The Church has Always Baptized Infants

Encore Post: From the early days of the Church, she has baptized the infants and young children of believers. When the first Christians were baptized, their children, families and whole households were included. (Acts 2:37-40, Acts 16:15, Acts 16:33, Acts 18:8, 1 Corinthians 1:16) Beginning at the latest, in the 4th Century (300-400 AD), the majority of Christians were baptized shortly after they were born. Even today, most Christians are baptized during their childhood.

The Anabaptist movement of the 16th Century (1500-1600 AD) was the first Christian tradition to challenge infant baptism. Martin Luther pointed out that the first point to make when defending baptizing children begins here. Jesus promised that he would build his Church and the gates of hell would not defeat it. (Matthew 16:18) If infant baptism was not valid, he argued, the Church would not exist in their day and Jesus would be a false prophet. Since the Church does exist, had prospered and done the will of God to preach the Gospel, infant baptism must be valid.

As previous posts have covered, there is much more to the challenge to infant baptism by Evangelicals. Mostly in has to do with a completely different way of viewing the sacrament. Over the next few posts, I’ll consider the other reasons why Lutherans believe God wants us to baptize infants. If you want to get a head start, please review the posts linked below.

Rev. Robert E. Smith
Concordia Theological Seminary
Fort Wayne, Indiana

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©2018 Robert E. Smith. All rights reserved. Permission granted to copy, share and display freely for non-commercial purposes. Direct all other rights and permissions inquiries to cosmithb@gmail.com

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Lamb of God, Pure and Holy

Encore Post: The night God delivered his people from slavery in Egypt, the Hebrews selected perfect lambs from their flocks. They had no injuries, blemishes or birth defects. These lambs were slaughtered, their blood smeared on their doors, their meat roasted for a feast. That night, the Angel of Death passed over their houses as the firstborn of all Egypt perished.

The evening of the day God delivered us all from sin, death and the power of the devil, the disciples arranged a Passover meal for them and for Jesus. John the Baptist had called him the Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world. He took bread and said, “this is my body given for you” and wine and said, “this cup is the New Testament in my blood.” St. Paul calls him “our Passover who is sacrificed for us.”

The Lord’s Supper, then, is our New Passover. In it God gives us his grace, the forgiveness of sins, life and salvation. The Angel of Death passes over us. In baptism, we are united with him his death on the cross. We enter the Red Sea of death with him and rise to new life when he breaks the seal of the grave.

Once again these three days, we follow the Lamb of God, as he goes to his death willingly. We pray as he takes each step,

Lamb of God, pure and holy,
Who on the cross did suffer…
Have mercy on us, O Jesus.

Rev. Robert E. Smith
Concordia Theological Seminary
Fort Wayne, Indiana

©2018-2024 Robert E. Smith. All rights reserved. Permission granted to copy, share and display freely for non-commercial purposes. Direct all other rights and permissions inquiries to cosmithb@gmail.com

Who Should Be Baptized?

Encore Post: At first, this seems like a strange question. Since God uses baptism to save, why not baptize everyone? In fact, the words Jesus used to institute baptism says: “Going, make disciples of all peoples, baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.” (my translation of Matthew 28:19) The reason why this is important question is that baptism is not some kind of magic spell that works as long as you do everything right. Baptism saves everyone who believes in its promises that God adopts them as his children, forgives their sins for the sake of the death and resurrection of Jesus and saves them from sin, death and the power of the devil. It is for everyone who is baptized in the name of the Triune God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

It is at that point that Evangelicals object to the baptism of infants and young children. How can children believe if they do not understand any of this? This concern comes from a different understanding of faith than Lutherans have. We see faith as a trust in God and his promises. James tells us that the demons believe, too, and they shudder. (James 2:19) No one trusts more than little children. Jesus holds them up as examples of faith, in fact. (Mark 10:13-16, Luke 18:15-17) I’ll say more on infant baptism in a later post.

For the same reason, many Protestants urge people baptized as children to be baptized again. The first Christians to do this lived during the Reformation are were called Anabaptists, which means: “baptized again.” Lutherans believe that once a person is baptized in the name of the Triune God that they do not need to be baptized again. Since God himself is the one baptizing and in it he makes us his children, sealing us with the Holy Spirit forever, we do not need to be re baptized.

The only time Lutherans would re-baptize someone would be if their church was not Christian at all. So, Mormons, who believe in a false god (Their father god is a human being like us who grew to godhood. He is a separate being from his literal, physical son, Jesus and their Holy Spirit), come to faith in the real Jesus, would be baptized. Of growing concern for us are churches, including ones that call themselves Lutheran, that baptize in names other that Father, Son and Holy Spirit. These Christians might need to be baptized again so they can be sure it was in the name God himself reveals to us and with which Jesus commanded us to baptize.

In short, baptism is for people who believe in what it promises — that for the sake of Jesus and his sacrifice our sins are forgiven, we belong to him and are sealed with the name of the one and only true God, the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

Rev. Robert E. Smith
Concordia Theological Seminary
Fort Wayne, Indiana

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©2018 Robert E. Smith. All rights reserved. Permission granted to copy, share and display freely for non-commercial purposes. Direct all other rights and permissions inquiries to cosmithb@gmail.com

Three Days and Three Nights

Encore Post: Maundy Thursday, Good Friday and Holy Saturday are remembered by the Church from ancient times as the days on which our salvation was won by the suffering, death and resurrection of our Lord. She does this with one service that lasts the three days. The Maundy Thursday divine service begins with an invocation, but does not conclude with a benediction. Good Friday services do not have either an invocation or a benediction. The Vigil of Easter on Saturday evening does not begin with an invocation, but ends with a benediction.

The name Maundy Thursday comes from the Latin word mandatum — the first word in the Latin translation of Jesus’ command: “a new commandment I give to you: love one another.” (John 13:34) Jesus gave this command at the Last Supper, the night we also remember because he also instituted the Lord’s Supper during that Passover meal. The Maundy Thursday service ends with the stripping of the altar, the lectern and pulpit and removing of the pastor’s vestments. Often the account of the Garden of Gethsemane and the arrest of Jesus is read while this is done. We depart in silence to note the disciples abandoned Jesus.

The day that begins at sunset on Maundy Thursday witnessed The whole of Jesus’ passion and death. We call it Good Friday, because it is the day we were redeemed. It is also the first day of Christ’s rest in the tomb. This second day Jesus was in the grave began at sunset Friday. On Sunset Holy Saturday, the third day begins. The Church meets in a vigil, a service that greets Easter. Often Christians are baptized during the vigil.

On these three days, Christ fulfilled his promise that he would take our sins to the cross, die to pay their due, make holy our graves by resting in death, defeated Satan and death and rose again to shatter the grave forever. Three days to remember and to thank God for his mercy.

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Rev. Robert E. Smith
Concordia Theological Seminary
Fort Wayne, Indiana

©2018 Robert E. Smith. All rights reserved. Permission granted to copy, share and display freely for non-commercial purposes. Direct all other rights and permissions inquiries to cosmithb@gmail.com

Is Baptism Necessary?

Encore Post: At first, it seems like a strange question to ask — even the wrong question to ask. Since Baptism is God’s work to save us, why wouldn’t we want to be baptized? There are several different reasons why this issue comes up. The first arose during the Reformation. The Anabaptist movement believed that children are innocent and that God does not hold them accountable until a later age. In the Augsburg Confession (Article Nine) and the Apology of the Augsburg Confession (Article Nine) firmly rejects this argument (more in a later post on infant baptism).

The other reason is that in this sinful world, sometimes people die without being baptized. Lutheran theologians answer the question by saying Baptism is necessary but not absolutely necessary for salvation. Baptism is necessary because God commands us to baptize and to be baptized. (Matthew 28:18-20, Acts 2:37-38) Jesus tells us that you cannot enter the kingdom of God if you are not born of water and the Spirit. (John 3:5) Yet the Scripture is very clear that the preaching of the Gospel also is a means of grace, which creates faith (Romans 10:14-17), forgives sins and brings everlasting life. (Romans 1:16)

So, God’s word can and does save, even when the opportunity for a Christian to be baptized has not come. But God is so rich in his mercy, that he gives his grace over and over again, in the form of the preaching of the Gospel, the baptizing of his children and in the Sacrament of the Lord’s Supper and in Absolution. Each means brings forgiveness of sins, life and salvation in its own way, providing for us certainty that we are God’s own and will live with him forever. We refuse them at our own peril, for God gives them to us for our good and strengthening in the face of the assaults of the world, devil and our sinful desires. While God requires us to do so, so they are necessary, it more that we get to enjoy these blessings.

Rev. Robert E. Smith
Concordia Theological Seminary
Fort Wayne, Indiana

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©2018 Robert E. Smith. All rights reserved. Permission granted to copy, share and display freely for non-commercial purposes. Direct all other rights and permissions inquiries to cosmithb@gmail.com

Here the Word of God was Made Flesh

Encore Post: In Israel, an ancient inscription in set in the floor of a church. Verbum Caro Hic Factum Est (here the word was made flesh). Emperor Constantine had the church — and these words — built there in the 4th century. (300s). There his mother Helena was told God had become a man. It is not Bethlehem. It is Nazareth in the place thought to have been the girlhood home of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Ancient tradition identified it as the place where the Angel Gabriel had announced the incarnation of the Eternal Son of God in her womb. Here it was believed the impossible happened — the finite contained the infinite. The Author of Life became the child of a Jewish girl. To all Christians who confess the doctrines of the Nicene Creed, she is known as the θεοτόκος (theotokos) — the bearer or the Mother of God.

This event is known in theology as the incarnation — God taking on flesh and blood. We celebrate on March 25th — nine months before Christmas — right in the middle of Lent or early in the season of Easter. From the perspective of human logic it is backwards.

Religions invented by humans are all about people seeking God, going on a quest, doing one work after another, performing one ritual after another. Greeks and Eastern religion are all about getting rid of the flesh and the physical world, ascending into the heavens spiritually. The goal is to shed the body for what’s really important — the spiritual.

The incarnation is the first and greatest revelation — epiphany. We don’t seek God — God seeks us. We don’t strive to climb Jacob’s ladder — he comes down it. The Son of God is the Son of Man. He is in every way like us — except he didn’t sin. He brings to us grace after grace.

The incarnation tells more than about God. It tells us that flesh and blood are good, not to be despised and rejected, but celebrated and accepted. We are very good just the way God made us. We are male or female, short or tall, big or small-boned, a specific, unique combination of traits chosen by God so that none of us — even twins — are exactly the same. In baptism, he calls us by name, writing it in the Book of Life. What he wants is each one of us. It is for us he was born, lived a perfect life, suffered, died, rose and ascended into heaven. And it is for us he will come again, he will call our name when he summons us from the grave and transforms us for life everlasting. The truth is he became flesh to live with us — now and forever.

Rev. Robert E. Smith
Concordia Theological Seminary
Fort Wayne, Indiana

©2019 Robert E. Smith. All rights reserved. Permission granted to copy, share and display freely for non-commercial purposes. Direct all other rights and permissions inquiries to cosmithb@gmail.com

Baptism Saves You

Encore Post: Perhaps the point of greatest conflict between Lutherans and the Evangelical movement is our confidence that the Bible teaches that baptism saves you. As I noted in another post, most Protestants think of Baptism as a simple ceremony where a Christian declares that he puts his faith in Jesus as his personal savior. They think of baptism as something we do and so think that to say that baptism saves us, that it is the same thing as saying salvation is something we earn by what we do. Yet the Bible clearly says, “Baptism saves you” (1 Peter 3:21-22) and”unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God” (John 3:5)

If Lutherans believed that baptism was something we do, we also would reject the teaching that it saves. After all, the heart and center of the Lutheran confession is salvation is by grace alone through faith alone for the sake of Christ alone. But we believe what the Scriptures teach, that salvation is God’s work, not ours. God the Father saved us, not by what we have done, but washing us and renewing us in baptism by the Holy Spirit. (Titus 3:4-7) Jesus gave himself for the church, cleansing us by the water and the word. (Ephesians 5:25-27) In Christ, through faith, God has buried us with Jesus in baptism and made us alive with Christ, forgiving our sins.(Colossians 2:11-14) So, when we say we are saved by baptism, we are saying that God saves us by baptism.

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©2018 Robert E. Smith. All rights reserved. Permission granted to copy, share and display freely for non-commercial purposes. Direct all other rights and permissions inquiries to cosmithb@gmail.com

Jesus and the Money Changers

Encore Post: When Jesus entered Jerusalem, it was through a gate that opened into the temple. In the Court of the Gentiles, he saw many businessmen in booths they set up to sell goods to the pilgrims arriving for Passover. In Jesus’ day, the High Priestly family allowed businessmen to sell sacrificial animals there, just outside the temple proper. They would, of course, do this for very high prices and pay the High Priestly family for the privilege.

Another business, money changing, also went on in this area. Roman money bore images of the Emperor and pagan gods. These could not be carried into the temple, the High Priests ruled, since they broke the first commandment. Naturally, these moneychangers would charge a fee to change money into temple money.

When Jesus arrived, he saw this going on. He saw it for what it was — stealing from God’s people as they came to worship. He drove these people out of the temple with a whip made of cords. This made a deep impression on the people — and stiffened the resolve of the priests to see him killed.

After he did this, Jesus and his disciples returned to Bethany, likely to spend the night with Mary, Martha and Lazarus.

Rev. Robert E. Smith
Concordia Theological Seminary
Fort Wayne, Indiana

©2018 Robert E. Smith. All rights reserved. Permission granted to copy, share and display freely for non-commercial purposes. Direct all other rights and permissions inquiries to cosmithb@gmail.com

What is Baptism?

Encore Post: You may have discovered that Christians value Baptism a lot. Yet there are few subjects that the various Christian traditions disagree about more. Catholics believe baptism is a means of grace that removes original sin and forgives all actual sins committed before baptism. It does not forgive sins committed after that — for that you need to go to confession, be absolved and do penance. For many Protestants, it is a work you do in obedience to God’s command, showing you’ve accepted Jesus as your personal savior. For others, it is just a meaningful symbol of salvation.

Lutherans believe that baptism is a means of grace, one of the ways, instituted by Jesus himself, God uses to save us. (Matthew 28:19) It combines the Gospel of Christ’s saving obedience, suffering, death and resurrection with water to wash away our sins.  (Ephesians 5:25-27, Titus 3:4-7) It is God himself who does the baptizing, using human hands.

Like the other means of grace, Baptism creates faith in hearts where there is none and strengthens faith where it exists. Baptism also marks us with the name of the Triune God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. It makes us his children and heirs — heirs with Christ.

Finally, it is an undeniable declaration that we are saved. Why? Because we had nothing to do with it. In most cases, it is written in record books we can see and in all cases is written in the Book of Life.  When Satan tries to cause us to doubt our salvation, we can tell him: “get lost! I am baptized.”  Nothing can separate us from the Love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. And where he is, we will also be.

Rev. Robert E. Smith
Concordia Theological Seminary
Fort Wayne, Indiana

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©2018 Robert E. Smith. All rights reserved. Permission granted to copy, share and display freely for non-commercial purposes. Direct all other rights and permissions inquiries to cosmithb@gmail.com

Ride on, Ride on in Majesty

Encore Post: “It is better for you that one man should die for the people, not that the whole nation should perish,” prophesied Joseph Caiaphas, the High Priest. (John 11:50) On his way to Jerusalem, Jesus had healed a blind man, performing a sign of the Messiah. A week before the first Palm Sunday, Jesus was at the Bethany home of his friends Mary and Martha. The week before, in this bedroom community, he raised their brother Lazarus, who had been in the grave four days.

This unmistakable sign of the Messiah was done before their own eyes and those of the their relatives and friends. People flocked to see him and Lazarus. They feared that Jesus was going to start a rebellion, proclaiming himself the Messiah. Caiaphas knew what would happen. Pilate would destroy the rebels and level the temple and the city. Rather one man, this man who called himself the Son of God and the Messiah, would die instead of the people. They did not realize that was God’s will — for an entirely different reason.

The Sunday before Passover did not calm these fears, but intensifies them. Like David had done one thousand years earlier, he rides a donkey into Jerusalem along the road from Bethlehem. It ran through Bethany, Bethphage, through the Mount of Olives, across the brook Kidron, into the city through a gate into the Temple. The people spread their coats and palm branches on the road before him, sung praises to God and shouted, “Save now! Son of David” (Hosanna) Jesus not only did not discourage them, he accepted their praises. The leaders of the people united in their plans to kill Jesus. He was in their minds a blasphemer and a threat to them and to the nation.

What they missed was that Jesus the Messiah was not intent on earthly revolution, but to die for their sins and the sins of the world and rise again to open the tombs of all believers. He agreed with Caiaphas. For weeks he had been warning his disciples that he “had to” to suffer at their hands, be crucified, die and on the third day rise. Throughout the week, he would remind them of it. With the hindsight of being on the other side of the resurrection, we remember these events and sing: “Ride on, ride on, in majesty! In lowly pomp ride on to die. Bow Thy meek head to mortal pain. Then take, O Christ, Thy power and reign.” (Henry H. Milman, Ride on, Ride on, in Majesty, stanza five)

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Rev. Robert E. Smith
Concordia Theological Seminary
Fort Wayne, Indiana

©2018 Robert E. Smith. All rights reserved. Permission granted to copy, share and display freely for non-commercial purposes. Direct all other rights and permissions inquiries to cosmithb@gmail.com