Believer's Baptism - Theology

Theology

Christians who practice believer's baptism believe that saving grace and church membership are gifts from God by the recipient's faith alone and cannot be imparted or transferred from one person to another (such as from parent to child) by sacraments such as baptism. These tenets render infant baptism meaningless within their belief system. Because infants cannot hear or believe the gospel message, neither can they repent or profess Christ as the Son of God. Credobaptists have differing views concerning the status of children who are too young to profess faith (Matthew 19:14).

Believer’s baptism is held by Baptists, Mennonites, and many other Christians to have no saving effect, but to be a public expression of faith, symbolically representative of the inner conversion of the person being baptized. Many other Christian churches hold baptism to have salvific value.

The Churches of Christ, Disciples of Christ, and many "Bible" and non-denominational churches understand baptism to be an integral part of the conversion process, rather than just a symbol of conversion. Integral teachings of the Churches of Christ include the following:

• Baptism by immersion is a necessary part of salvation without which one cannot enter into the kingdom of God, John 3:3–5; 1 Peter 3:21
• The church, set up by Christ with the keys given to the Apostles (Matthew 16:16–18, 18:18) was established on the Day of Pentecost in Acts 2 and required baptism for "remission of sins" among the penitent believers and promised the "gift of the Holy Spirit" (Acts 2:38)
• Without the indwelling Holy Spirit obtained at the time of immersion, there is no salvation, Acts 5:32, Romans 8:9–11, 16.

There are many denominations and faith communities which hold to baptism for believers only, but do not hold that baptism contributes in any measure to salvation—which is also the view of some of the churches that do practice infant baptism. With respect to the bullet points above, these would understand the commandment to be baptized for the remission of sins in point 2 to be specific to the Jewish believers being addressed at that point in time. Their being baptized would be seen as publicly distancing themselves from the actions of the religious leaders who had participated in rejecting then crucifying Jesus. This is not to say that these see baptism as only for Jewish believers, but that that particular set of instructions at that point in time was.

Later in the book of Acts, both when Samaritans joined the church for the first time (Acts 8:12ff), and when Gentiles joined the Church for the first time (Acts 10:44ff), baptism followed immediately and was even commanded in Acts 10. Whether or not these examples of baptism that are found in the New Testament proves that children are categorically ineligible for baptism is disputed.