Baptism brings us into God’s family, and establishes a relationship between the person getting baptised and God. Baptism makes us a new creation, just like the waters in Genesis and the flood. In baptism we undergo death, we share in Christ’s death on the cross but we are raised up to new life coming out of the water. In the Gospel accounts, Jesus asks to be baptised. We may think, Jesus is God, and doesn’t have sin, why then does Jesus need to be baptised? Of course Jesus didn’t have to be, but a few ideas why he chose to. 

 

1)Jesus became human, just like us. He wanted to demonstrate to us how to follow and be faithful to God. Jesus showed us that we too need to be baptised. 

 

2) Jesus fulfils the covenant of Baptism, and makes it new. (see Matthew 3:15)

 

3) As Jesus is Divine, by being baptised in water, he cleanses the water, and blesses it. 

 

Many Protestant Churches highly regard baptism and believe it to be an essential part in the lives of Christians. However most Non-Catholic Christians do not agree that baptism saves, as they see it only in a symbolic way.

 

Even though baptism saves us, there are exceptions. According to Sacred Tradition, if someone dies for the faith, if they are martyred or confessed Christ, though are not baptized in water, the Church says that they may be saved. We need to understand as well that baptism does not guarantee salvation. The grace we receive at baptism needs to grow in faith, and be treated with respect, as all sacraments do. A person only is baptised once. Being baptised more than once is actually a sin as it can be acknowledging that the grace we received from our first baptism wasn’t efficient enough.  Even when someone comes into the Catholic faith from another Christian denomination, he or she isn’t baptised if they had already been at their own church. 

 

The Bible teaches about how we ought to be baptised in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit (see Matthew 28:19). This is called a Trinitarian baptism, and is considered the only valid form of baptism.

 

Infant baptism is one aspect of baptism that many Evangelical Christians disagree on. However in the Bible, we do not find a child raised in a Christ believing household who waits until a certain age to be baptised. Even though it isn’t explicitly mentioned in the Bible, young children/infants would have been baptised with their family when the family converted to Christianity. (see Acts 16:31)

 

In the Catholic Church, infants are commonly baptised, with their parents making the declaration of faith on behalf of the child. The parents and the Church congregation make promises that they will raise the child to know God and be a model of faith for the child. It is the parent’s responsibility to strive to pass on the true faith to their child. Saying this can come as a shock to many Evangelical Christians, as they may believe we need to give the child themselves the opportunity to say “yes” to God on their own accord. However, when the child grows up if they are baptised as an infant, they need to live out their faith, so it becomes fruitful. All baptised, whether as an infant or as an adult, need to be saying “yes” to God’s will and following Him with their hearts and minds, every day. In the Old Testament, infants were circumcised, in the New Covenant, infants are baptised into the family of God. 

 

If you ever attend Mass or visit a Catholic Church of any kind, as you walk in you’ll find a little font with water in it. This is called holy water. Holy water symbolises and reminds Catholics of their baptism and their promises that were made. When we dip our fingers in the water and make the sign of the cross we are becoming one with the physical and spiritual Church. 

 

“He [Jesus] came to save all through himself; all, I say, who through him are reborn in God: infants, and children, and youths, and old men. Therefore he passed through every age, becoming an infant for infants, sanctifying infants; a child for children, sanctifying those who are of that age . . . [so that] he might be the perfect teacher in all things, perfect not only in respect to the setting forth of truth, perfect also in respect to relative age” Irenaeus, (Against Heresies 2:22:4 [A.D. 189]).