Infant Baptism
The reason why people baptise babies is because of: tradition, the babies could die so the parents wouldn’t want them going to hell because of original sin, it is also a way of welcome and it was a dominical sacrament which is an outward and physical sign of an inward and spiritual reality.
The pro’s of having a baptism for your baby is: if you were told your baby could not survive, for the sake of tradition you could get it baptised so that it wouldn’t go to hell because the purifying of the baptism would clean the baby of it. Why they would go to hell is because of original sin, and original sin comes from the story, from the Bible, of Adam and Eve who were kicked out from paradise because Eve was tempted by the serpent, and they fell. Now tradition says that babies are born with original sin.
It is a way of welcoming the babies into the church. It is also a dominical sacrament which means that Jesus commanded it and therefore it must be carried out, although Jesus didn’t actually specify babies.
Water is used because when John the Baptist baptised Jesus he immersed Jesus in the River Jordan when Jesus was thirty. Jesus and John were cousins and when Jesus asked him to baptise him John said that he was allowed more to wash his feet then baptise him. Although Jesus was sinless (he was born from the Virgin Mary, so he had no original sin) he wanted to identify himself with sinners who knew that they needed God’s forgiveness.
Water is also used because it is symbolic of cleansing and so it washes away the sin. Water is also seen as pure, it keeps life on Earth living as nothing could live without it like faith and the love of God. It helps things to grow and therefore you grow in faith. The cross is drawn on the baby’s head because it reminds us of the suffering of Jesus and therefore Christian discipleship could be difficult. The baptism is always done in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. The cons of having your child baptised is that you
The pro’s of having a baptism for your baby is: if you were told your baby could not survive, for the sake of tradition you could get it baptised so that it wouldn’t go to hell because the purifying of the baptism would clean the baby of it. Why they would go to hell is because of original sin, and original sin comes from the story, from the Bible, of Adam and Eve who were kicked out from paradise because Eve was tempted by the serpent, and they fell. Now tradition says that babies are born with original sin.
It is a way of welcoming the babies into the church. It is also a dominical sacrament which means that Jesus commanded it and therefore it must be carried out, although Jesus didn’t actually specify babies.
Water is used because when John the Baptist baptised Jesus he immersed Jesus in the River Jordan when Jesus was thirty. Jesus and John were cousins and when Jesus asked him to baptise him John said that he was allowed more to wash his feet then baptise him. Although Jesus was sinless (he was born from the Virgin Mary, so he had no original sin) he wanted to identify himself with sinners who knew that they needed God’s forgiveness.
Water is also used because it is symbolic of cleansing and so it washes away the sin. Water is also seen as pure, it keeps life on Earth living as nothing could live without it like faith and the love of God. It helps things to grow and therefore you grow in faith. The cross is drawn on the baby’s head because it reminds us of the suffering of Jesus and therefore Christian discipleship could be difficult. The baptism is always done in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. The cons of having your child baptised is that you