Chrysostom – On the epistle to the Hebrews (emphasis mine)

“Baptism is a cross, and ‘our old self was crucified with him,’ for we were ‘united with him in a death like his’ and again, ‘we were buried therefore with him by baptism unto death.’…For as Christ died on the cross, so do we in baptism, not as the flesh but as to sin. Behold two deaths. He died as to the flesh. In our case, the old self was buried and the new self arose, made conformable to the likeness of his death….For baptism is nothing else than the putting to death of the baptised and his rising again.” 

Theodoret of Cyr – Interpretation of Hebrews 6

“We are buried with him in baptism, and we rise with him, so it is not possible for us to enjoy the gift of baptism again…Our former self was crucified with him in baptism by receiving the type of death…This baptism of ours…is one only, for the reason that it involves the type of the saving passion and resurrection and prefigures for us the resurrection to come.”

Photius – Fragments on the epistle to the Hebrews 6.6

“Christ was crucified once for all, and we have been crucified together with him through baptism.”

Tertullian – The Chaplet

“When we are about to enter the water, and, as a matter of fact, even a short while before, we declare in the presence of the congregation before the bishop that we renounce the devil, his pomps and his angels. After that, we are immersed in the water three times, making a somewhat fuller pledge than the Lord has prescribed in the gospel.”

I have a question for any of my readers who ascribes to an infant baptism position, because there is something I’ve never understood despite having read a fair number of books outlining this view. I understand the view of one covenant of grace but what I don’t understand is this: How can baptism which is indisputably a type of death and resurrection, a death to self and sin, how can that possibly apply in the case of an infant?

Whatever the gain of infant baptism, isn’t there a deep loss in the one being baptised not being able to consciously and willingly identify with the death and resurrection of Christ and at the same time see this action as their own death to sin and self, and that it is also a sign of their hope of salvation now and in the future?

I’ve attended several infant baptisms of wonderful faith filled parents and I just can’t see how this aspect of baptism has any genuine application and presence in the rite at all. So if anyone has a good answer or can point me to a good answer I’d be interested in reading it.