User talk:Abraham Udoh

God says infant baptism is wrong. Consider the following passage:

Acts 8.35-37 (KJV) 35 Then Philip opened his mouth, and began at the same scripture, and preached unto him Jesus. 36 And as they went on their way, they came unto a certain water: and the eunuch said, See, here is water; what doth hinder me to be baptized? 37 And Philip said, If thou believest with all thine heart, thou mayest. And he answered and said, I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God. 38 And he commanded the chariot to stand still: and they went down both into the water, both Philip and the eunuch; and he baptized him.

God has made it clear in this passage that before anyone can be baptised, they must meet this prerequisite: they must believe with all their heart that Yahshua is The Son of God. Philip knew this was true in the case of the eunuch, because the eunuch confessed it with his mouth.

In the case of an infant who cannot yet speak, how can we possibly know whether or not they believe with all of their heart that Yahshua is The Son of God? We can’t. Furthermore, in the case of an infant who is not yet old enough to understand spoken or written words, it’s clear that they cannot even understand what the words ‘If thou believest with all thine heart, thou mayest’ mean, let alone believe them.

As such, we must conclude that an infant does not meet the prerequisite which God has set for a person to be ready to be baptised in water and so if whilst we are seeking to fulfil God’s command to ’[go] … and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost…’ (Matthew 28.19), we encounter (as I have many times) someone who says “I have been baptised” and we find out after probing that this was as a baby, we know we have some explaining to do, since this baptism was completely and utterly ineffectual.

To respond to Peter Turner's question about whether the infants in Cornelius' household were rebaptised when they reached the age of majority, I would pose the following question: why do you assume there were any children in Cornelius' household that were so young that they couldn't understand the meaning of spoken (or indeed written) words, hence being too young to believe that Yahshua is The Son of God, hence being too young to be baptised?

Now let's think about the assertion above that John's baptism was invalid. If we examine the scripture quoted (Acts19.3-5), we find that nowhere did Paul say John's baptism was invalid. We actually find that it was a different baptism to being baptised in The Name of The Lord Jesus. There was nothing wrong with it. It was God's will for their lives, as He makes clear in John 7.29-30:

28 For I say to you, among those born of women there is not a greater prophet than John the Baptist;[d] but he who is least in the kingdom of God is greater than he.” 29 And when all the people heard Him, even the tax collectors justified God, having been baptized with the baptism of John. 30 But the Pharisees and lawyers rejected the will of God for themselves, not having been baptized by him.