"Can Any Forbid Water That These Should Not Be Baptized?”    

Acts 10:47

     Recently I received an anonymous letter from someone who vehemently objected to our insistence upon baptism for believers only and by immersion only. Enclosed with the letter was an article defending infant baptism. I do not know who the author is, so I cannot call him by name or cite his references. But what he says in defense of infant baptism are the very reasons for our objections to the practice.

     He writes, "The children of those who believe are included in the covenant,and church of God, unless they exclude themselves. They are,therefore, also the disciples of Christ, because they are born in the church." Then he challenges with Peter's words regarding Cornellius and the believers of his household, "Can any forbid water that these should not be baptized?", offering the following reasons why the infant children of believing parents should be baptized: (1) They "belong to the covenant and church of God." (2) The benefits of grace, "Redemption from sin, the remission of sins, and regeneration belongs" to them. (3) "They are holy; the kingdom of heaven is theirs." (4) "Baptism occupies the place of circumcision in the New Testament and has the same use...putting off the body of the sins of the flesh." The author concludes, "It is clear that the denial of infant baptism is no trifling error, but a grievous heresy, in direct opposition to the word of God, and the comfort of the church. Wherefore this and similar follies of the sect of the Anabaptists should be carefully avoided, since they have, without doubt, been hatched by the devil, and are detestable heresies which they have fabricated from various errors and blasphemies."

     Should any ask why we forbid the waters of baptism for infants, no greater reasons can be given than the implications of the statements above: that the infants of believers are born holy, regenerate, and forgiven; that the blessings of God's covenant are inherited by natural generation; and that by baptism "the body of the sins of the flesh" can be put away. Not only do the Scriptures clearly forbid the practice of infant baptism, requiring faith before baptism (Acts 8:37), the practice implies that there is some saving merit and efficacy in sprinkling water in a baby's face!

Don Fortner