by Terry Wane Benton<\/p>\n
Babies should not be baptized. They haven’t sinned, don’t disbelieve or believe, don’t know what repentance is about, and can’t confess Jesus. Dunking such persons in water only gets them wet. Calling it baptism does not make it “in the name of the Lord<\/em>” (Acts 2:38).<\/p>\n The Ethiopian Eunuch asked Philip, “Here is water! What hinders me from being baptized?<\/em>” (Acts 8:33ff) Notice that he believes he needs to be baptized, but he wants to know if there are matters to attend to that come before <\/b>baptism. You don’t just dunk someone in the water and presto, it is valid for God’s blessings.<\/p>\n Some things must precede baptism. Philip said, “If you believe with all your heart, you may<\/em>.” Without believing with all the heart, baptism is just getting wet. God does not give remission of sins to those who merely got dunked in the water.<\/p>\n An unbeliever should not be baptized until he believes with all his heart. A person who does not believe with all his heart and who will not repent (turn around) from a sinful and self-centered life to a life centered on doing God’s will. Repent and <\/b>be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ (Acts 2:38). Godly sorrow leads to repentance (II Corinthians 7:7ff). A person with no godly sorrow and repentance is not ready to be baptized.<\/p>\n Confessing Jesus is essential (Romans 10:9-10). If one is not ready and willing to confess Jesus with the mouth because he believes in Him with all his heart, then he is not ready to be baptized into union with Christ (Romans 6:3-6). The lack of these things would have hindered the Ethiopian Eunuch from being baptized.<\/p>\n You can see then that not everyone should be baptized if they are not prepared in heart to be scripturally baptized. We obey “from the heart<\/em>” (Romans 6:3-6,17-18). Everyone needs to have their heart properly prepared to be baptized in the name of the Lord for the remission of sins. Has your heart been properly prepared?<\/p>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" by Terry Wane Benton Babies should not be baptized. They haven’t sinned, don’t disbelieve or believe, don’t know what repentance is about, and can’t confess Jesus. Dunking such persons in water only gets them wet. Calling it baptism does not make it “in the name of the Lord” (Acts 2:38). The Ethiopian Eunuch asked Philip,…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"jetpack_seo_schema_type":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[27],"tags":[52,282],"class_list":["post-83571","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-article","tag-baptism","tag-infant-baptism"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":8987,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/do-you-have-to-know-that-baptism-is-for-the-remission-of-sins-in-order-to-be-forgiven\/","url_meta":{"origin":83571,"position":0},"title":"Do you have to know that baptism is for the remission of sins in order to be forgiven?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"March 12, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: The question I pose is, \"Does one have to have the knowledge that baptism is for the remission of sins, for such to occur?\" I understand that if one is taught by one who knows the truth, this would not even be a question. However, I can not logically\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Answer"","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":16229,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/what-should-a-person-say-prior-to-baptizing-someone\/","url_meta":{"origin":83571,"position":1},"title":"What should a person say prior to baptizing someone?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"September 3, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: Can you discuss the exchange that takes place between a preacher (or the person baptizing) and the one being baptized? What exactly should be said in this exchange? I have convinced a neighbor that his baptism is not scriptural and he would like to be baptized according to God's\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Answer"","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":23787,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/do-you-believe-you-can-only-be-saved-by-immersion-in-water-what-about-someone-who-cant-be-immersed\/","url_meta":{"origin":83571,"position":2},"title":"Do you believe you can only be saved by immersion in water? What about someone who can’t be immersed?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"June 14, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: How does one get saved who cannot physically be submerged?\u00a0 I didn\u2019t look up your references, but is seems to me (by skimming through your article of why you left the Church of the Nazarene) that the main reason you left is you believe you are saved by baptism\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Answer"","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":59920,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/taught-wrong-and-baptized-right\/","url_meta":{"origin":83571,"position":3},"title":"Taught Wrong and Baptized Right?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"March 14, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"Adapted from an article by Wayne Jones via\u00a0The Jackson Drive News & Notes, No. 14, April 10, 2005. Under the banners of acceptance and \"unity,\" many in the Lord's church have developed an open-door policy with members of the denominational world. Many, by their own admission, have chosen not to\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Article"","block_context":{"text":"Article","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/article\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":10450,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/am-i-doing-the-right-thing-by-getting-baptized-again-after-being-baptized-as-a-child\/","url_meta":{"origin":83571,"position":4},"title":"Am I doing the right thing by getting baptized again after being baptized as a child?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"June 19, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: I am getting baptized in a couple of days and I wanted to make sure I was doing the right thing. The problem is that I was baptized as a toddler in a Catholic Church. I am not Catholic and the baptism meant nothing because I lived a life\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Answer"","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":4614,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/why-were-they-baptized-so-soon\/","url_meta":{"origin":83571,"position":5},"title":"Why Were They Baptized so Soon?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"October 13, 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"by Jeffrey W. Hamilton Text: Acts 16:25-33 \u00a0 I.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0When you read through the book of Acts, an odd fact seems to stand out \u2014 everyone is in a big hurry to be baptized. \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0A.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0They don\u2019t wait for another meal, or sleep on the idea, or wait for another day to\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Audio"","block_context":{"text":"Audio","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/audio\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83571","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=83571"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83571\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=83571"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=83571"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=83571"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}