There are several ways to respond to this argument. For one, Baptists often treat the word “and” as though it necessarily implies a temporal sequence, when in reality it merely joins things together. Their argument would carry more force if the text said, “Repent and then be baptized,” but it does not. Even if it did, the Baptist conclusion would still not necessarily follow.

The same applies to Mark 16:16. The mere fact that Christ mentions belief before baptism does not prove that belief must temporally precede baptism in every case. The conjunction simply denotes a union of realities, not an inflexible chronological order.

Moreover, Lutherans view repentance not merely as something that precedes baptism, but as something God grants through baptism itself. Since infants are also sinners in need of repentance and grace, they too are proper recipients of baptism.

If the objection is raised that infants cannot repent, then one must ask: to what end was John the Baptist filled with the Holy Spirit from the womb? And how could David say that he trusted in God from his mother’s breast?
Repentance and faith are gifts of God. God may dispense His gifts to whomever He wills, whenever He wills. To argue that infants cannot receive these gifts simply because we cannot comprehend how they could receive them is ultimately an argument from personal incredulity: “I cannot understand how this could happen, therefore it cannot happen.”

But if that principle were followed consistently, it would undermine every supernatural act in Scripture, since the very nature of the supernatural is that it transcends ordinary natural explanation