A Lutheran Theology Of Baptism

Lutheran theology maintains a sacramental view of baptism. It links the effectiveness of baptism not with the water itself, but with the Word of God. It also values the role of faith as a response to God's Word in making the sacrament fruitful. These themes are more fully explained in the article that follows.

In Lutheran theology, baptism is one of two chief sacraments (together with the Lord's Supper). It is the foundational sacrament of the Christian life and a means of grace. Baptism conveys the promise of salvation accomplished in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, and it establishes the baptized within the church, where the kingdom of God is realized through faith overflowing in love and is anticipated in its fullness through hope. Baptism exhibits all the features of a sacrament according to the Lutheran understanding. It is commanded by God; it is constituted by God's Word of promise joined to an earthly element; and it is received by faith. First, the external act of baptism is commanded by God through Jesus' instructions to his disciples to baptize in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit (Matt. 28:19). Obedience to this divine command requires the administration of water together with the Trinitarian formula. Second, God's Word is the effective power of baptism, not the sacramental water itself. The Word, however, is inseparably linked to the water of baptism. Various expressions of Lutheran baptismal theology locate the power of the sacrament in God's Word just as they describe the unity of Word and sign: "?the Word of God connected with the water,?" "?water comprehended in God's Word,?" and "?the Word of God in water.?" To use the expression of Augustine, baptism is a visible Word. Third, faith receives the activity of God's Word in baptism and makes the sacrament fruitful. Baptism is not constituted by faith, which would make it a human act rather than God's own act; however, the sacrament is properly used where faith is present. Nor, in the Lutheran conception, is faith adequately understood as a response to baptism; rather, it is the result of God's creative Word acting through the sacrament. This distinctively Lutheran understanding of baptism was forged on two fronts during the Reformation period. On the one hand, Luther and his followers pointed to the power of God's Word and its correlate, faith, as the essence of the sacrament in opposition to the medieval scholastic theology of the sacrament, which understood baptism as an efficacious sign of grace (efficax signum gratiae) working through the ritual act (ex opere operato). On the other hand, against what they regarded as spiritual enthusiasm on the left wing of the Reformation (e.g., the Anabaptists), the Lutheran Reformers argued for the inseparability of God's Word and the external sign of water, insisted on the objective validity of the sacraments apart from faith, and defended baptism as an external Word and means of grace. Despite the importance placed upon faith in relation to the sacrament, Lutheran baptismal theology has supported the practice of infant baptism because it reflects the divine initiative in the sacrament and the unconditional character of God's promise of salvation. The purposes and benefits of baptism are manifold because it encompasses the fullness of God's saving activity toward the human race. The Lutheran confessional writings refer to baptism as deliverance from sin, death, and the devil, and as entrance into the kingdom of God. It is a washing of regeneration (Titus 3:5) and the forgiveness of sins. It is the gift of life and eternal salvation. It confers the grace of God, the entire Christ, and the Holy Spirit with its gifts. "?In short,?" Luther writes in the Large Catechism, "?the blessings of baptism are so boundless that if a timid nature considers them, it may well doubt whether they could all be true?" (Book of Concord, 442). Finally, it should be noted that the Lutheran theology of baptism involved a thorough reconceptualization of the understanding of baptism and, in particular, the understanding of the relationship between baptism and postbaptismal sin that had developed in the Western church. According to medieval scholastic theology, the grace of baptism did not suffice for the forgiveness of serious sin committed after baptism. The sacrament of penance was the remedy for this. The Lutheran position, however, understood the forgiveness following repentance for such sin not as a new dispensation of grace but rather as a return to baptism. From this perspective, baptism stands as a sign of God's Word of promise over the whole span of a person's life as a Christian. Baptism signifies death and resurrection (particularly so in the practice of immersion); not only the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, but also that of the believer united with Christ (Rom. 6:1–11). Baptism is exercised in a daily dying to sin (repentance) and rising to new life (forgiveness), a daily baptism in faith, which characterizes the Christian life. This death to sin and new life to God is finally completed only in the mystery of a person's actual death and the resurrection on the last day. Therefore, baptism is at once the sacrament of an eschatological salvation and the sacrament of a faithful daily life in Christ.