Infant Baptism

• Catholic Church has always understood baptism differently, teaching that it is a sacrament which accomplishes several things, the first of which is the remission of sin, both original sin and actual sin—only original sin in the case of infants and young children, since they are incapable of actual sin; and both original and actual sin in the case of older persons.
•  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.
•   "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" (2:39).
•   "Rise and be baptized, and wash away your sins, calling on his name" (Acts 22:16).
•   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."
•  Christ Calls All to Baptism
•   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: "Let the children come to me, and do not hinder them; for to such belongs the kingdom of heaven" (Matt. 19:14).
•   Luke’s account of this event, which reads: "Now they were bringing even infants to him that he might touch them; and when the disciples saw it, they rebuked them. But Jesus called them to him, saying, ‘Let the children come to me, and do not hinder them; for to such belongs the kingdom of God’" (Luke 18:15–16).

 

 In Place of Circumcision

•   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.
•   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.
•   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
•   If one is an adult, one must have faith before receiving the rite of membership; if one is a child too young to have faith, one may be given the rite of membership in the knowledge that one will be raised in the faith.
•   people whose baptisms we read about in Scripture (and few are individually identified) are adults, because they were converted as adults. This makes sense, because Christianity was just beginning—there were no "cradle Christians," people brought up from childhood in Christian homes.
•   during the time when children were raised in the first Christian homes, we never—not even once—find an example of a child raised in a Christian home who is baptized only upon making a "decision for Christ." Rather, it is always assumed that the children of Christian homes are already Christians, that they have already been "baptized into Christ" (Rom. 6:3). If infant baptism were not the rule, then we should have references to the children of Christian parents joining the Church only after they had come to the age of reason, and there are no such records in the Bible.

 Specific Biblical References?

•   we read that Lydia was converted by Paul’s preaching and that "She was baptized, with her household" (Acts 16:15).
•   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).
•   greetings to the Corinthians, Paul recalled that, "I did baptize also the household of Stephanas" (1 Cor. 1:16).
•   given the New Testament pattern of household baptism, if there were to be exceptions to this rule (such as infants), they would be explicit.

 
 Catholics From the First

•   Origen, for instance, wrote in the third century that "according to the usage of the Church, baptism is given even to infants" (Holilies on Leviticus, 8:3:11 [A.D. 244]).
•   Council of Carthage, in 253, condemned the opinion that baptism should be withheld from infants until the eighth day after birth.
•   Augustine taught, "The custom of Mother Church in baptizing infants is certainly not to be scorned . . . nor is it to be believed that its tradition is anything except apostolic" (Literal Interpretation of Genesis 10:23:39 [A.D. 408]).

 No Cry of "Invention!"

•   evidence that infant baptism was the accepted practice in the early Church is the fact that if infant baptism had been opposed to the religious practices of the first believers, why do we have no record of early Christian writers condemning it?
•   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. They cannot be expected to be instructed and have faith when they are incapable of receiving instruction or manifesting faith. 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.

SOURCE: http://www.catholic.com/tracts/infant-baptism

Infant Baptism

• Infant Baptism is a rite by which children who have not yet attained the age of reason are  initiated into the Family of God—the Church.
•  remits the effects and stain of Original Sin while at the same time infusing Sanctifying  Grace into the infant’s soul (CCC no. 1250).
•   The rite of circumcision as the doorway into the Old Covenant was replaced in the  New Covenant with the rite of Baptism—both applied to infants.
•   St. Paul makes this correlation:  “In him also you were circumcised with a circumcision made without hands, by  putting off the body of flesh in the circumcision of Christ; and you were buried with him  in baptism” (Co 2:11–12).
•   Catechism informs us that “this sign [of circumcision]  prefigures that ‘circumcision of Christ’ which is Baptism” (CCC no. 527).
•   When Peter preached under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit on the Day of Pentecost  he was speaking to a Jewish audience (Ac 2:5–35). Peter announced, “Repent, and let  each of you be baptized
•   Jews would have been dismayed had the New Covenant not included  their children, especially since it was promised to them, and the New Covenant was to be  an improvement over the Old in which they were included
•   when the head of a household converted and was baptized,  his entire household was also baptized with him (Ac 16:15, 33; 1 Co 1:16). The inference  of course, especially based on Jewish understanding of the family and covenants, would  include the aged, the adults, the servants, and the infants.
•   If the practice of Infant Baptism  had been illicit or prohibited it would surely have been explicitly forbidden, especially to  restrain the Jews from applying Baptism to their infants as they did circumcision.
•   Even  though Tertullian espoused a later baptism for children, he acknowledged that Infant Baptism  was already the universal practice and does not try to avoid the interpretation of this  verse’s reference to Infant Baptism.
•   Infant Baptism is mentioned not as an innovation,  but as a rite instituted by the apostles. Nowhere do we find it prohibited and everywhere  we find it practiced. Early in the nascent Church we have St. Irenaeus (c. 130–c. 200)  who provides a very early witness to Infant Baptism, based on John 3:5. Irenaeus wrote,  “For He [Jesus] came to save all through means of Himself—all, I say, who through Him  are born again to God,—infants, and children, and boys, and youths, and old men”  (Against Heresies, 2, 22, 4)
•   Origen (ad c. 185–c. 254) who had traveled to the extents of the Roman Empire wrote  with confidence, “The Church received from the Apostles the tradition [custom] of giving  Baptism even to infants. For the Apostles, to whom were committed the secrets of divine  mysteries, knew that there is in everyone the innate stains of sin, which must be washed  away through water and the Spirit” (Commentary on Romans 5, 9).
•   St. Augustine confirmed the ubiquitous teaching of the Church when he wrote, “This  [infant baptism] the Church always had, always held; this she received from the faith of  our ancestors; this she perseveringly guards even to the end” (Augustine, Sermon. 11, De  Verb Apost)
•   “Who is so impious as to wish to exclude infants from the kingdom of  heaven by forbidding them to be baptized and born again in Christ?” (Augustine, On  Original Sin 2, 20).
•   The opposition  resides mainly in those of Anabaptist heritage which originated in the sixteenth  century and who were strongly opposed by Reformers Martin Luther and John Calvin  who both taught and practiced Infant Baptism.
•   Anabaptists’ opposition to the baptism  of infants lies mainly in their belief—unsupported by Scripture and with no supporting  evidence from the practice of the early Church—that one has to be of sufficient age to  exercise personal faith in Christ and make a personal confession at baptism. Nowhere is  this taught in Scripture that only adults can receive baptism. To hold this extreme view is  to be outside the continuity of historical Christianity

SOURCE: http://www.catholic-convert.com/wp-content/uploads/Documents/Infant%20Baptism2.pdf

A Family Moment - Infant Baptism

Infant Baptism

Reasons why we must baptize infants

• * Born with a fallen human nature and tainted by original sin, children also have need of the new birth in Baptism to be freed from the power of darkness and brought into the realm of the freedom of the children of God, to which all men are called
• * The Church and the parents would deny a child the priceless grace of becoming a child of God were they not to confer Baptism shortly after birth (CCC 1250)
• * Original sin is a reality from which each and every human person desperately needs to be freed. Biblically speaking, Romans 5:12 is remarkably clear on this point
• * Even if nothing else was said in Scripture implying infant baptism, we could conclude it to be necessary just from this simple fact: babies need to have original sin removed from their souls.

Catholics Are So Jewish

• * A Jew became a Jew when he was circumcised on the eighth day. They did not have to first “accept Moses as their personal prophet” before they could be circumcised.
• * according to St. Paul, baptism is the fulfillment of circumcision:
• In him also you were circumcised with a circumcision made without hands, by putting off the body of flesh in the circumcision of Christ; …you were buried with him in Baptism" (Colossians 2:11-12)
• * The Greek indicates that baptism is the circumcision of Christ!
• * Many were being persecuted because they chose to baptize their children instead of circumcising them. As St. Paul says in Romans 2:28
• * What is this “spiritual circumcision” of which St. Paul speaks? Baptism, according to Colossians 2:11-12. Not the shedding of foreskin, but the transformation of the inward man through the sacrament.
• * baptism does something circumcision could never do: "baptism now saves [us]" (I Peter 3:21). The change that occurs is not physical; it is spiritual
• * As it is often said, what you don’t see is what you get in all of the sacraments, baptism included.
• * baptism is more inclusive than its Old Testament antecedent. You had to be a free, male, Jew to be circumcised.
• * in the New Testament baptism is open to all. Of course, babies would be included.

Implications of Circumcision

• * Peter preached to thousands of Jews, who already had an understanding of their faith involving a family covenant
• * If Peter believed baptism was exclusive to adults, he was a terrible teacher!

Catholics Are So… New Testament

• * hese were not just children who were being brought to Jesus, the Greek word here is "brephe," which mean infants. And again, the Jews listening would understand that the parents’s belief and obedience suffices for the child until he is old enough to own his own faith.
• * parents bringing children to Christ, according to Christ, is equivalent to the children coming to him on their ow
• * because babies are icons of what we all should be, i.e., they put up no obstacles to the work of God in their lives, and they can most obviously do absolutely nothing to merit anything from God, they are reminders of “the sheer gratuitousness of the grace of salvation” as CCC 1250 say

Household Salvation

• * rom the very beginning whole “households” received baptism. There is no reason to believe infants would not have been included
• * When St. Paul led the Philippian jailer to Christ in Acts 16, he said to him, “Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved, you and your household” (Acts 16:31, emphasis added). He does not say that all in his household must first believe. He simply says they will all be saved. How could he say that? St. Paul seems to have understood what St. Peter had already preached back when Paul was still persecuting Christians (in Acts 2:38). The promise of faith and baptism is for the jailer and his children.

First Come Faith?

• * Jesus did not say faith must precede baptism for an individual. He simply said one has to believe and be baptized in order to be saved. He said nothing about the two having to be accomplished in that order for the individual
• * even if we were to accept as fact that faith must come first, even though Mark 16:16 does not say that, this would not exclude the possibility that the faith of the parents could not suffice until the child reaches the age of accounatability.
• * A baby cannot believe. Does that mean all babies who die without believing will not be saved? Of course not! The thief on the cross was presumably not baptized. Does that mean he would not go to heaven? Of course not! Belief and baptism are necessary to those who have the opportunity to do so. If they were to be impeded from being able to believe or be baptized, and that could be the case for many different reasons, God would judge them in accordance with what they were responsible fo
• * Sometimes we are accountable not just for ourselves, but for others as well (see Ez. 3:18-19). Parents are responsible to baptize their babies. If they knowingly do not do so, they break God's covenant in a very serious matter
• * it was the faith of those who brought the paralytic to Christ that God used instrumentally for the salvation of the paralytic: “… when Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralytic, ‘Take heart, my son; your sins are forgiven’” (Matt. 9:2). Whose faith did Jesus "see" here? “Their” seems to refer back to the “they” of the same verse
• * The faith of the parent suffices when they bring their infants to be blessed by Christ via "the circumcision of Christ."

Circumcision and Justification

• * “We say that faith was reckoned to Abraham… before he was circumcised” (Romans 4:9-10). So doesn’t this prove baptism does not save us either?

Three points:

• * 1. As I said above, baptism is the fulfillment of that which was only a type in the Old Testament. The fulfillment is always more glorious than the type. Thus, “baptism does now save you” (I Peter 3:21) in a way that circumcision could not
• * 2. It is not a contradiction to say both faith and circumcision were necessary to remain within God’s covenant in the Old Testament, even though circumcision played no role in initial justification.
• * 3. The faith of the parents sufficed when it came to circumcising a child. Do we not see that principle in the New Testament as well? Jesus saw the faith of the friends of the paralytic and healed the paralytic in Matt. 9:2. When people cannot have faith, the faith of family or friends suffices. So it is with infants. The faith of the parents sanctifies the children as St. Paul says in I Cor. 7:14. This is just as much a New Testament concept as it is an Old Testament concept.

Source: http://www.catholic.com/blog/tim-staples/infant-baptism