03-04-07 Baptism

Matt 28:16-20
Then the eleven disciples went away into Galilee, to the mountain which Jesus had appointed for them. 17 When they saw Him, they worshiped Him; but some doubted.

18 And Jesus came and spoke to them, saying, "All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. 19 Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age." Amen. NKJV

Acts 2:37-39
37 Now when they heard this, they were cut to the heart, and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, "Men and brethren, what shall we do?"

38 Then Peter said to them, "Repent, and let every one of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins; and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. 39 For the promise is to you and to your children, and to all who are afar off, as many as the Lord our God will call."
NKJV

A survey years ago in England revealed although 26 million persons were baptized Anglicans, only 2.8 million were registered on Church membership rolls. Today it's probably half that number. It was much the same way in Wesley's day in England. There is a state church in England everybody was baptized, hence Wesley's message that no one had a right to call themselves a Christian unless they were born again, had the witness of the Holy Spirit within them, and demonstrated a life of holy living. Hans Hauge preached the same message because Norway was in the same position as England. They had a state church, every one was baptized, his message also was; "You must be born again."

One church takes an obscure reference in the scriptures concerning the baptism for the dead and builds a major theological belief from it.
Years ago a wealthy lady from the east made many trips to Salt Lake City to be baptized for the dead. Over the years she was baptized 30,000 times! She did it for relatives and friends and former people like Alexander the great, Nebuchadnezzar, Julius Caesar, Napoleon and Cleopatra. A Mormon elder commented: "I believe that this lady, in the Day of Judgment, through being baptized for the dead, has saved more souls than Jesus."

What is baptism? According to our understanding as Lutherans, baptism is one of two Sacraments of the church. From our catechism we learned that a sacrament is a holy ordinance given by God Himself, in which He gives and confirms His invisible grace through outward and visible means. In baptism we have the visible means, water, something ordinary, but yet extra ordinary.

The first thing scientists look for when exploring the solar system is for any evidence of water. Without water there is no life. So it is fitting that God uses something as ordinary but at the same time so rare in the universe as water as a vehicle to convey to us His invisible grace. Because the invisible grace conveyed is ordinary, because it is freely offered to all in baptism. But yet it is extraordinary in that the God's grace is rejected by a vast majority of people. I was not able to find any statistics for our country, but I imagine the percentage of those being baptized is quite high, 75% or more. And while weekly church attendance stands at about 4o% it has been asserted by many respected Christian leaders that fewer than 10% of those who attend church show any evidence of the new birth. Jesus said many would seek to enter the narrow way, but few would find it.

In baptism we have the visible, the water, and the water is used according to God's command and is connected to God's word. This produces the invisible grace of God in our lives. Luther in the Catechism says, "Baptism works forgiveness of sins, delivers from death and the devil, and gives eternal salvation to all who believe this as the words and promises of God declare."

Baptism offers the same gifts that are offered in the Gospel. It works forgiveness of sin, Peter in Acts 2:38 "Be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins." It washes away sin. In Acts 22:16 Ananias testimony to Paul when he got saved was to: "Arise and be baptized, and wash away your sins." In Ephesians 5:26 Paul says Baptism sanctifies and cleanses, in Titus 3:5 he says it regenerates and saves us.

Years ago Dr Samuel Miller of the Lutheran Bible Institute received this letter. "Doesn't it seem to you that in the Lutheran Church there has been too much stress laid upon being baptized as an infant and being confirmed instead of actually having had a true 'born again' experience and really having a definite experience of salvation in the heart? I believe there are many seeking and hungry hearts in the Lutheran Church, but they do not know Jesus as their personal Savior and Redeemer from sin, death and the power of the devil. They have been baptized and confirmed but they have never been truly 'born again' by the spirit of the true and living God and therefore are not saved but are living under false hopes.''

This was his response: It is indeed and sadly true that in the Lutheran Church there are many people who have been baptized and confirmed and yet are not saved, but are living under false hopes. It is not true, however, that they have never been born again, because if they were baptized in accordance with the faith and practice of the Lutheran Church they were born again, according to the promise of God and by the power of His word.

But many who were born again in holy baptism have lived after the flesh and so have died. For them to trust in the fact that they once were baptized while they yet refuse to repent and believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, is indeed to live in a vain hope.

There is much misunderstanding of baptism, its efficacy and its power and its meaning, both within and without the Lutheran Church. Those are most certainly in error who deny the efficacy of baptism to save from sin and confer the grace of the new birth. But those are also most certainly in error who hold that men are saved by the grace of baptism, even though they live in sin without repentance and without faith in Jesus Christ as their Savior.

Who are candidates for baptism? Sinners! All children of Adam! Adam and Eve were created in the Image of God. They were holy, free from sin and its curse. But that all changed when Adam and Eve sinned by disobeying God.
Gen 5:1-3 has an interesting transition. It reads: This is the book of the genealogy of Adam. In the day that God created man, He made him in the likeness of God. 2 He created them male and female, and blessed them and called them Mankind in the day they were created. This is Adam and Eve, created in the image of God. Verse 3 continues: And Adam lived one hundred and thirty years, and begot a son in his own likeness, after his image, and named him Seth. Something happened when Adam and Eve sinned. They were no longer in the Image of God, they couldn't be because they had sinned, and this stain of sin passed from them to there children. Seth was not created in the Image of God, he was created in the Image of Adam, a sinner, and so are we. For by Adam all sinned, Paul says, by Christ all are made alive.

I don't talk much about "Original Sin" in my sermons; I don't find it very helpful. Why? I don't find it helpful in my life. The reason I sin is not because of some congenital disease I was born with. The main reason I sin is because I want to. The main reason you sin is because you want to. I don't need to give you a half hour theological dissertation to convince you are a sinner. I can prove in less than two minutes you are a sinner by using the Ten Commandments. But I do find it helpful in understanding why it's important to baptize infants.

We have a tendency to look at babies and think they are innocent. But they are born in Adams image. David said, "In sin did my mother conceive me." Paul said in Eph 2:3: "We all once conducted ourselves in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath." Babies are not born innocent as some assert, no they are children of Adam and need the graces of Baptism as much as you and I do. How long does it take for a new born to start exerting its will? Not very long. Does it need to be taught how to be selfish, to think that the world should revolve around him? No it comes quit naturally doesn't it. Little Samuel here is in need to God's salvation offered in Jesus Christ as much as the hardened sinner.

One day the disciples were trying to keep the little children away from Jesus. They didn't think the Kingdom of God was for Children. But Jesus rebuked the disciples and said; "Let the Little children come to Me and forbid them not, For such is the Kingdom of God." The Kingdom of God is for children too.

Peter said the same thing on the day of Pentecost. "Repent, and let every one of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins; and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. 39 For the promise is to you and to your children, and to all who are afar off, as many as the Lord our God will call." The promise is to you and your children. This promise was for everyone, including children and those far off. This would be the nations Jesus referred to in the great commission. Jesus' command was to go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing and teaching. Children are included in the nations.

I was born January 4th 1954, on April 25th of that same year I was baptized. I was three and a half months old, what good did that do. I don't know or understand the mystery of how God works in the heart of an infant. But I do know this, from my earliest memories I had faith. I believed in God and Jesus. Where did that faith come from? I don't remember doing anything to get it. It wasn't an intellectual exercise; it just seemed like the most natural thing in the world. To believe in God. I had the faith of a child. The only thing I can say is that it was a gift from God I received in my baptism.

My parents were faithful in fulfilling their baptismal promises, to bring me up in the faith. They brought me regularly to church and Sunday school and on March 12 1962 gave me my first bible. I remember how excited I was to receive that Bible. My very own Bible! I remember lying on my belly on the living room carpet and reading that Bible and leafing through its pages. I believed; I had the faith of a child. It wasn't something I did; it was a gift from God. But that's what faith is, it's a gift from God. Paul in Eph 2:8 says:
For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God. NKJV Faith is a gift graciously offered.

C. F. W. Walther explains this in his book, The Proper Distinction Between Law and Gospel. He says: "The Law tells us what we are to do. No such instruction is contained in the Gospel. On the contrary, the Gospel reveals to us only what God is doing. The Law is speaking concerning our works; the Gospel, concerning the great works of God. In the Law we hear the tenfold summons, "Thou shalt." Beyond that the Law has nothing to say to us. The Gospel, on the other hand, makes no demands whatever.

But does not the Gospel demand faith? Yes; that, however, is just the same kind of command as when you say to a hungry person, "Come, sit down at my table and eat." The hungry person will not reply: "Bosh! I will not take orders from you." No, he will understand and accept your words as a kind invitation. That is what the Gospel is - a kind invitation to partake of heavenly blessings."

Faith is a gift graciously offered, and an infant does not resist. That's why Jesus said we must become like little children. We tell children, to grow up. Jesus tells adults to become as little children. Adults are proud and arrogant and we think we are so strong and self sufficient, God says humble yourself, become as an infant and receive the gift of faith. Don't resist. But that’s what we do as adults we resist. We fall in love with the world, with pleasure and we resist the grace of God.

As I grew that was my experience, I got to a point where God said it's time to move on to maturity. God had shown me my sin and He wanted me to take the next step with Him. I was exerting my will more and more and was in rebellion in so many ways and God told me I needed to repent and follow Him, and I resisted. I didn't want to repent. The lusts of the flesh, the lusts of the eyes and the pride of life appealed to me. I wanted to be popular and hang out with the popular kids at school. I wanted to party and have fun.

But God had made a covenant with me in my baptism. He said "I will be your God and you shall be my child". Now God is a gentleman, He will not hold us against our will, but he is the Good Shepherd that never gives up on his sheep. And he kept after me until one night I stopped running and quit resisting, and he revived my dead faith. I say I was born again, and I realize that according to Lutheran Theology that may not be the right way to say it. But I will keep saying it anyway, because this is what I know, once I was dead, but now I am alive.

It really grieves my spirit when I am in a church and the preaching and the teaching of the church gives the impression that if you are baptized, you are saved. For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God. And this faith is a gift from God. If latter, you stop believing in God, in the grace of baptism, if you resist the Holy Spirit, and you despise the gift given, then you are lost. Jesus said, "He who believes and is baptized will be saved. He who does not believe is condemned."

What do we know this morning? We know that we are all sinners, both by who we are and that is proven by what we have done. We know that if we remain in that condition we are lost. If that condition isn't changed in our life, when we die we die eternally and will forever be outside of the presence of God. Jesus called it Hell.

Scripture tells us that when Samuel is baptized that a death will occur. Paul writing to the Romans said; "Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus have been baptized into His death." But it is more than a death; Paul writing to the Colossians wrote we were: "Buried with Him in baptism, in which you also were raised with Him in faith in the working of God, who raised Him from the dead."

Samuel will be baptized into the death of Christ, and so were you if you were baptized. We were buried with him into death, so that as Christ was raised, we too might walk in newness of Life.

Just as Jesus commanded the ten lepers to go wash in the river, an ordinary muddy river, and it was when they in obedience did just that, that they were healed. Just as Jesus used His own spit and the dust of the Earth to make mud, it wasn't until he applied that ordinary mud to the blind man's eyes that he was healed. This morning we use ordinary water, but connected with the word we tap into many great and marvelous promises of God.

We also know this morning that the gift of salvation can be refused and it can be lost. Once saved; always saved is false doctrine. As such, we who are being saved are called to remain faithful unto death and we will be given the crown of Life. That means we are to be gathered in this holy place to hear the Word of the Cross and to be nurtured on the milk of the Gospel ... and to receive Christ when we come to the Sacrament of the Altar, as we partake of His Body and Blood.

How about you this morning? This morning, everyone here probably has been baptized, with the exception of Samuel, which we will take care of shortly. But that doesn't mean everyone here is being saved. Everyday God holds out the gift of faith to each one of us. We need to receive that gift, unwrap that gift, and use that gift. As the Word of God says, He who believes and is baptized shall be saved. Amen

Wayne Almlie
almlie@juno.com