I had a conversation lately with someone near and dear to me about Baptism. This person recently was baptized in a non-denominational church after coming to the conclusion that the baptism he had as an infant in the Lutheran church was not a “real” baptism.
To make his case, he had mainly two arguments. 1) To baptize means “to immerse” and 2)the demonstration that we find in the New Testament is that Christians confess their faith before being baptized—ergo baptism comes after faith. This conversation has led to many ponderings for me; most of which concerning the latter point. But I dare not let the first point go unrefuted; so here it is: To baptize doesn’t necessarily mean “to immerse,” in Mark 7:4 it says, “When they [the Pharisees] come from the marketplace they do not eat unless they wash. And they observe many other traditions, such as the washings [here the Greek word for baptized is used] of cups, pitchers, and kettles.” The word baptize means literally, “to wash.” This is why Titus refers to baptism as the “washing of regeneration” (3:5). If immersion was necessary for baptism, we would have that instruction in the Scriptures. Matthew 28 is where Jesus institutes Baptism when He instructs the apostles to “baptize and to teach.” He doesn’t say, “baptize by immersion and teach.” Many point to the baptism of Jesus to say that baptism must be immersion; but the text says that Jesus “came up from the water.” This is usually taken to mean that Jesus was immersed and He “came up out of the water.” But by the time Jesus comes up from the water, the baptism had already taken place. Matthew 3:16 says, “And after being baptized, Jesus went up immediately from the water…” It could be that Jesus was standing waist deep in water and John poured water over Jesus’ head. In fact, art from the 4th Century (only 300 years after the event happened) already depicts the event this way; John standing with Jesus in the Jordan river while John poured water on Jesus’ head. But in the end—it really doesn’t matter—I’m not opposed to immersion for baptism—I’m just opposed to people teaching that a baptism must be by immersion in order to be valid.
It’s the second point that got me thinking; that a baptism must be a response to faith because of the many examples in the New Testament in which a person confesses faith before being baptized. Here, I think the observation is a good one, it’s just the conclusion I disagree with. Certainly we do have many examples of those confessing the faith before they are baptized. And rightly so; if your unbelieving co-worker comes with you to church and receives faith from hearing the preached Word—he would rightly confess the faith publicly before he is baptized. But what if there is someone who can’t make confession of his faith? What if there was someone who didn’t have the mental capacity to articulate or vocalize the faith? Would you deny his baptism because he can’t make confession? No, of course not! When babies receive faith by the preached Word just as everyone else—why would we want to deny them baptism simply because they are unable to confess the faith that is in them. The temptation that exists when we observe that baptism frequently follows a confession of faith is that we are tempted to believe that baptism is our doing rather than God’s working externally to us. The Holy Scriptures reveal to us that there is a promise attached to baptism. “He who believes and is baptized will be saved,” (Mark 16:16). “Baptism now saves you,” (1 Peter 3:5). “…be baptized…for the forgiveness of sins,” (Acts 2:38). With baptism is the promise of the forgiveness of sins. So we know that baptism is a work of God, not a work of man because forgiveness isn’t given by the work of man.
The real problem that people have with Lutheran baptism is primarily with infant baptism. And the real issue is simply because infants perfectly demonstrate the reality of human condition. The baby is simply born, and already it’s a sinner. Already it’s being selfish and knows how to disobey. And yet we teach that sinners are saved by faith alone. So if we are truly saved by no works of our own, then there is no reason that someone who can do no works is unable to have faith. But that grinds against our sinful nature. Surely the baby can’t have faith because he can’t do anything to obtain faith. That’s exactly the point! None of us can do works to obtain faith. So the fact that a baby can’t do anything doesn’t exclude the baby of possessing faith. Faith is a condition of the heart—not a condition of the mind. Faith is a gift not an act of ours. Going to church and having our children baptized and witnessing infant baptism is good for our old Adam…because we witness a soul being born into God’s family entirely out of God’s grace through faith—and it reminds us that faith is not a work but rather a gift that is given by God to us—and this faith receives all the benefits that Christ won for us: forgiveness of sins and life everlasting.