Household salvation?

Ask your Baptist Pastor . . .

 

hmmmmmmmmmmmm

 

I don't know that one can seriously assert that "it is impossible for your family members not to be saved." On the one hand, there is solid Biblical evidence of covenant baptism (or paedobaptism) in passages such as this, but on the other hand the email's assertion smacks of a complete suspension of free will, which is impossible.

 

Precisely. The idea of covenant baptism is that the child/infant is brought into the family of faith, however, it is the responsibility of the family (and, eventually, the growing child) to live in that faith. That's where free will, perseverance, and all that stuff come in.

I can't save you, nor can a mama save her young'uns.

 

This is coming around to the issue of child baptism under the age of reasoning or accountability.

The argument is that a child under the age cannot know believe so baptism does not save the child.


The child is born with original sin. The the stain of original sin does not get washed away via baptism and prematurely dies, where does the child go? Hell or Heaven.

The extra-biblical idea of "Relying on God to do the right thing" is a pipe dream and wishful thinking.

A little common sense has to come into play:

Mar 16:16 He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be damned.

If an Infant can not possibly believe because it does not have the capacity or ability to believe, then the infant falls into the category of those that believeth not, so the infant shall be damned by the reasoning of those that refute infant baptism.

But I can say that the infant cannot possibly not believe because it does not have the capacity or ability to not believe.

So we have a problem, the infant can neither believe or disbelieve and the child has the taint of original sin.

To elimate this dilemna proposed by original sin, we can exercise some common sense and say that the belief requirement excludes those that don't have the capacity or ability to believe or not believe. But the baptism part is still there. So the infant can be baptized to remove the stain of original sin.

Who fall into this criteria: Infants, all children under the age of reason/accountability, mentally retarded, the mentally damaged from things such as strokes, etc.

For those that refute infant/child/mentally retarded baptism I would ask this question.

You have, let's say, a 5 year old child and has never been baptized. The child dies for whatever reason. What biblical assurance do you have that your child will go to heaven and not hell?