By baptism we are made partakers in the death of Christ. Through our baptismal death we have been condemned to death and have died, just as Christ died once and for all. There can be no repetition of His sacrifice, therefore the baptised person dies in Christ once and for all. Now he is dead.
The daily dying of the Christian life is merely the consequence of the one baptismal death, just as the tree dies after its roots have been cut away. Henceforth the law which governs the life of the baptised is: "Likewise reckon ye yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin" (Romans 6:11). From now on the baptised can know themselves only as dead men, in whom everything necessary for salvation has already been accomplished.
The baptised live, not by a literal repetition of this death, but by a constant renewal of their faith in the death of Christ as His act of grace in us. The source of their faith lies in the once-and-for-allness of Christ's death, which they have experienced in their baptism.
This element of finality in baptism throws significant light on the question of infant baptism. The problem is not whether infant baptism is baptism at all, but that the final and unrepeatable character of infant baptism necessitates certain restrictions in its use... As far as infant baptism is concerned, it must be insisted that the sacrament should be administered only where there is a firm faith present which remembers Christ's deed of salvation wrought for us once and for all. That can only happen in a living Christian community.
- Dietrich Bonhoeffer, The Cost of Discipleship
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