Scriptural Critique of Infant Baptism

Scriptural Critique of Infant Baptism

  • Submitted By: shabork
  • Date Submitted: 03/15/2009 11:33 AM
  • Category: Religion
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Scriptural Critique of Infant Baptism
by
John MacArthur
Copyright 1998
All Rights Reserved
 
A couple of weeks ago I gave a message on the issue of baptism and when I introduced that I was going to do that, I said that I wanted to give a follow-up message on the issue of infant baptism and I’m going to do that this morning. Now, I confess that this may seem a little more like a theological class lecture; you may feel like you’ve just enrolled at the Master's Seminary—that’s O.K. I warn you in the back rows there, who may tend to wander anyway, because you’re so far away—hang in there. This is really, I think, a provocative, and important, and far-reaching issue to deal with.
Let me explain for some of you who might not understand. There is a widespread belief in the Church that babies are to be baptized. And so, soon after their birth, they are taken to the church whether it’s a Roman Catholic church, or whether it’s a Presbyterian church, or whether it’s a Reformed church, or a Lutheran church, an Anglican church, an Episcopalian church…They are taken to the church and they are sprinkled with water on the head—a little bit of water is dripped on their head and that constitutes their "Christian" baptism. This is very widespread. This is all over the world, in fact. This is the influence of the post-reformation European church and it has spread wherever that influence has gone.
Now, the result of this is that you have baptized non-Christians all over the world. They were baptized as infants with what they believe was a Christian baptism and an initiation into the church—and an initiation into salvation. Yet, they are not Christians; they have never come to personal confession of faith in Christ and so they were baptized but they’re non-Christians. On the other hand, you have the same group of people who are actually not baptized at all because that baptism is not New Testament baptism. So, they are baptized non-Christians who have never really been...

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