It is important for us to first of all know what baptism is, before we can talk of its necessity or otherwise for infants.
What is baptism?
It is the sacrament which cleanses us from original (and actual) sins, makes us Christians, children of God, and members of the church.
The four characters which baptism impacts on a person’s soul are expanded below;
• It removes the sin we inherited from Adam and Eve, and our personal (in adults) sins.
• It is the Initiation ceremony that makes us Christians.
• at baptism God adopts us as sons and daughters. We are no longer strangers or slaves, therefore, we are confident to call Him father.
Just like a family adopting a child after the paper work with government, and the child becomes your son or daughter and starts to bear your name.
• Last but not least, we now belong to the body of believers called Church.
Peter explained what happens at baptism when he said,
“Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins; and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit” (Acts 2:38).
But he did not restrict this teaching to adults. He added,
“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)
We also read:
“Rise and be baptized, and wash away your sins, calling on his name” (Acts 22:16).
These commands are universal, not restricted to adults. Further, these commands make clear the necessary connection between baptism and salvation, a connection explicitly stated in
1 Peter 3:21:
“Baptism . . . now saves you, not as a removal of dirt from the body but as an appeal to God for a clear conscience, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ.”
The historic Christian Church has always held that Christ’s law applies to infants as well as adults, for Jesus said that no one can enter heaven unless he has been born again of water and the Holy Spirit (John 3:5). His words can be taken to apply to anyone capable of belonging to his kingdom. He asserted such even for children: Children are not free from Original Sin.
“Let the children come to me, and do not hinder them; for to such belongs the kingdom of heaven” (Matt. 19:14).
Now, opponents of infant baptism say this event does not apply to young children or infants since it implies the children to which Christ was referring were able to approach him on their own. They conclude that the passage refers only to children old enough to walk, and, presumably, capable of sinning. But the text in (Luke 18:15) says,
“Now they were bringing even infants to him”
children who are quite unable to approach Christ on their own and who could not possibly make a conscious decision to “accept Jesus as their personal Lord and Saviour.” And that is precisely the problem. Opponents refuse to permit the baptism of infants and young children, because they are not yet capable of making such a conscious act. But notice what Jesus said:
“to such as these [referring to the infants and children who had been brought to him by their mothers] belongs the kingdom of heaven.”
The Lord did not require them to make a conscious decision. He says that they are precisely the kind of people who can come to him and receive the kingdom.
Furthermore, Paul notes that baptism has replaced circumcision (Col. 2:11–12). In that passage, he refers to baptism as “the circumcision of Christ” and “the circumcision made without hands.” Of course, usually only infants were circumcised under the Old Law; circumcision of adults was rare, since there were few converts to Judaism. If Paul meant to exclude infants, he would not have chosen circumcision as a parallel for baptism.
This comparison between who could receive baptism and circumcision is an appropriate one. In the Old Testament, if a man wanted to become a Jew, he had to believe in the God of Israel and be circumcised. In the New Testament, if one wants to become a Christian, one must believe in God and Jesus and be baptized. In the Old Testament, those born into Jewish households could be circumcised in anticipation of the Jewish faith in which they would be raised. Thus, in the New Testament, those born in Christian households can be baptized in anticipation of the Christian faith in which they will be raised. The pattern is the same.
In the New Testament we read that Lydia was converted by Paul’s preaching and that “She was baptized, with her household” (Acts 16:15). The Philippian jailer whom Paul and Silas had converted to the faith was baptized that night along with his household. We are told that “the same hour of the night . . . 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).
In all these cases, whole households or families were baptized. This means more than just the spouse; the children too were included. If the text of Acts referred simply to the Philippian jailer and his wife, then we would read that “he and his wife were baptized,” but we do not. Thus his children must have been baptized as well. The same applies to the other cases of household baptism in Scripture.
Granted, we do not know the exact age of the children; they may have been past the age of reason, rather than infants. Then again, they could have been babes in arms. More probably, there were both younger and older children. Certainly there were children younger than the age of reason in some of the households that were baptized. Furthermore, given the New Testament pattern of household baptism, if there were to be exceptions to this rule (such as infants), they would be explicit.
It is true that Christ prescribed instruction and actual faith for adult converts (Matt. 28:19–20), but his general law on the necessity of baptism (John 3:5) puts no restriction on the subjects of baptism. Although infants are included in the law he establishes, requirements of that law that are impossible to meet because of their age are not applicable to them. The same was true of circumcision; faith in the Lord was necessary for an adult convert to receive it, but it was not necessary for the children of believers.
Furthermore, the Bible never says, “Faith in Christ is necessary for salvation except for infants”; it simply says, “Faith in Christ is necessary for salvation.” Yet opponents must admit there is an exception for infants unless they wish to condemn instantaneously all infants to hell. Therefore, the Fundamentalist himself makes an exception for infants regarding the necessity of faith for salvation.
It becomes apparent, then, that the Fundamentalist position on infant baptism is not really a consequence of the Bible’s, but of the demands of Fundamentalism’s idea of salvation.
In reality, the Bible indicates that infants are to be baptized, that they too are meant to inherit the kingdom of Heaven.