Malankara World

What Shall I Do To Be Saved?

By Rev. Dr. Curian Kaniyamparambil


Question 55. Can infants who are not yet able to believe, and people who didn't have the opportunity to believe, be saved?

There were people who objected infant baptism even during the early periods of the church. Their views were based on an argument that, infants couldn't believe in Jesus Christ.

1) When God works with us, it starts with God initiating it. In this process our duty as humans is to commit to, and obey to His acts (King's Highway). E.g. Peter, Andrew, Jacob, John, Matthew, and Saul. They were all called to God before they believed in Jesus Christ. It was God's plan. The important factor is that they obeyed the call.

2) There are many examples in the Bible, which proves that infants can receive blessings from God (Matt. 19:14) before birth (Jeremiah 1:5, Luke 1:15,45). They can even get into the covenant with God on the 8th day after birth (Genesis 17:12). This is because infants belong to God, before and after birth. (Psalms 22:9, 10; 139:13; Judges 13:2, 5; 1 Sam 1:27)

It is obvious that children and infants will receive blessings from God. God even calls people who are non-believers. Further more we can also see that?

1) Not only for infants and non-followers, a person can receive blessings from God by virtue of another persons belief. The examples are:-

2) When God approaches us we should commit ourselves to Him. God came to us in order to save us when we were sinners. God became man for our salvation, because of God's grace alone and never because we requested Him to. Please refer to the following versus:

The above versus, reveals an obvious truth, that God acts on a person without his knowledge.

But again people who argue for baptism by faith hides Mark 16:17-18. "And (who believe) they will handle snakes; and if they should drink any poison of death, it will not harm them; and they will lay their hands on the sick, and they will be healed." [Snake in Aramaic is an idiom for enemies]

In the case of anyone who is unable to do these miracles mentioned above, does it not mean that he did not believe? Are all those, baptized after believing, able to do these signs? A few may, but many who have received child baptism have done these miracles too.

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