Sin makes us unholy and imperfect. Therefore, Be Holy and Be Perfect is to be without sin, and being without sin is impossible for humans to achieve without the union with God. While our sacrificing, loving, praying, and forgiving do not make us holy or in union with God, un-sacrificing, unloving, un-praying, and unforgiving can sour, strain, and jeopardize our union with God. How can a sinner unite with the Holy and Perfect God? No set of rules, prohibitions, laws, sacrifices, readings, prayers or actions can make us holy, except the union with the Holy and the Perfect God. This does not mean a blend between dark and light or a sinner and Holy, or death and Life. Rather, it is the Holy gift of grace saying, “Let there be” (Genesis 1:3) that cleanses us of sin, and makes us holy and perfect in union with God.
Therefore, first we need a new birth in this new creation. Christ gifts us with this new birth in Baptism. This is our day of marriage. A man can say many loving words in good and bad, in poverty and richness, in health and wealth, and in day and night, but that alone would not create the obvious blend of the genetic codes of the two partners to create their child offspring. What is required to validate the marital union is the consummation of the marriage in the blending of the two genetic codes to form the offspring child. In other words, reading the Scripture alone or praying alone cannot create the union with God but a valid Baptism alone can.
Certainly God can create the union with man by His words “Let there be,” and God designed Baptism as the normal method to form that union. As such a valid marriage is very much like a valid Baptism; but rather than two humans becoming one flesh, in Baptism a human and the Creator become one flesh. Therefore, a valid marriage means the consummation of the union between a man and a woman to form the marital bond and make the two as one flesh. After thousands of years, science now is able to blend the genetic code of the man and the woman in laboratories without the two consummating the blended genetic code in the normal designed way. In like manner, the Creator can create the union between a Man and God outside the established Baptism in water and Holy Spirit. However, taking the path outside the normal consummation of the marital union, and outside the Baptism of water and Holy Spirit, increases the risk and may provide a false sense of union. The best path is to follow the normal way designed by God for the blend of the Genetic Code and for the union between Man and God.
After Baptism the two become one flesh. A valid Baptism is similar to a valid marriage and is likewise a union of marriage. It is a sacrificial love that produces a new Flesh that differs from the prior individual persona. Christ explains to Nicodemus that being born by water and Spirit means to be born again. This is a blending of two personas – Man and the Spirit which is God. God used the visual image of water (which is the primary material of Man) and Spirit (which is to most people invisible) to explain the persona of God. Before and after Baptism, the visible water remains the same to most observers, and the invisible Holy Spirit remains invisible. Christ states to Nicodemus that Baptism is a new birth which implies to be born anew. When we look closer at the visible water element Christ used to symbolize the visible person, we note that water consists of a union of two elements – oxygen and hydrogen. In other words, Christ is indicating that although the validly baptized appear unchanged after Baptism, they are formed by a blended union of invisible Spirits.
Note that water and Spirit are used in Scripture when indicating formation of a new life. Even a human is formed surrounded by amniotic watery fluid. Christ used the water symbol that He gifts as the water of Life, “the water I shall give will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life” (John 4:14). Wouldn't you wish it is you asking Christ for his spring water for you, your children, and those you love dearly saying, “Sir, give me this water, so that I will not be thirsty or have to come here to draw water.” (John 4:15). Christ knows our needs before we ask them. Therefore He founded His Church with authority to speak in His Persona in the exact way Christ would speak and with authority to baptize us anew by water and the Holy Spirit. And in like manner, the appearance of the valid priest remains the same as before his consecration, but after consecration, the priest acts in union with the Persona of Christ. No prayers, requests, reading, actions or a human have the power to unite a human with the Creator, except when the Creator Himself speaks the words, “Let there be.” Baptism is a gift of grace from Christ, and as such it is Christ alone who can gift this incredible grace.
Therefore, the person speaking the words of Christ to perform a Baptism must have the authority from Christ, to miraculously unite a human with the Creator. The authority does not come from any schooling or earthly courts. The validly consecrated priest has authority from Christ and acts in union with Christ’s persona regardless of the sins the priest may commit. A valid baptized person has entered into a new union of love bond with Christ who is God, and thus has entered into a marital bond with the Creator.
The Creator can speak the life giving words of, “Let there be,” uniting any human in many other ways than Baptism, but Baptism is His established and favorite norm. Therefore, Baptism is a great celebration in heaven and on earth. Before Baptism the person who inherited permanent death from the ancestors Adam and Eve is completely dead. After Baptism everlasting life becomes reality as long as we remain united with God when we reach our earthly death. Baptism therefore returns the baptized to the same state as Adam and Eve's initial of birth with minor exceptions. The exception is that our physical body must go through an earthly physical death while maintaining the new marital union with the Creator.
The words of Christ created Adam and gave him life from mud and Christ absolutely can give this gift and grace of union to babies, children, adults, the blind, and the mute. It is Christ who said that, “For I tell you, God can raise up children to Abraham from these stones” (Matthew 3:9). Therefore, not only can babies be baptized, but they should be. The opportunity to abide with the Creator is itself the Everlasting Life. Any gift offered by Christ who is God to anyone is the most generous and incredible opportunity that is worth sacrificing our earthly life for without hesitation. St. Paul summarized the grace to unite with the Creator as, “For if we live, we live for the LORD, and if we die, we die for the LORD; so then, whether we live or die, we are the LORD’s” (Romans 14:8). Living in unity with Christ who is God is “Eternal Life” (John 6:60), “Peace” (John 14:27), “Everlasting Way” (Psalm 139:24), “Love” (1 John 4:8), “Perfect” (Matthew 5:48), “Holy” (Leviticus 11:44), and “Truth” (John 14:6).