This blog is not intended to evaluate whether child baptism or conversion baptism is the correct method of baptism. The question we need to answer is whether baptism saves you. In order to do so, we need to look at both methods and evaluate what they stand for.
Child/baby baptism
The child baptism is a dedication of your child to God, like Samuel, and the parents’ vows to bring them up in the ways of the Lord. This has nothing to do with the conversion baptism.
It is very clear that the child, when he/she comes of age, is still required to make a decision whether to accept Christ as their Lord and Savior. It is not possible for parents to make this choice. The hope is that if the parents adhere to their vows, that the child in the normal cause of events will accept Jesus.
The child baptism does not save your child. In fact no baptism saves a person. Only faith in the Lord Jesus Christ does. Nothing we can do will save us. Works definitely does not save us.
· Ephesians 2:8–9 - 8 For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast.
I baptized my children as babies and they have all come to Christ at a very young age, between 9 and 12 years old. That in some way proves that God honors your vows if you execute them in the power of the Holy Spirit.
There are some churches that link child baptism to the covenant of God where boys were circumcised at 8 days old. I personally do not see the link in the Bible. But that does not renege the fact that you as a parent make a holy vow to God to raise your children in the ways of the Lord.
The problem with child/baby baptism in today’s churches is that many parents baptize their children out of tradition or some other reason. You see many of the parents only the three weeks or so before the baptism and then only when there is a second or third baptism. What they do not understand is that vows made with God, if you do not keep them, is an abomination in the eyes of God. What you reap you will sow. This is amongst other things, why we see such children struggling to make a commitment to Christ or they battle to keep their passion for the Lord. The example they were given by their so called “Christian” parents did not reflect the love of Christ.
It is interesting to note that families were baptized in the New Testament. Logic says there must have been children involved. The only difference there was that the parents came to Christ dramatically and would have reared their children in the ways of the Lord. Their example alone would have shown their children to Christ as the Redeemer.
Conversion baptism:
Conversion baptism, normally through submersion, is a public statement by a child of God that he/she has accepted Christ as his/her savior and submits willingly to the discipline of the church. We are saved by faith alone. Baptism does not save us.
If it was such a deal, Jesus would have stated it somewhere in His preaching. He also would not have said to the man on the cross: “This day you will be in paradise”. In addition, Jesus never baptized anybody. Only John and His disciples did.
What I do want to stress is that if God asks you to be baptized, you must do it as you will then be obedient to His command for you. But please do not look at other Christians that do not have the same conviction as you have, in a derogatory way. Stop trying to get people to be baptized. You may be putting a burden on them that they are not ready to commit to. The Holy Spirit will convict them when the time is right.
One of the major problems of the conversion baptism is the over zealousness of some of the Pentecostal and Charismatic churches to want to baptize new converts. I say over zealous as they put this burden on the covert in a non-biblical way. In many instances they will baptize the new converts without ensuring that their conversion was genuine and that unless you do so you will not see the kingdom of God. That is not correct.
In case in point: I had a youngster on the farm that attended a Pentecostal church. He said he came to Christ. He was a young man that I took out of jail as his parole officer, he approach the other young man that lives on the farm to baptize him in our swimming pool. The young man had at that stage not come to Christ and refused, on enquiry the parolee said to me that he wanted to be baptized to “get closer to God’. I explained to him that baptism was a public declaration that he was a child of God. For no other reason. I refused to baptize him.
Within 3 weeks of that conversation he came to me that he was baptized that Sunday in the church. I found that strange that the pastors did so in light of why he wanted to be baptized. After this incident he started lying, accused me of not lying to protect him, wrote off my LDV through disobedience, accused me of being a very bad person, etc. It almost ended in me losing all the insurance money on the vehicle. My research indicated that he told lies upon lies. He also said if I lost the claim it would be just deserts as I did not want to back up his lies.
At one stage he procured a position. I asked him to be open and honest with his employer about his past. He came back a few days later, furious at the employer that he was terminated. On enquiry he did not adhere to my advice. Lying seems to be part of his life. That does not seem to show the fruits of a person coming to Christ.
Things became so bad that I had to ask him to leave the farm. That was after we fed him for many months and gave him finances. At that stage he owed me a lot of money as I had to pay off his vehicle to prevent it from being repossessed, had to repair his vehicle to be roadworthy, etc. And all we got in exchange was degrading remarks. We do not expect gratitude ourselves but at least expect them to be grateful to God and to show the fruit of his conversion.
He was in the news again after he left us for stealing his mother’s car and laptop, and was overheard in a pub threatening girls that he will assault them as he did assaulted his girlfriend and father; the reason he was in jail in the first place.
So pastors: Don’t be over zealous. Make sure that they have genuinely accepted Christ before you baptize them. Baptism does not save a person from damnation. Only faith in Jesus Christ does. Our seal is not the baptism but the Holy Spirit we receive at the moment of salvation.
Relevance Scripture:
· John 3:16 - 16 “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.
· John 6:35 - Then Jesus declared, “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never go hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.
· John 6:47 - 47 Very truly I tell you, the one who believes has eternal life.
· John 11:25 - Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in me will live, even though they die”
· John 20:31 - But these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.
· Acts 16:31- 31 And they said, “Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved, you and your household.”
· Titus 3:5- 5 He saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit,
· 1 Corinthians 1:17 - 17 For Christ did not send me to baptize but to preach the gospel, and not with words of eloquent wisdom, lest the cross of Christ be emptied of its power.
· Ephesians 1:13 - 13 In him you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit.
Baptized: Now I am truly saved?
This blog is not intended to evaluate whether child baptism or conversion baptism is the correct method of baptism. The question we need to answer is whether baptism saves you. In order to do so, we need to look at both methods and evaluate what they stand for.
Child/baby baptism
The child baptism is a dedication of your child to God, like Samuel, and the parents’ vows to bring them up in the ways of the Lord. This has nothing to do with the conversion baptism.
It is very clear that the child, when he/she comes of age, is still required to make a decision whether to accept Christ as their Lord and Savior. It is not possible for parents to make this choice. The hope is that if the parents adhere to their vows, that the child in the normal cause of events will accept Jesus.
The child baptism does not save your child. In fact no baptism saves a person. Only faith in the Lord Jesus Christ does. Nothing we can do will save us. Works definitely does not save us.
· Ephesians 2:8–9 - 8 For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast.
I baptized my children as babies and they have all come to Christ at a very young age, between 9 and 12 years old. That in some way proves that God honors your vows if you execute them in the power of the Holy Spirit.
There are some churches that link child baptism to the covenant of God where boys were circumcised at 8 days old. I personally do not see the link in the Bible. But that does not renege the fact that you as a parent make a holy vow to God to raise your children in the ways of the Lord.
The problem with child/baby baptism in today’s churches is that many parents baptize their children out of tradition or some other reason. You see many of the parents only the three weeks or so before the baptism and then only when there is a second or third baptism. What they do not understand is that vows made with God, if you do not keep them, is an abomination in the eyes of God. What you reap you will sow. This is amongst other things, why we see such children struggling to make a commitment to Christ or they battle to keep their passion for the Lord. The example they were given by their so called “Christian” parents did not reflect the love of Christ.
It is interesting to note that families were baptized in the New Testament. Logic says there must have been children involved. The only difference there was that the parents came to Christ dramatically and would have reared their children in the ways of the Lord. Their example alone would have shown their children to Christ as the Redeemer.
Conversion baptism:
Conversion baptism, normally through submersion, is a public statement by a child of God that he/she has accepted Christ as his/her savior and submits willingly to the discipline of the church. We are saved by faith alone. Baptism does not save us.
If it was such a deal, Jesus would have stated it somewhere in His preaching. He also would not have said to the man on the cross: “This day you will be in paradise”. In addition, Jesus never baptized anybody. Only John and His disciples did.
What I do want to stress is that if God asks you to be baptized, you must do it as you will then be obedient to His command for you. But please do not look at other Christians that do not have the same conviction as you have, in a derogatory way. Stop trying to get people to be baptized. You may be putting a burden on them that they are not ready to commit to. The Holy Spirit will convict them when the time is right.
One of the major problems of the conversion baptism is the over zealousness of some of the Pentecostal and Charismatic churches to want to baptize new converts. I say over zealous as they put this burden on the covert in a non-biblical way. In many instances they will baptize the new converts without ensuring that their conversion was genuine and that unless you do so you will not see the kingdom of God. That is not correct.
In case in point: I had a youngster on the farm that attended a Pentecostal church. He said he came to Christ. He was a young man that I took out of jail as his parole officer, he approach the other young man that lives on the farm to baptize him in our swimming pool. The young man had at that stage not come to Christ and refused, on enquiry the parolee said to me that he wanted to be baptized to “get closer to God’. I explained to him that baptism was a public declaration that he was a child of God. For no other reason. I refused to baptize him.
Within 3 weeks of that conversation he came to me that he was baptized that Sunday in the church. I found that strange that the pastors did so in light of why he wanted to be baptized. After this incident he started lying, accused me of not lying to protect him, wrote off my LDV through disobedience, accused me of being a very bad person, etc. It almost ended in me losing all the insurance money on the vehicle. My research indicated that he told lies upon lies. He also said if I lost the claim it would be just deserts as I did not want to back up his lies.
At one stage he procured a position. I asked him to be open and honest with his employer about his past. He came back a few days later, furious at the employer that he was terminated. On enquiry he did not adhere to my advice. Lying seems to be part of his life. That does not seem to show the fruits of a person coming to Christ.
Things became so bad that I had to ask him to leave the farm. That was after we fed him for many months and gave him finances. At that stage he owed me a lot of money as I had to pay off his vehicle to prevent it from being repossessed, had to repair his vehicle to be roadworthy, etc. And all we got in exchange was degrading remarks. We do not expect gratitude ourselves but at least expect them to be grateful to God and to show the fruit of his conversion.
He was in the news again after he left us for stealing his mother’s car and laptop, and was overheard in a pub threatening girls that he will assault them as he did assaulted his girlfriend and father; the reason he was in jail in the first place.
So pastors: Don’t be over zealous. Make sure that they have genuinely accepted Christ before you baptize them. Baptism does not save a person from damnation. Only faith in Jesus Christ does. Our seal is not the baptism but the Holy Spirit we receive at the moment of salvation.
Relevance Scripture:
· John 3:16 - 16 “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.
· John 6:35 - Then Jesus declared, “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never go hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.
· John 6:47 - 47 Very truly I tell you, the one who believes has eternal life.
· John 11:25 - Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in me will live, even though they die”
· John 20:31 - But these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.
· Acts 16:31- 31 And they said, “Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved, you and your household.”
· Titus 3:5- 5 He saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit,
· 1 Corinthians 1:17 - 17 For Christ did not send me to baptize but to preach the gospel, and not with words of eloquent wisdom, lest the cross of Christ be emptied of its power.
· Ephesians 1:13 - 13 In him you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit.
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