Am I opening a can of worms? Absolutely. But St. Jude says we need to earnestly contend for the faith which was once and for all delivered to the saints. And we live in age where many have thrown away God's word and promises and substituted it with false doctrine that tickles the ears and have been swayed away from simple trust in Jesus toward the "appearance of religion but denying the power thereof"
Let's first be clear what Baptism is not.
Baptism is not you and me doing something as an act of obedience to earn brownie points from God. Baptism is not you and me doing something for God. Baptism is not an obstacle that God puts in the way that if we don't overcome it then God is going to deny us His grace and love and salvation in Christ. Baptism is not a public confession of faith, a mere religious ceremony and ritual without power or grace. Baptism is not merely getting wet. You aren't the one who is at work when you were baptized. The pastor or priest who baptized us isn't the one who is at work in our baptism either.
The Baptizer is God.
The plain word of God teaches us what baptism is. When speaking to Nicodemus, our Lord Jesus Christ taught that to enter into and see God's reign, we must be born anew, a birth that is of water and the Spirit (John 3:3-5). After our Lord rose from the dead He came to His apostles and gave His Great Commission to the Church: "Make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit, and teaching them all which I have instructed." (Matthew 28:19).
When the Holy Spirit came, sent by the Father in fulfillment of Christ's promise that the Holy Spirit would come, the Paraclete, the Spirit of Truth (John 14:16-20, John 16:13-15) as foretold by St. John the Baptist "I baptize you with water, but He who comes after Me, whose sandals I am unfit to fasten, will baptize with the Holy Spirit and with fire" (Luke 3:16) and reiterated by our Lord just before His Ascension (Acts of the Apostles 1:4-8), this same Holy Spirit filled St. Peter and through him declared "Repent, and be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of your sins, this promise is for you, your children, and for all who are far off, as many as the Lord our God will call to Himself" (Acts of the Apostles 2:38-39). The pilgrims in Jerusalem that day, who bore witness to the outpouring of the Spirit and the power of the Spirit through Peter's preaching, were converted and three thousand that day were baptized and received into the Church (Acts of the Apostles 2:41). And the whole Church were together in communion, abiding in the Apostles' teaching, the celebration of the Lord's Supper, and devoted to prayer (Acts of the Apostles 2:42-47).
In his magnum opus, the Epistle to the Romans, St. Paul in his great declaration of God's grace and saving power through the Gospel (Romans 1:16-17) reminds us that when we were baptized we were baptized into Christ's death, buried with Him, and raised up together with the Lord; and in light of these things are to reckon ourselves dead to sin and alive to God. The work God having accomplished for us in our baptism continued to be called to abiding in the truth and promise of our baptism (Romans 6:1-14). The Apostle, again, in his great letter to the Galatians reminding them that it is not their works, not by following the Law, but God's grace alone which is theirs in Christ, that they indeed put on Christ, were clothed with Him and His righteousness, in baptism, "For all of you who were baptize into Christ have put on Christ." (Galatians 3:27). See how the believer in Christ has not merely gotten wet, but has been given Jesus Christ as a garment, truly as the Prophet Isaiah had said, "I will greatly rejoice in the LORD; my soul shall exult in my God, for He has clothed me with the garments of salvation; He has covered me with the robe of righteousness, as a bridegroom decks himself like a priest with a beautiful headdress, and as a bride adorns herself with her jewels." (Isaiah 61:10) And Zechariah having written, "Behold, I have taken your iniquity away from you, and I will clothe you with pure vestments." (Zechariah 3:4). See indeed how God in His so great and wonderful great has said to us "though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red like crimson, they shall become like wool" (Isaiah 1:18), and the Psalmist telling us, "so great is His steadfast love toward those who fear Him; as far as the east is from the west, so far does He remove our transgressions from us." (Psalms 103:11-12).
See again what Paul writes in Ephesians, that Christ who loves His Church as a bride, having made her holy, cleansing her, washing her by water with the word (Ephesians 5:26). Or how in Colossians he writes we have received a spiritual circumcision, one made without hands, a circumcision of the heart when we were baptized,
"And you have been filled in Him, who is the head of all rule and authority. In Him also you were circumcised with a circumcision made without hands, by putting off the body of the flesh, by the circumcision of Christ, having been buried with Him in baptism, in which you were also raised with Him through faith in the powerful working of God, who raised Him from the dead. And you, who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with Him, having forgiven us all our trespasses, by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This He set aside, nailing it to the cross. He disarmed the rulers and the authorities and put them to open shame, by triumphing over them in Him." (Colossians 2:10-15)
Time and again we see so great this grace and power and work of God is. In our baptism God has declared us forgiven, Christ having died for us, having nailed our sins to the cross, and born our shame, and becoming a curse for our sake. Why, oh why do we deny the grace of God by denying the Sacrament?
Why do we try and deny God's power and work and replace them with our own works? Why do we make up our own means and methods? Why do we keep trying to take credit for what God has done? Why do we ignore the cross and insist on our glory?
Who are we? But dust and dead bones filled with every sin and wickedness. But see what God has done, sending His only-begotten and very beloved Son, born of a woman and born under the Law to bear suffering, and cross, and death, and grave for us. And here He is, not on the mountain top, not in secret places, not in esoteric mantras, or in all the wretched works of sinners: But here, plain and publically, water and the word.
Oh how He loves us. That even this most meager thing, water, should become sign and seal of the Lamb of God who gave His life for us. The word of God here shouting loud in our face: our sins are forgiven, thanks be to God.
Thanks be to God.
Thanks be to God.
Thanks be to God.
Baptizatus sum.
-CryptoLutheran
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