Infant Baptism

[Byblos]

I am posting from my phone so it's difficult to reply properly but I will later.

Suffice it say, no Jac, your including domestic animals in the implication doesn't work at all for the simple reason that salvation was offered to humans exclusively. Otherwise you'd have to include them regardless whether infants are or are not considered.

[Philip]

IF there is original sin, that babies are born as ALREADY sinners, then how come Jesus, who was also FULLY human, didn't have ANY sin - EVER? And the typical response, "Oh, but He was JESUS!" - sorry, that's not an answer!

[Byblos]

IF there is original sin, that babies are born as ALREADY sinners, then how come Jesus, who was also FULLY human, didn't have ANY sin - EVER? And the typical response, "Oh, but He was JESUS!" - sorry, that's not an answer!

Let me answer you with a question then. Did Jesus need a savior? After all he IS fully human.

[Philip]

Did Jesus need a savior? After all he IS fully human.

The reason He didn't need a savior: 1) He IS the Savior, and 2) While fully man, He was also fully God - meaning, the God of His Personage was able to overcome the temptations that He endured. Clearly, if He couldn't sin (as a man), then He truly couldn't have been tempted as we are, nor be able to identify with what that is like.

[Byblos]

Did Jesus need a savior? After all he IS fully human.

The reason He didn't need a savior: 1) He IS the Savior, and 2) While fully man, He was also fully God - meaning, the God of His Personage was able to overcome the temptations that He endured. Clearly, if He couldn't sin (as a man), then He truly couldn't have been tempted as we are, nor be able to identify with what that is like.

Oh so then it's because he IS JESUS! Got it, thanks.

[Philip]

Oh so then it's because he IS JESUS! Got it, thanks.

Um, no! That only explains how He was able not to sin. But it does NOT explain how He COULD be tempted or why He wouldn't have inherited His sin - supposedly like ever other human being.

[Byblos]

Oh so then it's because he IS JESUS! Got it, thanks.

Um, no! That only explains how He was able not to sin. But it does NOT explain how He COULD be tempted or why He wouldn't have inherited His sin - supposedly like ever other human being.

And how exactly does that relate to what I've been saying?

[Jac3510]

I am posting from my phone so it's difficult to reply properly but I will later.

Suffice it say, no Jac, your including domestic animals in the implication doesn't work at all for the simple reason that salvation was offered to humans exclusively. Otherwise you'd have to include them regardless whether infants are or are not considered.

Do you not see that you proved my point here?

• You include infants because you think that's what baptism is. But you exclude things, just like we do, because of what you view baptism to be. The biggest difference is that you are finding in that passage something for which there is absolutely NO Scriptural precedent--paedobaptism--and for which the existing precedent definitively disallows (baptism following conversion).

[Kurieuo]

Listen to Paul in Romans 5:

• 12 Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men[e] because all sinned— 13 for sin indeed was in the world before the law was given, but sin is not counted where there is no law. 14 Yet death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over those whose sinning was not like the transgression of Adam, who was a type of the one who was to come.
  
  15 But the free gift is not like the trespass. For if many died through one man's trespass, much more have the grace of God and the free gift by the grace of that one man Jesus Christ abounded for many. 16 And the free gift is not like the result of that one man's sin. For the judgment following one trespass brought condemnation, but the free gift following many trespasses brought justification. 17 For if, because of one man's trespass, death reigned through that one man, much more will those who receive the abundance of grace and the free gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man Jesus Christ.
  
  18 Therefore, as one trespass led to condemnation for all men, so one act of righteousness leads to justification and life for all men. 19 For as by the one man's disobedience the many were made sinners, so by the one man's obedience the many will be made righteous. 20 Now the law came in to increase the trespass, but where sin increased, grace abounded all the more, 21 so that, as sin reigned in death, grace also might reign through righteousness leading to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Paul's logic seems clear, however puzzling it might seem to us. Paul justifies the message that many are forgiven and can be saved through the one Jesus Christ, using comparative arguments to many being made sinners, receiving condemnation and death through the one man Adam. If you reject the latter, then Paul's argument here falls apart.

I've been on the fence in the past, but it seems clear all were made sinners in Adam, but thankfully we are forgiven and made righteous in Christ. Many of us like to endorse the latter, the good news of Christ, while downplaying the equivalent "bad news" found in Adam. Thankfully, though God places Adam's sin upon us all, God equally places Christ's righteousness upon us all which leads to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.

[Kurieuo]

As for infant baptism, perhaps there is justification to such. Yet, I don't see it is physical baptism into Christ or His church as what saves, such is merely a representation of the spiritual transformation where someone make a decision to trust in Christ and therefore receive His baptism of His death and equally His resurrection.

Romans 6:1-11

• 1What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin so that grace may increase? 2May it never be! How shall we who died to sin still live in it? 3Or do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus have been baptized into His death? 4Therefore we have been buried with Him through baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life. 5For if we have become united with Him in the likeness of His death, certainly we shall also be in the likeness of His resurrection, 6knowing this, that our old self was crucified with Him, in order that our body of sin might be done away with, so that we would no longer be slaves to sin; 7for he who has died is freed from sin.
  8Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him, 9knowing that Christ, having been raised from the dead, is never to die again; death no longer is master over Him. 10For the death that He died, He died to sin once for all; but the life that He lives, He lives to God. 11Even so consider yourselves to be dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus.

[PaulSacramento]

We have to be careful in reading into scripture doctrines that we have.
No where is it stated that infants were baptized, although it does state that whole households were.
That said, in John we have record of the apostles baptizing BUT not of Jesus, are we to assume that Jesus never baptized anyone? perhaps...
Infant baptism is a tricky one I have to say.
I think Jac put it best when he wrote that depending on what the act i supposed to be, infant baptism is acceptable or not.

[Philip]

K: Yet, I don't see it is physical baptism into Christ or His church as what saves, such is merely a representation of the spiritual transformation where someone make a decision to trust in Christ and therefore receive His baptism of His death and equally His resurrection.

Of course it doesn't save! Does God allow another person to make a decision THEY must? What if they reject what has been chosen for them? Despite the lack of clear Scriptural support of ANYONE being giving the authority of choosing for another to receive God's salvation, even the Lord Himself won't choose for us (or force upon us) the Salvation WE must each receive. If HE won't do that - why would we think He would allow others to do it?

[Kurieuo]

K: Yet, I don't see it is physical baptism into Christ or His church as what saves, such is merely a representation of the spiritual transformation where someone make a decision to trust in Christ and therefore receive His baptism of His death and equally His resurrection.

Of course it doesn't save! Does God allow another person to make a decision THEY must? What if they reject what has been chosen for them? Despite the lack of clear Scriptural support of ANYONE being giving the authority of choosing for another to receive God's salvation, even the Lord Himself won't choose for us (or force upon us) the Salvation WE must each receive. If HE won't do that - why would we think He would allow others to do it?

Some might say, though, those who believe in "original sin" from Adam, drawing from physical consequences (e.g., death), that infant baptism into the Christian family, Christ's body, via a physical baptism at least undoes the effect of "original sin".

Therefore, such infants are innocent, aren't under condemnation, since they have a clean slate from Adam's sin. They're not in need of being saved, until they come to a stage where they do sin themselves, and then they too can look to Christ directly.

I'm not saying I believe this, but, it is one line of response I'm sure some would take. Yet, then, the fact, I'm sure even baptised infants still die, suggests otherwise. Yet, then, even Christians who trust in Christ still die a physical death.

I keep adding responses countering each side.

[PaulSacramento]

I guess the discussion needs to lead into what is "original sin".
According to Paul's own words, the sin we all inherit from Adam is that we die.
That is all.
Augustine may have added to it his view and it got "adopted" as a valid interpretation BUT Paul is clear that the wage of Adam's sin is death.

[Jac3510]

Just to be nitpicky, I don't think Paul is saying that the sin we inherit is death. I think Paul is saying is that, just like Adam died for his sin, so, too, we die for ours:

• For just as sin entered the world by one man, and death through sin; in the same way death spreads to all people, because all peole sin. (Rom 5:12 - my translation)

The question is not why we die. That's because of sin. The question is why we sin. Catholicism, as you well know, following Augustine, has an elaborate answer for that based on this notion of original sin, which is largely based on reading this passage to say that in Adam all sinned. That's just very hard to sustain grammatically, and I don't think ultimately that in can be. I think it's much cleaner just to say that Adam's nature became sinful when he ate of the forbidden fruit, and so his offspring (us) inherited a sinful nature. Thus we sin because we have a sinful nature.

But then again I am a traducian and not a creationist, so that complicates people who want to follow Augustine on this in yet another way.