And he that is eight days old shall be circumcised among you, every man child in your generations, ... Genesis 17:12
According to some people, I am going to hell. Some say "a devil's hell". That's probably the worst hell of all. It's because I was baptized as a little baby. I was not re-baptised as an adult, that's why I'm going to hell. So why don't I just get baptized again? It is not that I want to be with Luther and Calvin, who are being tortured in hell now. And please don't say Luther and Calvin didn't know what the Bible says about baptism.
Could it just be that my baptism "took" even though I was a baby? Could I have been set aside as one of His? I read that there are records in the catacombs of children only hours old who were baptized because they weren't going to live.
But, people say, a baby is not old enough to make such a decision. He or she must repent to be converted. True, a baby was too young to make his decision in the Old Testament also. Could it be that God can make the decision for them? That he even made a decision about them before the world was made?
My father said I was a planned child, one conceived deliberately. I'm in even deeper trouble now, but it wasn't my decision, it was his. I read about a lady known as Mercy, that was in the title of the book. She would tour the slums in China and find newborns that had been abandoned. She would immeadiatly baptize them, right where they were found. Some did not make it. They had been left alone too long, but they were baptized before they died.
Was Sister Mercy wrong? Was she the victim of an evil system, or did God receive these infants?
I have always believed that we are the children of a loving God. Although I believe it to be a powerful thing to baptize anyone, I do not believe that baptism is a magical act. I believe that God knows who is His own, and that he calls us home. Baptism is a declaration of belonging to Him which is special, but it is our own.
ReplyDeleteRight on, Jane. I would say that assuming all baptized children go to heaven is just as fantastic as assuming all children who die prior to the age of accountabilty go to heaven.
ReplyDeleteDear Gerald, I would agree, however, that a believer who was baptized as an infant need not be baptized again.