Is it right to baptize infants?
Mark 16:16 says, "Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved". What does this say about infant baptism?
I can see that some people would use Mark 16:16 as an argument against infant baptism. However, it has to be seen in context, because one can never just pick out a verse and use it without seeing the whole setting and what the intention of the writer was. It is clear that the Bible has nothing to say against infant baptism. In this verse the baptised believer is held up as the one who will be saved. That is the important point, not any detail about when or how baptism takes place. There is an explicit dogmatic condemnation of those who do not believe.
Baptism in the Bible always supposes that a person has heard the preaching of the Gospel and professed his faith in Jesus Christ. However, the object of faith, Christ and his saving work, can be known implicity rather than explicitly when the Spirit is given before baptism (Acts 10:44-48), and it seems that the faith of the father of the family can be valid for all his household - this is the case with Cornelius and the jailer at Philippi (Acts 10:47; 16:15; 16:33). Nowhere does it say that everyone "except infants" was baptised. In Acts 16:33 nothing is said about the faith of the family baptised, only the faith of the father.
Since the Bible clearly says in the verses I quoted above that whole households are baptised, Christians have always believed that believing parents have the right, on the basis of their faith, to have their children also incorporated into Christ and brought up knowing Him. However, baptism alone is not enough. If it is simply a formality, without faith on the part of the parents or is later rejected by the person baptised (he or she rejects it by not converting their life to Christ), then it is useless.
Faith in Christ involves a total conversion and normally leads to a request for baptism. The reception of baptism finds the perfection of faith. Paul never separates conversion from baptism. He always takes it for granted that the profession of faith is crowned by the reception of baptism.
In Chapter 16 of Mark, Jesus appears to the eleven, rebukes them for not having believed, and sends them into the whole world to proclaim the Gospel: "Whoever believes and is baptised will be saved". What is being said is that belief and baptism go together. It is not saying, first believe, then be baptised. Any knowledge of Greek, the language in which it was written, will tell you that. The two things belong together, and in the following verse there is the promise that the Lord will work with the missionary disciples and confirm them through miraculous signs.
It is difficult not to be impatient with the sort of (rather unintelligent) Bible reading that picks up little details and builds fantastic theories on them that contradict two thousand years of Christian practice! The main thing to remember is: the Bible connects belief and baptism. The how, why, and timing of the connection is left open.
Fr. Francis Jamieson
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