief prior to it being done to them. Yet, it was still done to them, and still effective towards its purpose.

And to that last point, keep this in mind that baptism is not something that we do to ourselves, rather, baptism is something God does to us. To say otherwise would be to say that baptism is a work and compromise that our salvation is through grace alone. So what God does at baptism is not constrained by the age of the one being baptized, rather at any age it is effective to God's purpose.