Infant Baptism

Membership in the Kingdom

Genesis 17:10-14 (Circumcision was the sign of God’s covenant, and the rite of membership)

This is my covenant, which you shall observe between me and you, and thy seed after thee: All the male kind of you shall be circumcised: And you shall circumcise the flesh of your foreskin, that it may be for a sign of the covenant between me and you.

Colossians 2:11-12 (Baptism replaces circumcision)

In whom also you are circumcised with circumcision not made by hand in despoiling of the body of the flesh, but in the circumcision of Christ: Buried with him in baptism, in whom also you are risen again by the faith of the operation of God, who hath raised him up from the dead.

Acts 2:38-39 (Children are included in the New Covenant)

But Peter said to them: Do penance, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ, for the remission of your sins: and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost. For the promise is to you and to your children, and to all that are far off, whomsoever the Lord our God shall call.

Luke 18:15-17 (Christ commands infant access to the Kingdom)

And they brought unto him also infants, that he might touch them. Which when the disciples saw, they rebuked them. But Jesus, calling them together, said: Suffer children to come to me, and forbid them not: for of such is the kingdom of God.

John 3:5 (Baptism is necessary to enter the Kingdom)

Jesus answered: Amen, amen I say to thee, unless a man be born again of water and the Holy Ghost, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God.

Family Salvation

1 Corinthians 7:14 (Corinthian children were made covenantally holy)

For the unbelieving husband is sanctified by the believing wife, and the unbelieving wife is sanctified by the believing husband: otherwise your children should be unclean, but now they are holy.

Acts 16:15

And when she was baptized, and her household, she besought us, saying: If you have judged me to be faithful to the Lord, come into my house, and abide there. And she constrained us.

Acts 16:33

And he, taking them the same hour of the night, washed their stripes: and himself was baptized, and all his house immediately.

1 Corinthians 1:16

And I baptized also the household of Stephanus; besides, I know not whether I baptized any other.