Despite the New Testament’s clear teaching and practice, some denominations take a contradictory position. They apply water to a baby and call that baptism or “christening.” They say this makes the newborn a Christian, a member of the New Covenant. “Christening” creates other problems.
- The baby has no choice. As a remedy, these denominations try to “confirm” the child’s commitment later, at a responsible age. In this way, they introduce concepts foreign to the Bible. (Neither “christening” nor related “confirmation” appear in the Bible, and neither fits the Bible’s descriptions of the New Covenant.)
- “Christening” is usually the sprinkling of a little water. This ignores the Bible’s description of baptism as a kind of burial (Romans 6:4), which involves plenty of water (John 3:23 cf. Matthew 3:6-16; Acts 8:36-39). “Baptize” borrows the New Testament’s Greek word baptidzo, which means to dip or to plunge. (Greek has a separate word for sprinkling, rantidzo, which is never used for baptism.)
Despite the Bible’s definitions, children are told they were baptized—when that is not so. In biblical terms, sprinkling is not baptism. Even if the form is correct, the mere act of dipping is meaningless without personal faith and repentance (cf. Colossians 2:12).
- Baptizing babies leads to later consequences. Remember baptism’s vital purpose: “be baptized… for the forgiveness of your sins” (Acts 2:38 cf. Acts 22:16). Babies need no forgiveness. Some might think, “Well then, the baby is neither helped nor harmed.” Great harm is done as those children grow up thinking they have been baptized already. Thus, they never obey Acts 2:38, even when they grow old enough to need forgiveness. Consequently, they never receive the promises that go with repentance and baptism in Acts 2:38-Many of them, thinking of themselves as “Christians” from birth, never feel the need for a belief and commitment of their own, much less biblical baptism. Many millions of people, generation after generation, have been led down this path of pretended Christianity.