Why won’t you baptize babies? Isn’t that denying them Christ? And isn’t eight years old just made up?
The Bible answers
King James Version
He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved.
NRSVUE
The one who believes and is baptized will be saved.
Our explanation
He that believeth and is baptized. Belief is in the sentence.
King James Version
Suffer little children, and forbid them not, to come unto me: for of such is the kingdom of heaven.
NRSVUE
Let the children come to me, and do not stop them, for it is to such as these that the kingdom of heaven belongs.
The Book of Mormon answers
Moroni 8:8–12, 22
Little children are whole, for they are not capable of committing sin… he that saith that little children need baptism denieth the mercies of Christ… they are alive in Christ.
Our explanation
Little children are alive in Christ. Infant baptism is a solemn mockery.
Doctrine and Covenants 68:25–27
Children shall be baptized for the remission of their sins when eight years old, and receive the laying on of the hands.
Dead Sea Scrolls and related extra-biblical texts that illuminate the same pattern the Restoration restores.
Believers’ baptism in the earliest layers of Christian practice
Acts baptizes those who hear, repent, and receive the word. Infant baptism as a solution to inherited guilt is a later pastoral system, not the New Testament’s obvious default.
Latter-day Saints stand with the book of Moroni and with every parent who has watched a toddler and known they are not damned.
Gospel Topics
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
We bless babies. We do not baptize them. Original sin as inherited damnation is what Moroni calls a solemn mockery. Eight years old is when a child can begin to be accountable, with parents still teaching. Christ’s Atonement covers them until then without a font.
Little children need Christ. They do not need to be declared guilty to get Him.
Be the first to tell us if this case is strong.
