I suppose its my turn to write some stuff down . . . Nate appreciates your responses to his notes, keep them coming. Please note that this post is not intended to judge anyone else, the following is just the reasoning behind why we have done what we have in our family.
So . . . how did two fairly involved Lutheran kiddos who were themselves infant baptised and confirmed grow up, get married, and have two kids neither of which have been baptised or dedicated? We had already come up against the discussion of whether infant baptism is biblical or appropriate prior to Hannah’s birth (this would be the subject of a post that will probably come in the future but not necessary to this post). At the time we would normally have baptised her, we were attending a church that 1) would probably not have done it, and 2) would probably not have been supportive or understanding of her baptism through sunday school and such as they would be trying to encourage the children to be believer’s baptised as they grew and matured. So we mostly didn’t do it because of church culture, though it could have been easy to do so at home or have Nate’s dad perform it. Its important to note that if we had been attending a church that practiced infant baptism then, we probably would have done it. We decided we were comfortable with our own baptisms but we would prefer letting the kids mature and ask to be baptised when they were ready.
Since then, every so often (and as we did some church shopping) the discussion would come up again. Why not baptise? or Why not dedicate? As things in life so often happen, when the discussion would come up, it would get dropped because the timing was bad or no family members would be able to come, or we just didn’t put some thought into it.
Now, we arrive on present day in the Moehring household and we have determined that we really like the church we are attending and see no reason not to become members and be as involved as God leads us. They practice believer’s baptism but also do infant dedications. Recently the call went out for anyone interested in dedications and we found ourselves having the same discussion as before. As I look back on it, I feel a bit ashamed because between the time we decided not to do infant baptism to now, we never really looked into the biblical support of a dedication ceremony. If we had done that first, we could have avoided some feelings of guilt of not providing something special for our children, or feelings of sadness for not following the family tradition, or whatever. I finally did some digging and this is what I came up with:
There is no biblical precedent for what people usually perform as an infant dedication. Yes, there was a Jewish custom to dedicate only the firstborn male, which was more like a thithe of your children to the temple. While I don’t think there is anything wrong with child dedication and I don’t disagree with the reasoning behind standing proud in front of your congregation which should be full of people you are counting on to help you raise your children in the faith, asking for help, and pledging to do your best, I’ve discovered that it really isn’t necessary or something God (or our children) needs us to do.
According to this verse our children are already “dedicated” due to our faith, “For the unbelieving husband is sanctified by the wife, and the unbelieving wife is sanctified by the husband; otherwise your children would be unclean, but now they are holy” (1 Cor. 7:14).
I know someday I will have to stand before God and be accountable for the work that I did in the time I had with these beautiful lives he has entrusted to me. Whether we are right or wrong for not baptising or not dedicating will be a question we’ll have to ask God sometime during eternity. In the end, their salvation will be their own choice and all we can (and probably ever could do) is pray that their names will be written in the Lamb’s Book of Life.
Mike Rigel likes this..
Erin Miller Hamilton: What about their salvation being God’s choice…and their “choosing” God being merely a (debatably unnecessary) response to God’s love and grace which has already been given?
June 25 at 4:42pm
Rebecca Diltz Nate Moehring: We believe that God chooses everyone . . .and like you said, they have to choose back. Maybe we are splitting hairs. I was trying to point out that I can’t save my kids.
June 25 at 4:47pm
Erin Miller Hamilton: I agree with that – it’s not our choosing or not choosing or doing something that saves our kids.
June 26 at 8:13am
Why is the New Testament silent on Infant Baptism?
Baptist/evangelical response:
The reason there is no mention of infant baptism in the New Testament is because this practice is a Catholic invention that developed two to three centuries after the Apostles. The Bible states that sinners must believe and repent before being baptized. Infants do not have the mental maturity to believe or to make a decision to repent. If God had wanted infants to be baptized he would have specifically mentioned it in Scripture. Infant baptism is NOT scriptural.
Lutheran response:
When God made his covenant with Abraham, God included everyone in Abraham’s household in the covenant:
1. Abraham, the head of the household.
2. His wife.
3. His children: teens, toddlers, and infants
4. His servants and their wives and children.
5. His slaves and their wives and children.
Genesis records that it was not just Abraham who God required to be circumcised. His son, his male servants, and his male slaves were all circumcised; more than 300 men and boys.
Did the act of circumcision save all these people and give them an automatic ticket into heaven? No. Just as in the New Covenant, it is not the sign that saves, it is God’s declaration that saves, received in faith. If these men and boys grew in faith in God, they would be saved. If they later rejected God by living a life of willful sin, they would perish.
This pattern of including the children of believers in God’s covenant continued for several thousand years until Christ’s resurrection. There is no mention in the OT that the children of the Hebrews were left out of the covenant until they reached an Age of Accountability, at which time they were required to make a decision: Do I want to be a member of the covenant or not? And only if they made an affirmative decision were they then included into God’s covenant. Hebrew/Jewish infants and toddlers have ALWAYS been included in the covenant. There is zero evidence from the OT that says otherwise.
Infants WERE part of the covenant. If a Hebrew infant died, he was considered “saved”.
However, circumcision did NOT “save” the male Hebrew child. It was the responsibility of the Hebrew parents to bring up their child in the faith, so that when he was older “he would not depart from it”. The child was born a member of the covenant. Then, as he grew up, he would have the choice: do I want to continue placing my faith in God, or do I want to live in willful sin? If he chose to live by faith, he would be saved. If he chose to live a life of willful sin and never repented, and then died, he would perish.
When Christ established the New Covenant, he said nothing explicit in the New Testament about the salvation of infants and small children; neither do the Apostles nor any of the writers of the New Testament. Isn’t that odd? If the new Covenant no longer automatically included the children of believers, why didn’t Christ, one of the Apostles, or one of the writers of the NT mention this profound change?
Why is there no mention in the NT of any adult convert asking this question: “But what about my little children? Are you saying that I have to wait until my children grow up and make a decision for themselves, before I will know if they will be a part of the new faith? What happens if my child dies before he has the opportunity to make this decision?” But no, there is no record in Scripture that any of these questions are made by new converts to the new faith. Isn’t that really, really odd??? As a parent of small children, the FIRST question I would ask would be, “What about my little children?”
But the New Testament is completely silent on the issue of the salvation or safety of the infants and toddlers of believers. Another interesting point is this: why is there no mention of any child of believers “accepting Christ” when he is an older child (8-12 years old) or as a teenager and then, being baptized? Not one single instance and the writing of the New Testament occurred over a period of 30 years, approximately thirty years after Christ’s death: So over a period of 60 years, not one example of a believer’s child being saved as a teenager and then receiving “Believers Baptism”. Why???
So isn’t it quite likely that the reason God does not explicitly state in the NT that infants should be baptized, is because everyone in first century Palestine would know that infants and toddlers are included in a household conversion. That fact that Christ and the Apostles did NOT forbid infant baptism was understood to indicate that the pattern of household conversion had not changed: the infants and toddlers of believers are still included in this new and better covenant.
Circumcision nor Baptism was considered a “Get-into-heaven-free” card. It was understood under both Covenants that the child must be raised in the faith, and that when he was older, he would need to decide for himself whether to continue in the faith and receive everlasting life, or choose a life of sin, breaking the covenant relationship with God, and forfeiting the gift of salvation.
Which of these two belief systems seems to be most in harmony with Scripture and the writings of the Early Christians?
Gary
Luther, Baptists, and Evangelicals