Mark 10:15

Verily I say unto you, Whosoever shall not receive the kingdom of God as a little child, he shall in no wise enter therein. And he took them in his arms, and blessed them, and laid his hands upon them.

As a little child ... How does one receive the kingdom of God as a little child? Clearly, the reference is to well-behaved, normal, loving children; and the qualities in view are: trustfulness, humility, obedience, spontaneity, forgetfulness of injury, slight, or hurt, and a total lack of prejudice. Teachableness is perhaps another.

And he took them in his arms, and blessed them ... One is amazed to find an argument for infant baptism in such a place as this. Adam Clarke wrote:

If Christ embraced them, why should not his church embrace them? Why not dedicate them to God by baptism? - whether that be performed by sprinkling washing, or immersion? (He even went on to add:) It is grossly heathenish to deprive little children of such an ordinance.[19]

See the refutation of Adam Clarke by W. N. Clarke under Mark 10:12, above. The great prophecy of the new covenant in Jeremiah 31:31-35 absolutely denies the concept that would include infant children in the kingdom of God, since it is declared there (by necessary inference) that one must know the Lord before he can be in the kingdom of God. The violation of God's will in this regard through the inclusion of unregenerated infants in the kingdom has been the historical gateway through which every possible type of unbeliever has found his way into what is called the church; and this, perhaps more than anything else, has made of the historical church a kingdom, not of God, but of the evil one.

If the so-called baptism of an infant can make him a member of the kingdom of God, then such a person is saved without being taught, without repentance, without confession, without the new birth, and without anything under the sun except a few drops of water. That is truly "water salvation," and it should be rejected as foreign to everything in the New Testament. And, as for the allegation that sprinkling and pouring are permissible "forms" of Christian baptism, such is denied by every text bearing on this question in the whole New Testament. See my Commentary on Hebrews, Hebrews 6; also my Commentary on Romans, Romans 6.

And he took them in his arms and blessed them ... This verse is peculiar to Mark; but it is no basis for the fulsome comments which refer to this as "a matchless touch," proving of course that Mark is the "original gospel"![20] This is not a "matchless touch" at all, as there are many examples of some vivid gesture, look, action, or saying of Jesus being given by Matthew and omitted by Mark. One should therefore be careful to avoid the implied conclusion based upon this type of exegesis.

[19] Adam Clarke, Commentary on the Whole Bible (London: T. Mason and Company, 1829), Vol. V, p. 322.

[20] Richard Erdman, op. cit., p. 154.