Note from a Lutheran Pastor on this Blog

Gary -

You don't know me - but I am an LCMS pastor (1986 Fort Wayne) on the South Texas Coast (Our Redeemer, Palacios, to be exact). Two of my members, formerly hard-core Presbys/Calvinists (now-converted), found your site as they perused the many sites I suggested they read. They came across your site, and I came across your discussion with the SBC and Pastor Cavness - especially regarding Baptism, and more specifically, as it applies to infants (I did copy my two members since they copied me to you). In any case, I thought I should reply.

Having been raised in a very seriously (hard-core Irish) Catholic family (and studied that theology at length since), I understand from whence the RCC cometh. But from 1971 - 1977 I was a hardcore Baptist - having read Hodge and Spurgeon and Moody and Graham and others. I could dispense with the entire Catholic/Orthodox/Lutheran sacramental system in a heartbeat, until . . .

I read the Book of Concord. Then . . . I was toast.

It was at that point that I realized not only the legalism of Rome, which I had realized earlier, but also, that of the Reformed/Anabaptist/Calvinist theology. The core issue? Who is the Actor in salvation, and who is the "acted upon?" Upon learning that Acts 2:38 (and all the other verses) spoke of faith and baptism in the passive sense from my/our perspective, and that it was God, not me, doing the doing, so to speak, I realized Luther had nailed matters.

Baptism is not a "one-time" act. It is ongoing, because it is the genesis and sustainer of faith - it creates faith and gives ongoing faith, whether one is 9 minutes old or 90 years old. Like the Lord's Supper, which is an ongoing perpetuation of the Upper Room and the Cross, Baptism is forever. In it, we are sealed as God's own, by HIS work, not ours, and that work, in His Blessed Son on the Cross.

In worship (which Rome has mangled and the Reformed have yet to find) - we acknowledge in every Divine Liturgy our status as the Baptized Children of God (The Invocation in the Triune God, Confession, Absolution). We enter the altar with the Introit (Gospel Psalm), and then sing the Kyrie, and Gloria in Excelsis, and recite the Collect (the Prayer of the given day). All of it affirming that we are the baptized children of God.

Then, the reading of Scripture, and the expounding of the texts in a sermon as commanded by the Lord of every preacher. Showing forth our sin that we might yet repent anew again of our sin, and bringing to the hearers the sweetness of the Gospel in the love and work of Christ showing God's intent, both in our Baptisms, and preaching, to call us His own by name. As my wife says of me and I of her, so God says of us - Mine! - ALL Mine!"

Ah, but He is not done. He leads us as we recite/pray the Creed - confessing that we are one together in this one holy faith God has given us in our Holy Baptisms, and we, offering back in thanksgiving our earthly treasures, gain His further response. After the prayer and preface and Lord's Prayer, God consecrates bread and wine to also be the Body and Blood of the crucified and resurrected Lord through the hands and words of one like me, His called servant, and feed us Jesus Christ HIMSELF. Astounding, amazing, and the single most humbling thing I do or receive in this life!

Christ feeds us who are his baptized brothers and sisters with HIMSELF, and in His benediction, lifting His face up upon us, bids us His blessings until we return to the sanctuary of His grace. If that could be found in purer form, I would be there, and not here. But God is many times gracious, and He has allowed me to be a part of further creating that whole setting and faith HERE. Simply amazing stuff.

Jesus will not permit us to forget that we are the baptized, sealed unto God, children of God. He, not Luther or anyone else, Jesus said that Baptism, the Word and Worship, and the Lord's Body and Blood, are the very means by which the Holy Spirit delivers salvation through Him.

Both the Catholics and the Baptists cannot accept the sheer-ness of grace in that. They endeavor, in one way or another, to make us worthy or "cooperating" with our salvation or with Jesus. Nonsense.

We can, once in the faith, begin to act out the faith, but that is not properly "justification" (salvation), but rather, "sanctification" (the process of becoming holier - closer and closer to God in Jesus).

Baptists are not within a light year or ten of such an understanding, and like Rome, cannot give the credit due solely to God, but they must also, give it to sinful man instead. Luther said the exact opposite!

The great genius, and incredible insights of faith God gave to Luther provide us all a way past ourselves and to "the way" (narrow as Jesus says it is) to eternal life with God as He always intended.

Luther had a laser-like focus on Jesus.

Baptism is who we are every day - children of the Lord God Almighty. It is at once, humbling, as Luther and Lewis would say, and yet, it is our glory and our salvation beyond measure!

I leave you with this, one of the most stupendous hymns ever written. The lyrics are everywhere online, but the music is so sublime, that one baptized might ALREADY have the lyrics memorized.

But . . . the opening two verses . . .

The Church's one foundation
Is Jesus Christ her Lord
She is His new creation
By water and the word
From Heaven He came and sought her
To be His Holy Bride
And with His own blood he bought her,
and for her life he died.

Elect from ev'ry nation,
Yet one o'er all the earth,
Her charter of salvation,
One Lord, one faith, one birth;
One holy Name she blesses,
Partakes one holy food,
And to one hope she presses,With ev'ry grace endued.

Even an Anglican (Samuel J. Stone) made for a pert good Lutheran! He puts Baptism right at the beginning, and also, forever! (Truth be known, I have never finished verse two without losing it).

Pax -

Rev. J. Jeffrey Baxter (jb)
Our Redeemer Lutheran Church
Palacios, TX

(An Irishman loose among German Lutherans, and a couple of renegade Presbys!)