Baptism

Chapter 13: Baptism

“Baptism is literally … a transplanting, or resurrection from one life to another—the life of sin to the life of spiritual life.”

We were blessed to have a guest teacher today in Relief Society, Sister Amy Taylor! Wow, that is all I have to say. She did a marvelous job. I wish I could convey the spirit that was in that room with us. I will just have to relay the notes I took though. 

She began by breaking up the topic up into 4 topics. Symbol, Mercy, Covenant, and Way of Life.

1. Symbol

        1. Birth

        2. Death

        3. Ressurection

Page 73, the third bullet says: 3) Baptism is literally, as well as a figure of the resurrection, a transplanting, or resurrection from one life to another—the life of sin to the life of spiritual life.

2. Mercy

Little children who have not reached the years of accountability do not need baptism because they are redeemed through the Atonement of Jesus Christ.

Children are not capable of sin before the age of accountability. 

Joseph Fielding Smith related the following story:

I remember when I was in the mission field in England, there was an American family there. … When [the husband] heard the Elders preaching on the streets he invited them to his home because they were his countrymen. He was not interested in the gospel; he was interested in them because they also came from the United States. Well, I happened to be laboring there. I was not the first he heard preach, but later I was invited to his home. …

We thought we would go to his home and talk baseball and football and other things, and compare things in the United States with things in Great Britain—things that he was interested in. That is what we did, and at first we did not say a word about religion. We went back several times, and he thought we were pretty good fellows because we were not trying to crowd our religion down his throat. But after a while they began to ask questions—we knew they would—and one evening as we sat in their home the man’s wife turned to me and said: “Elder Smith, I want to ask you a question.” Before she could ask her question she began to cry. I did not know what the matter was. She sobbed, and when she had composed herself enough to ask the question she told me this story:

When they went over to England they had the misfortune of losing a little baby. … They went to the minister [of the church they were attending] and wanted to have that baby laid away with a Christian burial. … The minister said to her: “We can’t give your child a Christian burial because it was not christened. Your baby is lost.” That was a rather blunt way to put it, but that is the way she told the story, and that woman’s heart had been aching and aching for two or three years. So she asked the question of me: “Is my baby lost? Will I never see it again?” I turned and read to her from the Book of Mormon the words of Mormon to his son Moroni [see Moroni 8]. I said: “Your baby is not lost. No baby is lost. Every baby is saved in the kingdom of God when it dies.”

Moroni tells us that it is a mockery to God to not accept his mercies.
I know that little children who have not reached years of accountability, and hence are not guilty of sin, are … redeemed through the blood of Christ, and it is solemn mockery to contend that they need baptism, denying the justice and mercy of God [see Moroni 8:20–23].

Mercy and Love is for ALL of us.

3. Covenant
Every person baptized into the church has made a covenant with the Lord.

Covenants made:
1. Bear one another's burdens
2. Take name of Christ upon us
3. Witnesses of him
4. Keep his commandments
5. Always remember him

Promises
1. Gift of the Holy Ghost
2. Member of his church
3. ETERNAL LIFE

4. Way of LifeTo gain the full blessings of the gospel, we must continue to be humble, repentant, and obedient after we are baptized.

If we are humble, we will be repentant and if we are repentant we will be obedient.