Baptism

Disciple Argument
Believe and then Baptize vs. Baptize and then Believe
One major argument against Infant baptism is that "Before a person can be
baptized, he must be taught. " … A person must also believe before they are
baptized. "He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved" (Mark 16:16). It is
a command of God that everybody must repent to obey God. "And the times
of this ignorance God winked at; but now commandeth all men every where
to repent" (Acts 17:30). We must confess Christ in order to be saved …Can
an infant do any of these things? "( "Why Infant Baptism is wrong, at
http://www.gmi.edu/ ~nass7606/infants.htm)
Mark 16: 16 is not speaking chronologically. In other words, the text is not
saying first believe and then be baptized. The verbs "believe" and "baptized"
are participles. These are related to "shall be saved" as a process though not as
a condition. Any Christian who has been baptized as an infant when he
believe in Jesus Christ can confidently say, "I believe, and I have been
baptized."
The essential problem with this type of hermeneutics is the contention that
baptism is a condition for salvation. I have shown in detail that this is not so.
Most evangelicals will agree that baptism is not a condition of salvation. We
have seen that baptism is a disciplining process, a sort of registering with a
professor for further study . It is a sort of anunayanam by a teacher whereby
the child is taken into the household of the teacher for further instructions till
the child graduate. The teacher of course is the local visible church in the
visible realm and the invisible organic church in the invisble realm. The text
book is the Written Word of God as interpreted by the Holy Spirit. The
instructor is the God Parents. In this view baptism of the infants is the
initiation of the infant into the school of learning and the God Parents
undertake to teach the child and discipline them into the knowledge of Jesus.
This is exactly what the church has been doing through centuries. So we see a
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