Baptism is a matter of life and death eternal, it is not to be taken lightly or symbolically. Baptism saves you now and places the seal of God on the baptised foreheads which seals the living soul as a child of God.
The most significant sign that the Apostles have handed down to us is
the (SEAL) sign of the Cross, which has identified every Christian since the resurrection. **The Catholic church baptizes in this sign which God places a seal on the foreheads of each baptized **soul, be it infant, child, adult, old age, a death bed, and never excluding the mentally or physical handicapped. This seal is a promise from God that these baptized into Jesus Christ will be protected from the eschatological woes and curses of the broken covenant, because the baptized are saved and protected.
God set his seal upon Jesus; Baptized Christians are sealed in the Living God of which we cry out “Abba Father”. Only the Baptized can call God “Abba Father” for these are children of God.
Ezekiel 9: 3
Then he called to the man dressed in linen with the writer’s case at his waist,
4
1 saying to him: Pass through the city (through Jerusalem) **and mark an X on the foreheads **of those who moan and groan over all the abominations that are practiced within it.
5
To the others I heard him say: **Pass through the city after him and strike! Do not look on them with pity nor show any mercy! **6
Old men, youths and maidens, women and children–wipe them out! But do not touch any marked with the X; begin at my sanctuary. So they began with the men (the elders) who were in front of the temple.
John 6: 27
Do not work for food that perishes but for the food that endures for eternal life, 15 which the Son of Man will give you.
For on him the Father, God, has set his seal."
2 Corinthians 1: 21 But the one who gives us security with you in Christ and who anointed us is God;
22 **he has also put his seal upon us and given the Spirit in our hearts as a first installment. **
Revelations 7: 2
Then I saw another angel come up from the East, 3
holding the seal of the living God. He cried out in a loud voice to the four angels who were given power to damage the land and the sea,
3
**“Do not damage the land or the sea or the trees until we put the seal on the foreheads of the servants of our God.” **
13
Then one of the elders spoke up and said to me, “Who are these wearing white robes, and where did they come from?”
14
I said to him, “My lord, you are the one who knows.” He said to me, **"These are the ones who have survived the time of great distress; 8 they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. **
Revelation 9: 4
**They were told not to harm the grass of the earth or any plant or any tree, but only those people who did not have the seal of God on their foreheads. **
5
**They were not allowed to kill them but only to torment them for five months; 4 the torment they inflicted was like that of a scorpion when it stings a person.
6
During that time these people will seek death but will not find it, and they will long to die but death will escape them. **
Archeological discoveries in the Roman catacombs have long-ago proven that infant baptism was common in the primitive Roman Churches. Two clear examples, among dozens of similar inscriptions, are all that we really need to support this claim. A man with the resounding Roman/Latin name of Murtius Verinus placed on the tomb of his children the inscription: “Verina received Baptism at the age of ten months, Florina at the age of twelve months.” The date of this tomb has been firmly established by radio-carbon dating of the children’s bones as being 105 AD +/- 4 years. Another tomb, not far away from this one, has the inscription: “Here rests Achillia, a newly-baptized infant; she was one year and five months old, died February 23rd…” and then follows the year of the reigning emperor, which dates her death to 91 AD. [see W. Wall, “History of Infant Baptism”, 2 Vols., London, 1900. and other related articles in various archeological journals from early this century.]
Those infant baptisms are dated prior to the New Testament canon being defined and possibly pre-date John’s writing of Revelations…
Baptism is how true Christians recieve the SEAL OF OUR LIVING GOD ON OUR FOREHEADS. Believing is not a seal from God, recieved on the forehead, baptism is the washing by the Lambs blood which takes away the sin of the world, this washing of sin from the soul can only come by baptism in Jesus Christ.
).
No, not at all.