Lutheran View of Baptism: In Holy Baptism the Triune God delivers us from the forces of evil, puts our sinful self to death, gives us new birth, adopts us as children, and makes us members of the body of Christ, the Church. Holy Baptism is received by faith alone.
I have a family member who is now looking for a ministry position that may set the future direction of his ministry for years to come. I am blogging today about an issue in which I believe we disagree – namely, baptism. I support the Lutheran position, and believe it is the best supported biblical position on baptism. While I believe this family member believes baptism to be mostly a symbolic act of the inner transformation and work of the Holy Spirit. And so, I write today to explain the Lutheran position and its Biblical foundations, in hopes of encouraging this family member to consider ministry in the Lutheran Church, the Church of his father and grand-father.
1). Luther's View on Baptism. I am going to look at three reasons for my belief that the Lutheran position on Baptism is the best of the competing views. First, a quick explanation of the importance of Baptism to Lutherans. In Luther's Large Catechism, he explain that it is one of two sacraments (the other being the Lord's Supper/Communion) that are both instituted by Christ. The foundation for the Church using Baptism is from Jesus' Great Commission – "Go into all the world and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit." (Matt. 28:19). And so, Jesus commands His followers to preach the Gospel along with the Baptism of all nations. Salvation and baptism are closely tied together in several New Testament verses. See as an example, Mark 16:16, "He who believes and is baptized will be saved; but he who does not believe will be condemned." See also, 1 Peter 3:21 - Baptism, which corresponds to this, now saves you, not as a removal of dirt from the body but as an appeal to God for a good conscience, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ.
I will discuss the relevant Baptism verses later in Section 3.
Here is Martin Luther's response to those who hold to salvation by faith alone: Our know-it-alls, the new spirits, assert that faith alone saves. And that works and external things contribute nothing to this end. We answer: it is true, nothing that is in us does it by faith, as we shall hear later one. But these leaders of the blind are unwilling to see that faith must have something to believe – something to which it may cling and upon which it may stand. Thus faith clings to the water and believes it to be Baptism in which there is sheer salvation and life, not through the water, as we have sufficiently stated, but through its incorporation with God's Word and ordinance and the joining of his name to it. When I believe this, what else is it but believing in God as the one who implanted his Word in this external ordinance and offered it to us so that we may grasp the treasure it contains.
Therefore, Martin Luther answers those who hold to the salvation by "faith alone" position by showing that faith includes trusting that Baptism as taught in the Bible by Jesus and the Apostles is part of God's plan of salvation.
2). Baptism in the Early Church. In both the Gospel of Luke and the Book of Acts, we see that when a person responds to the Gospel of Jesus Christ, he also receives baptism. Here is how the Evangelical Dictionary of Biblical Theology describes it: "In nine instances Luke represents baptism as the expected response to hearing and receiving the gospel. In four of these, kinsmen, close friends, or a household hear and respond; at Luke 16:14–15 and 18:8 it is not stated that the household believed."
All of the early conversions described in the Gospels and Acts were based upon two foundations: faith in Jesus Christ, and Baptism. Here are a few examples:
- 3,000 were baptized on Pentecost (Acts 2:41);
- Paul immediately upon regaining his sight went and was baptized (Acts 9:18);
- Philip and the conversion of the Ethiopian (Acts 8:38);
- Peter and the Gentiles (Acts 10:44-48);
- Paul and Silas baptize the jailer and his entire household (Acts 16:32-34).
And so, the Biblical record is very clear that faith and baptism go hand-in-hand, resulting in salvation.
3). Bible Verses on Baptism. So why is Baptism so important? Baptism was first introduced in the Gospels through John's Baptism – a Baptism of Repentance. And so, Baptism and Repentance go together, and may even be synonymous. And so, just as most Evangelical Christians believe that Repentance is necessary for receiving salvation, likewise is the understanding that Baptism is also necessary. Here are several verses that stress the crucial nature of Repentance and Baptism in one's Salvation.
Matt. 28:19 (Great Commission, above); Mark 16:16 (he who believes and is baptized will be saved…); Acts 2:38 (And Peter said to them "Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit."):
1 Peter 3:21 - Baptism, which corresponds to this, now saves you, not as a removal of dirt from the body but as an appeal to God for a good conscience, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ..
Repentance - Acts 2:38, above (lots more); 2 Cor. 7:10; Godly sorrow brings repentance that leads to salvation and leaves no regret, but worldly sorrow brings death.
See also, Acts 20:21: testifying to Jews, and also to Greeks, repentance toward God and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ. (faith and Repentance going together); Salvation means death to and freedom from sin (Romans 6);
But let's be fair, there is one example where someone believed in Jesus and was not baptized, but yet was still saved. This is from the story of the thief on the Cross –Luke 23:39-43, where Jesus promised the faithful Thief on a cross that "today you will be with me in Paradise." The Thief likely was not previously baptized, and so this appears to be an example of salvation without baptism. But given the number of verses that support salvation by Faith with Baptism, I think the better reading of this story is that God is big enough to provide salvation even where baptism is not possible – the proverbial deathbed conversion. Therefore, I do not accept that the story of the Thief on the Cross stands for the proposition that Christ-followers do not need to be baptized, or that it is only a symbolic act of the inner transformation. Instead, given the large number of verses supporting Baptism, along with Jesus' own Command in the Great Commission, I think the Lutheran position that accepts Baptism as a sacrament, and that it is a real act of faith in a believer's life is the best position among the various views of Christians.
Of course, I have only scratched the surface on this topic, but I did want to hit some highlights. I hope that this post was helpful to you. God bless you in using your gifts and talents in serving the Body of Christ as you end the year.
7 comments:
Tom,
I do not want to speak for your relative, but I think the question is not believing in baptism or not, it is the timing of when you get baptized. What are your thoughts on this? When you are able to accept Jesus as your Savior or as an infant?
Relatives Father
*This is rather long, so I suggest you copy and paste the text into a Word document.
Alright Tom, I finally have a few minutes to respond. First, let me say that I am grateful that a Lutheran I know is willing to actually defend the distinctly Lutheran view of baptism! Most Lutherans I have spoken to (and no, this does not include just family) have no idea what the Lutheran view of baptism is! They more often make something up that suits themselves, or worse stumble irreversibly into baptismal-regeneration (which I think the Lutheran view is dangerously close to being, if not actually being).
Baptism is an issue that has been brushed under the rug for decades now because it was causing such a deep division among evangelicals. I think that there was an appropriate time to bury the issue, but I also think it is back to a level where discussion can be had without the danger of over-division occurring. What the burying has accomplished is ignorance among Christians and their view toward baptism. It’s time that the ignorant open their Bibles and revisit this issue.
I’ve got a million things I could say, but I will try to limit myself to the material you have presented thus far. After all, it is your blog and you are the host! Let me respond to your first post first.
Section 1: I don’t have much to say on Luther’s view of baptism, because it is what it is. Everyone agrees that baptism is symbolic, but the question comes down to whether or not it stops at being symbolic or if there is more to it? Is it an avenue the Holy Spirit uses to bring special blessing to someone? Rather than going as far as Luther goes, I would say that yes the Holy Spirit does bring a special blessing through the symbolism of baptism (immersion, not sprinkling/pouring), but not through the pure act of baptism itself. See more on Luther in section 2.
Section 2: Almost all of the verses you list mention the word “baptism” after the word “faith”. It happens so often that it seems that when baptism is mentioned alone, it presupposes the existence of faith, but I know no one who would say it works the other way around. However, the formula “faith + baptism = salvation” is hardly a biblical conclusion. While the biblical use of “baptism” presupposes faith, the biblical use of “faith” does not presuppose baptism. When we hear the word “baptism,” faith is an object that comes to our minds. However, when we hear the word “faith,” rarely does or should baptism come to mind.
We are saved by faith alone, not faith and baptism alone! I realize that Luther tried to argue against that, but just because he said that was not the case does not make it the case. Luther writes, “faith clings to water…,” how about faith clinging to the finished work of Christ? I have never been able to fully grasp what the actual Lutheran view is on this. “Faith must have something to believe”? What does that mean? What kind of weak faith needs to have a physical item or act to assure us of things hoped for? Our faith is never to be placed in a physical object but in Christ alone. Our faith is never to be in things like prayer beads, crucifixes, holy rocks, old trees, or baptismal-water. Our faith is always to be in Christ alone.
By the way, even if I were to accept the terms of “faith + baptism = salvation,” it seems to me that that would argue more so for believer’s baptism and not Lutheran/infant baptism because I would argue that faith is a conscience, willful act – something an infant is unable to do. More on that in your second blog post on the topic.
Section 3: Most of the verses you sight in this section are from narrative texts. While they are defiantly important and do hold weight, it seems to me the lack of support from the epistles is very telling. In the narrative texts where baptism could be construed to be a means of salvation there is no reason to conclude that it does so. Baptism was a sign of conversion, not a conversion itself. Thus when baptism is mentioned, it is mentioned because it was expected to occur as a sign of conversion. Baptism was (and should be today) one of the first acts of obedience in a new believer’s life.
It’s like me saying, “I graduated and received a diploma.” Was the diploma a means of my act of graduating? No, it was simply a sign. Going further, if I were to just say “I received a diploma,” that presupposes that I had graduated. So it is with baptism. Saying “I believed on Christ and was baptized” uses the word “baptized” not as a part of salvation, but a sign of salvation.
In regards to the epistle examples, the 2 Corinthians passage (which is one of my favorite passages of Scripture) you cite is about repentance, so there is no need to address it because we are in full agreement. The 1 Peter passage, however, is a different story. I have to admit that when I was first dealing with this issue in my own thinking this was one of the verses that had hung me up because it seemed to be so clear and it was in an epistle, so I had to study it a little further then.
In 1 Peter 3:21 it appears in a quick reading that Peter is saying that baptism saves, but a closer reading shows that is hardly the case. The key is to break down what Peter is saying. He is saying two things. First he says that baptism is not about an outward act (“not as the removal of dirt from a body”). In other words, there is to be no mystical or spiritual power attached to the outward act of baptism. Secondly Peter says that baptism is a prayer to God asking Him to wipe clean the believer’s conscience (“as an appeal to God for a good conscience”). Thus, to sum it up, Peter is saying that baptism is an outward act of an inward reality. The verse could be paraphrased as “Baptism now saves you – not the physical act of baptism, but the inward reality baptism represents.” Baptism is a symbol, not a means of salvation.
Finally, as for your attempt to throw off the thief on the cross, you can’t do that! Your whole argument is that baptism is necessary for salvation, yet here is someone who was not baptized but saved. Just because you can squeeze the rest of the biblical examples into your system doesn’t make the system right. If you are going to say that baptism is absolutely necessary for salvation, then you need to biblically prove that everyone who was saved in the Bible was baptized. The best way to explain the entire NT witness toward baptism is baptism as symbolic. Every single NT example points to that mold of understanding.
I’ll continue in another comment on the newer post entitled, “infant baptism”. By the way, you can stop calling me “relative” if you want. I’m not that ashamed of my doctrine (lol)!
bry
Hey Bryan,
I did provide a new Post in partial response to your comments. Thank you again for your response.
You stated that salvation is by "faith alone". One quick point here - are you saying Repentance is not necessary for salvation? Or that Repentance is a human work of no value in one's salvation? It seems there are a number of verses which would not agree with this position (see as examples Acts 2:38, and 2 Cor. 7:10).
And a quick question - do you see any connection between Repentance and Baptism?
I appreciate your interesting comments, and any further help that you can provide in bringing light to this topic. :-) - /s/Tom
Repentance is a gift of God (cf. Acts 5:31; 2 Tim. 2:25). Faith is a gift of God (cf. Rom. 3:24, Eph. 2:8). Baptism is a gift of God? Clearly not biblically in the same sense that repentance and faith are. For faith to exist repentance is necessary. How does baptism figure into that formula?
Do I see a connection between repentance and baptism? I do in the sense that baptism symbolizes the reality that a new believer has repented and turned to God in faith. When a believer is immersed under water that symbolizes his death to sin (as well as Christ’s death) and when he comes out of the water that symbolizes his new life (as well as Christ’s resurrection and defeat of death). So repentance is in there in that sin is put to death when a new believer repents and trusts in Christ for salvation.
Now I get a question back. When you witness to others, do you express the Gospel in such a way that they understand that baptism is necessary? And since I (and the large majority of evangelicalism) do not preach the necessity of baptism in salvation, am I expressing a false Gospel? A partial Gospel is no Gospel at all, right? Therefore, shouldn’t I be “accursed” by that standard (Gal. 1:8-9)?
bry
Interesting discussion! I'm purposely not reading the following posts before responding to this one. Normally I would leave a highly internal matter to you who are much more educated in the ways of the various Christian sects, but this produced a rather strong visceral reaction.
It is my belief the only successful approach one can take to religion is visceral. After all, we have all seen the results of trying to establish religious Truth using Science.
Okay... from my position of dogmatic ignorance, here is the gut take of a non-believer who has watched from the sidelines for 30+years. Baptism MUST be completely symbolic, with no real value to God. After all, if God is perfect, then he sure as heck isn't going to be wishy-washy about salvation. I find myself very close to Bryan's positions here, especially regarding the story of the thief on the cross. The Bible is full of cases where precedent is set by a single act. If the thief is saved without baptism, then so can all be saved without it. Mel tells me her former church, the Presbies, see baptism as wholly symbolic. So too did my own Methodists, when I was still nominally a member. I was baptized alongside my sister in my living room when I was 6 and she 14, with tap water in an old blue serving dish that was blessed by our pastor (whose son I gave half my Creepy Crawler collection as an act of something (sacrifice???))...
Anyway... Here is where I part from Bryan. Part of why I hold with Bryan's view that baptism cannot be required (or even perhaps greatly cared about) by God is that I see this as one of the various bits and pieces that Christianity stole from other, existing religions. Hasn't baptism always seemed a little Paganish to you? It does to me. Many, if not most of the Gaian, or Earth-Mother, based religions use water as a means of purification. The Jews had already used ritual bathing for countless centuries, and it goes back at least 12,000 to 15,000 years as part of Pagan rituals.
It is a given that both the Jews and later the Christians stole (or "borrowed" if you find the term uncomfortable) a great number of rituals and holidays from other, almost universally Pagan, religions. The co-opting of these established holidays and practices made the new religion easier to swallow.
I have mentioned before how many of the Bible's stories, both Old Testament and New, have the "feel" of mythology. How these tales give me the exact same visceral reaction as anything out of Bullfinch. The rise, the fall, the flow that a good story has... Baptism carries that same "feel"... something that grew from something else, that grew from something else, that grew from something else... The difference is that baptism has always been a real thing; it is only it's roots and meaning that are mythologic.
Okay... on to part 2...
Pax,
~Ed~
Hey Ed,
It's interesting to hear from an 'outsider' on the topic of Baptism. Now you said "I have mentioned before how many of the Bible's stories, both Old Testament and New, have the "feel" of mythology." I would like to explore this a little further with you.
Now myths are generally easy to detect. And so, would you mind telling what part of the New Testament Baptism stories makes you think that it may be a myth?
Here's a couple of quick reasons why I think the Baptism stories are true:
1. Who made up the "myths"? Given that there are multiple authors of New Testament books, how did they all provide similar stories about Baptism?;
2. All of the ancient manuscripts have the same information about Baptism. There are thousands of ancient manuscripts of at least portions of the New Testament books. And these manuscripts come from the east (Constantinople), from the west (Rome), south (North Africa), etc. And the same information about Baptism is contained in ALL of the manuscripts, no matter where it came from. To me, if this was a myth that was added after the fact, then this would have been discovered by looking at the ancient Greel manuscripts.
Thanks for your comment - /s/Tom
you're absolutely right on the consistency... I've been doing a little more reading on that...
I don't really think it was added in afterwards... I think it was an ongoing production that just incorporated existing mythology as it went. The uses of water were ALREADY laden with mythical symbolism, and the evolving Christian church just adapted tham as it formed.
The modern day comparison would be a fiction writer who uses the mythology that has already sprung up around Area 51 and it's aliens. Several authors have written books about, "What if it was all true?" Now, they were writing AS fiction, to a VERY literate public. But I could see someone including it AS FACT, to try to convince a simple and illiterate public that aliens are real.
In previous years, I've pointed out that the most believable fiction is that which contains the most truth. Any number of writers use real people, places, and events in their works of fiction. Tom Clancy is a great example. His extensive knowledge of all thing military gives his books (his earlier ones anyway), a much more digestible flavour, and makes them much more entertaining.
Now imagine a person (or many people) who live in an illiterate world of people who rarely travel, and have little ability to separate fact from fiction. Toss in an almost universal belief in the supernatural in SOME form or another, and I can see good storytellers who have a Socioreligious and/or political agenda inventing and evolving the new Christian movement.
It is easy to imagine that this was tried literally thousands of times over the centuries. 99.99% of these attempts failed. But a few got it right. They had a grasp of what makes for a believable story, and the ability to incorporate older material with a slightly new twist. These success stories are today's modern religions.
Thanks again for this thread... it's the best one you've initiated on your blog yet... It's compelling even when I should be in bed... again...
:-)
~E~
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