“Jesus was taken as a baby. Got dedicated. Nobody baptized him.”
Read four verses. Then decide.
- Open any Bible to Luke 2:21–24.
- Count the times Luke mentions the Law, and the times he says “dedicate.”
- Read verse 21 again. What happens on the eighth day?
- Was Jesus dedicated as a baby in Luke 2?
- Why did Mary offer two turtledoves in Luke 2:24?
- What happened to Jesus on the eighth day, Luke 2:21?
What was said
“God accepts dedication of children. Jesus was taken as a baby. Got dedicated. Nobody baptized him [or] sprinkled water. No. We don’t read that. You know they were poor parents. They were taken for dedication and then when he was adult, 30 years old, he went and got immersion baptism.”
From a sermon at a baptism service, as transcribed. No preacher, church or candidate is named.
This page does not argue that infant baptism is right. A preacher may argue against it from Scripture. The only question here is whether Luke 2 says what the sermon said it says.
What is true in it. Every firstborn son was “holy to the Lord” (Exodus 13:2), and parents who hold a dedication service are sincerely giving thanks. Baptist scholars also argue, seriously, that circumcision and baptism are not simply parallel. All fair. None of it means Luke describes a dedication.
The four verses
Tap a verse to see the law it refers to. Press “Highlight the Law” to see how Luke frames the visit.
Purification of the mother (Leviticus 12). The law of the firstborn (Exodus 13). The Law five times. “Dedication”: zero.
The verse the sermon skipped
The sermon used Jesus’ infancy to prove that babies receive no covenant sign. One verse earlier Luke writes: “when eight days were accomplished for the circumcising of the child, his name was called JESUS” (2:21). That is the sign God commanded for every baby boy in Israel: “he that is eight days old shall be circumcised among you” (Genesis 17:12).
It is worse than an oversight. The purification law Luke cites in the next verse is Leviticus 12, and its third verse reads: “in the eighth day the flesh of his foreskin shall be circumcised.” Luke tells the same eighth-day story of John the Baptist (1:59). Paul puts circumcision and baptism in one sentence (Colossians 2:11–12). People disagree about what that link means, and Dossier 57 sets out both sides. But no one can use Luke 2 to show God gives babies no sign while leaving out Luke 2:21.
Luke 2:21. On the eighth day, the baby Jesus received the covenant sign God commanded for infants.
The tell: “poor parents”
Luke never says the family was poor. You only know it if you know that two birds instead of a lamb is the poor mother’s purification offering (Leviticus 12:8). The same verse says what the offering was for: “the priest shall make an atonement for her, and she shall be clean.” It was for Mary, not the baby.
The preacher knew the passage well enough to quote the offering, and then called it something it was not.
Nothing to baptise him with
“Nobody baptized him” is true, and proves nothing. Christian baptism was commanded by the risen Christ (Matthew 28:19), more than thirty years later. John the Baptist was only six months older than Jesus (Luke 1:36), so his baptism did not exist yet either, and it was not Christian baptism anyway (Acts 19:1–5). Nobody gave the baby Jesus communion either.
Nor is Jesus’ baptism at about thirty a pattern for believer’s baptism. John’s was “the baptism of repentance for the remission of sins” (Mark 1:4), and Jesus was “without sin” (Hebrews 4:15). John tried to stop him (Matthew 3:14). The Gospels say he came “up out of the water” but do not name the mode; “immersion” is the sermon’s word. See Dossier 27 and Dossier 74.
Christian baptism did not exist until Matthew 28:19, more than thirty years later.
“We don’t follow traditions”
No verse commands a child dedication ceremony. Hannah gave Samuel to live at the sanctuary “for ever” (1 Samuel 1:22); Jesus went home to Nazareth (Luke 2:39). The service itself goes back to an Anabaptist custom of 1525, and reached English-language service books in the 1930s and 1940s, one titled “Dedication of Infants (Without Baptism)” (Dossier 04). It may be a good tradition. It is still a tradition, and it is not in Luke 2.
Incompetence or deception
- Calling a purification and a firstborn law a “dedication” misstates the text.
- Leaving out the verse about the infant’s covenant sign omits the evidence.
- Doing both at a baptism service persuades people by misinforming them.
Either the preacher did not read the passage he cited, or he read it and said otherwise. There is no third option that leaves the claim standing. Which would you accept from your doctor?
What an honest version sounds like
“On the eighth day Jesus was circumcised, as God commanded for every infant boy in Israel. Forty days later his parents took him to the temple to fulfil the law of the firstborn and Mary’s purification. Christians who baptise infants see a parallel between circumcision and baptism. I don’t think the parallel holds, and here is why.”
Same conclusion. Verse 21 intact. Which treats you as an adult?
Check it yourself
- Luke 2:21–39, then Leviticus 12 (eight verses).
- Exodus 13:1–2, 11–16 and Numbers 18:15–16: the firstborn.
- 1 Samuel 1:21–28: what Hannah actually did.
- Any commentary on Luke 2:21–24 you trust.
- Dossiers 04 (the main one), 57, 27, 74 and 73.
Want the whole case?
The full dossier sets the sermon and Luke side by side, line by line, with every reference checked.
Read the full dossier → Simple English →