LESSON ELEVEN
2003-2004
BAPTISM
1. Does not belong to “the fundamental doctrines” or to the Gospel proclamation.
2. This means:
a. People can be saved without having a full or correct understanding of Baptism.
b. Or, without even having heard about it.
c. Or, without being baptized.
d. Though its absence may damn in certain cases.
B. Baptism is an extension of Christology, apart from which it cannot be understood.
1. His divine and human person and His redemptive work.
a. Is present.
b. Is made available to the believer.
2. Through the one act of Baptism.
a. Christ approaches the believer.
b. The believer approaches Christ.
3. The doctrine of Baptism is functioning Christology.
4. Complete faith in Christ means that one does not seek Him apart from the sacraments, of which Baptism is the first in which the believer meets Him.
A. Those dying without faith and Baptism, outside of the church.
1. Must be committed to God.
2. He will judge both the great and small.
3. Rev 20:12-15.
B. Pieper: “For children of unbelievers we do not venture to hold out such hope [of salvation]. We are entering the field of the unsearchable judgments of God (Rom 11:33)” (Christian Dogmatics 3:278)
C. To suggest that all children who die without Baptism are necessarily consigned to damnation.
1. Is essentially a Christianized form of Manicheanism.
2. Manicheanism attributes to God good and evil motives.
3. Physical death would automatically carry penalty of eternal death.
4. Is not the Lutheran position.
III. Stillborn and early infant deaths of children of Christian parents.
A. The advantage is:
1. Not the Calvinist doctrine of election (such children given special consideration from God which is denied to others).
2. Because of contact with the Word.
a. Christ regenerates through Word and Sacrament.
b. Through their parents.
c. Also, they have been offered to God by the prayers of the congregation.
B. When Lutheran Confessions assert the necessary connection between Baptism and faith:
1. The meaning is not that faith is possible only through Baptism.
2. Even for children.
3. Still, Luther insisted that faith had to be present either before or at the time of Baptism.
IV. The importance of Baptism in the plan of salvation.
A. Evident by its inclusion in Art II of AC (dealing with original sin)
B. Eternal damnation is the destiny of those who are not reborn by Baptism and the Holy Spirit.
C. Lutheran theology makes a distinction between what is necessary and what is absolutely necessary.
1. Baptism is necessary, but not absolutely necessary.
2. Mk 16:16.
3. Opposing Baptism is despising God.
a. Baptism not on same level as faith.
b. Baptism and faith are not equal partners in accomplishing salvation.
D. Faith
1. Is necessary
a. But not in the sense that it has anything to offer.
b. Only because it takes what is given in Baptism.
2. Has no substantive meaning in itself.
3. Its total value is given it by Christ, who is presented to the believer in Baptism.
4. Jn 3:5.
5. Without faith, salvation is impossible.
E. The question is whether the insistence made for Baptism in Lutheran Confessions allows an exception for unbaptized children.
F. The exception is made by nearly all Christians, including Baptists, who do not baptize children.
A. Anabaptist’s refusal to baptize their own children provided opportunity for Lutherans to set forth the doctrine that Baptism is necessary.
1. Modern Baptists hold same view.
2. So the Lutheran condemnation remains appropriate (FC SD XII 2)
B. The first act of Baptism remains forever (LC IV 77,78)
1. Was God’s act.
2. Could be performed only once.
3. Was necessary.
1. Not a legal requirement (Law).
2. But it is a saving necessity (Gospel).
3. To refuse Baptism to children is to defy God.
4. Those who so refuse are accountable to Him (LC IV 6-9), and are themselves condemned.
5. Refusal to have one’s children baptized.
a. Not a matter of indifference.
b. Sooner or later may be one reason, perhaps among others, for excommunication.
c. Luther could not concede that the Anabaptists were a church, not only because of aberrant beliefs, but particularly because they denied Baptism to infants.
D. Our situation today may be more difficult.
1. Some churches with a trinitarian confession have clergy administering Baptism in name of “the Creator, Redeemer, and Sanctifer”.
a. Question is not a matter of sacramental validity.
b. Rather, is to what extent the church is present where aberrant formula is deliberately made part of the liturgical formula.
2. Where the church is not present, what purports to be Baptism really is not a Baptism.
A. Baptism is necessary as the means for salvation.
B. But not absolutely necessary in the sense that its absence automatically excludes one from the redeemed on the Last Day.
C. The granting of exceptions.
1. Is at the discretion of the church’s Lord.
2. Not of the church.
D. The church must work under the command of her Lord, who made Baptism necessary for salvation.
E. Accordingly, we have no reason to be any less adamant that the Reformers in seeing Baptism as necessary.
1. Exceptions may be a fact of church life.
2. But they cannot determine the norm or even be a part of a theology of Baptism.
3. No exception can be made for those without faith.
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