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| I am a Lutheran and believe that the Holy Spirit works faith in the hearts of infants and children in baptism. But I would like your advice on what to say to Baptists and others who reject infant baptism when they say something like, "Since 'faith comes by hearing the message' (Romans 10:17), and since infants can't hear and understand the message, they can't come to faith."
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| The great truth that the Holy Spirit uses the Word of God to create faith need not and dare not be pitted against the Spirit's revealed use of Baptism to do the same thing. Passages that speak of Baptism as an instrument of rebirth (Titus 3:5) or salvation (1 Peter 3:21) also dare not be used to deny the revealed use of the Word to do the same kind of work. Why would someone conclude that the passages contradict each other?
Even if we acknowledge that infants cannot "hear and understand the message," we have not shown that they cannot receive the gift of saving faith, which is not to be confused with intellectual comprehension or rational thought. Biblical statements about infants and small children believing in Christ (Mark 9:42, 10:13-16, Matthew 18:3) and the example of John the Baptist as a fetus under the Spirit's influence (Luke 1:41) are to us sufficient to establish the possibility of the this saving work of God. The clear promises attached to Baptism in Scripture then teach us that God indeed does what he is able to do and wants to do.
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