Baptism of Our Lord
Romans 6:1-11
January 12, 2024
Baptismal Regeneration is not a Lutheran thing, it is a Christian thing. Baptismal regeneration is Christian because our Lord Himself establishes the sacrament of baptism, the means by which He desires we make disciples. We are commanded to baptize in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Jesus also makes clear that baptism is part of the language of faith – that “He who believes AND is baptized shall be saved, but he who does not believe shall be condemned.” These are our Lord’s words, not my words, not Luther’s words, our Lord’s words. Baptismal regeneration is a Christian teaching, not a Lutheran teaching.
God says, in His own words, that He will save sinners and inscribe His name upon them in baptism. Some people like to trivialize baptism and say it’s not important, that it doesn’t do anything, that it’s just water. But clearly our Lord doesn’t see baptism this way. He sees and gives baptism for us. God establishes it, He tells us what it does, and He stakes His reputation on it.
Like all the things of God, baptism is not given by men or worked by men. God does not give gifts and mandate we use them for no good reason. God may work through men to deliver them; God may use water to deliver His gifts, or bread and wine, the preacher at his pulpit, the prayer of the faithful, but it is God, plain as day, giving the gifts and fulfilling His promises through them.
God uses means; it’s everywhere in the Scripture. God could, I suppose, just “zap” faith into people. But He doesn’t. He uses means, and the greatest means is His holy Word preached and proclaimed into the ears of sinners, planting faith, delivering the Holy Spirit, and bringing the dead to eternal life. Baptism is yet another means by which the same happens. Faith is planted, the Spirit is given, and the dead are reborn by water and the Spirit to the kingdom of God.
And it’s important to note that the water is nothing without the Word. This is why we can’t just go dousing everyone with water and saying they’re baptized. The Word of God is required, and it binds itself to the water which offers true, Christian baptism.
But why water? Why not honey or milk or sand or soda pop? Well, because it was through the water that God created all things from nothing, that He brought what was dead and worthless to life and light. For even from the beginning, God intended that His people be baptized. He created the universe as He did to teach us how He chooses to recreate us, through water and the hovering of the Spirit and Word of God.
The world was created in baptism. Man was created and given life by the Spirit who hovered over the waters. This is how God has set it up from the beginning. And even in heaven, according to Revelation 21, the same waters of life flow down from the throne and cover the sins of His people.
In His baptism, our Lord Christ entered the River Jordan. Scripture doesn’t tell us if He was fully submerged or if John poured water on Him. There are very old and ancient images of John baptizing people with a shell as they stood in the water, but again, we don’t know, and it doesn’t matter. If the Lord were insistent upon a specific form of how the water is to be applied, Scripture would state it, but it doesn’t. It says simply “baptize.” And baptism has many forms both in the Scripture and in extrabiblical texts from 2,000 years ago.
But as our Lord walked out of the Jordan, there appeared the Holy Spirit as a dove over the waters, and the heavenly Father spoke and said, “This is my beloved Son, listen to Him.”
See the connection. To fulfill all righteousness, Jesus underwent a sinner’s bath. And as we see this image of our Lord’s baptism, we see Genesis chapter 1, don’t we? The Lord speaks, the Spirit hovers, and there is water. And from that water and the Word, new creation. “Oh, but Pastor, Jesus is eternal – He is God in the flesh!” Yes, and this is the whole point.
See, God’s first creation was eternal, and Adam was part of His first creation, and then it was corrupted by sin, taking its eternal nature away. In Christ Jesus the first fruits of eternal life, new creation is fulfilled, not that Christ is a new creation, but that we are new creations in Christ, because we are baptized in the same waters in which He was baptized.
In His baptism, our Lord became as a servant, He took on our sin, so that we might be covered in His perfect and eternal righteousness. Jesus is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. John, the unfit and unworthy, baptized the Lord of Creation so that the Lord of Creation might make all humanity worthy and holy. And this is what He did.
In our baptisms, we are buried with Christ, and we emerge covered in His righteousness. This is how baptism saves. It’s not our work, as if we can cover ourselves in Jesus, but it is God’s work, just as in creation it was all God’s work, it is also God’s work to recreate, to make new, to make right.
In baptism we die to our old self, the enslaved, broken, and destined for condemnation self, just as the world died to decay in the flood, just as Pharaoh and his armies died in the Red Sea. We die to our old self and a new self is born.
And it is not a new self of more broken promises and failed resolutions. Salvation in Christ is not about you or I committing ourselves more fervently to God and promising to do what He says. Salvation is about God committing Himself to us and fulfilling His promises to us.
And because He covers us in this new self; because we are clothed in the holiness and righteousness of Christ, we are as dead to our old self, of sin and disobedience. We cannot live in it any longer because it is dead to us and we to it. We are born again, born from above, and the old sinful nature is no longer our master.
This should put to rest any false idea that, because we live by the grace of God, we can keep on sinning as much as we’d like, and God just keeps forgiving. Why would we want to do that? Why would we want to be disobedient and return to living according to that which is put to death in us?
We can look to Noah to see the answer to this question. After the Lord saved he and his family in the ark, where the old world was drowned away forever, what did Noah immediately do? He went and got drunk – partied a little too hard – and made a fool of himself. And even one of his children, Ham the father of the Canaanite people sinned because he looked upon his father’s nakedness and took offense, as if he was somehow better.
See, the sinful nature, though drowned in our baptisms, always seeks to regain control; it doesn’t like to stay dead. And so, when opportunity for sin arises, the sinful nature is right there looking for even a thread of disobedience to clasp onto and pull itself back up. And when we fall into sin, what we are doing is giving our sinful nature a pulpit from which to preach the devil’s old sermon: “Did God really say…”
Give the sinful nature that pulpit too much and the devil starts to chew away at our faith hoping to ultimately draw us away from Christ and back into the darkness of disbelief and rebellion.
This is why, in the Christian church, we never affirm sin or sinful living. It’s not because we want to be jerks to our neighbor or browbeat them or look down on them, but because we know from Scripture what sinful living, manifest sinning, unrepentance does – it leads us away from Christ. The ancient people of Israel went astray so many times, first under the Judges and the Lord had to call them back and repent them through threat of punishment. Then it was under the kings, but even the kings went astray, so the Lord sent prophets to preach repentance, but the people refused. Finally, the Lord laid waste to the entire nation and sent his wayward people into exile. And let’s just be honest, Israel has never been the same since that Babylonian captivity.
I mean, imagine Noah’s ark having an open window and the kids hanging out that window and marveling at the great flood. It’s tempting the Spirit to have one foot in and one foot out, and the tumult of this fallen and evil world will surely grab hold of that leg and try to pull us away if possible. This is why God shut-up the ark and sealed it tight, so none of His precious commodity would chance falling out and dying.
The holy Christian church is the holy Ark of God. He draws us here, to this place, to find shelter and rest and safety from the deluge of this life’s storms and threats. And now, the very first thing you see before entering this holy sanctuary is the baptismal font. And this is because it is the waters of death and rebirth, baptismal waters which have covered you, cleansed you, and marked you as one redeemed by Christ the crucified. You see the font first to help remind you of your baptism, that you are no longer living for death, but you have died to death and now Christ lives in you.
To “remember your baptism” is to stand against the devil and his attacks. Everything the devil may say may be true. You are sinner in thought, word, and deed. You are not worthy of God’s kindness or blessings. You are not fit for entrance into His eternal kingdom. It may all be true, but you are baptized, and this means God has tied His name and reputation to you. God cannot fail you and this means the teeth of Satan’s accusations are gone.
Christian baptismal fonts have eight sides because the eighth day is the day of New Creation. At creation, our Lord rested on the 7th day, just as, after His crucifixion, our Lord rested in the tomb on the 7th day. And it was on the 8th Day that our Lord commanded all the male children be circumcised, to signify their new life among the Jewish people, just as it was on the 8th day that our Lord rose from the dead to proclaim victory and seal His people’s citizenship in the eternal kingdom.
Likewise, baptismal fonts have eight sides to signify that, in baptism, we die and rest with our Lord in the tomb, and are then reborn with Him on the 8th day and made part of His eternal family.
The water in the font is fresh, clean, and cool water, running water if possible, to signify the cleansing power of the water combined with the Word of God. This baptism takes our sins away as far as east is from west and makes us clean, gives us a clean conscience so no charge is held against us as we stand before the heavenly throne and the books of heaven are opened.
Baptism saves. It’s what the Lord says and promises. It’s easy for us to deny such power in baptism because all we see is water and some dude in a man-dress pouring water on the forehead of a person. But baptism’s power is not in what we think or in what we see or in what we are willing or not willing to believe about it. Baptism’s power isn’t dependent on the human soul being baptized, the pastor pouring the water, or the people watching with cameras in hand. Baptism’s power to save is in God’s Word and promises.
This is why we baptize our children and infants, as well as adults. We’re not looking for the baptismal candidates to have some sort of spiritual or emotional experience; we’re not looking for a sign or evidence from the person that he or she has truly committed to God or truly been saved or truly received the Spirit. Instead, we are looking to God and His promises and trusting that He does not go back on His promises that, by water and the Word, He has made alive the sinner and rescued him from sin, death, and the devil.
The religion of the human always looks to the human for proofs of faith, but the true religion of Christ always looks to Christ, the TRUE promise keeper, and even in simple things like water, bread and wine, and a half-witted pastor preaching from the pulpit and speaking the Absolution, trusts that Jesus does what He says, that God gives life and salvation through His means of grace, including Baptism, because that’s what He says in His Word.
The Lord says, “baptism saves you,” but our minds say, “But it doesn’t make sense, it must add up and be rational and reasonable or I will not believe it.” The Lord says, “Trust in me and lean not on your own understanding,” but the sinful man says, “Trust in yourself and do not trust a word the Lord says and change His Word to make it more palatable to your reasoning.”
But it doesn’t matter, because the Lord’s Word never changes, and Christian baptism always saves.
Of course, we must also be careful not to make baptism into a magic pill where, as long as you do it, you can go back to living your life as you please and still go to heaven. We are saved by grace through FAITH, after all, and even in baptism, if that faith given by water and the Word is not nurtured; if the parents of the child do not raise that child in a Christian home surrounded by the things of God both in home and in church, if that child is not tested and called to repent of his sins and hold fast to Christ and His forgiveness, if that child is encouraged to live for the world even at the expense of his faith or her faith, then even if baptized, where there is not faith in Christ and His cross, there is only condemnation.
We like to rationalize and say things like, “Well when they get older, they’ll come around. Teens need to experience things and go through things, so we don’t want to force them.” But here’s the thing. Children are born a blank slate. They don’t know right from wrong. They don’t know what it is to be Christian. They must learn how to be Christian from parents who set the example and teach them.
The public schools aren’t going to teach them how to be Christian, that’s a guarantee. Their unchurched friends aren’t going to teach them how to love the Lord and serve the neighbor. They’ll teach your kids everything else, especially things they shouldn’t learn, but never Christ and His promises. Secular music and social media, they’re not going to teach your kids anything of the faith. I think, today, it’s the music more than anything that draws our kids away from Christ. And, I can’t come to your house every single day and be their 24/7 spiritual leader, and this church can’t do it either.
No, it’s your job, the parents, to raise your kids to be Christian, to live out their baptisms through daily repentance and a sure faith that their sins are forgiven, to raise them and instill good and godly habits, church attendance, supporting the church through their time, talents, and treasures, and living their lives to serve God and the neighbor in love. But to do this for your children, you must also believe, and not doubt, that God has forgiven you of your sins in Christ, and made you holy in baptism, given you a new name and is making you your eternal home even now.
The Christian life is a baptismal life. It is a life of daily dying to sin and rising again clothed in the new life of Christ. We will sin and we will fall short for we live in a broken world and our bodies are not yet made glorious. But our Lord will never leave us or forsake us, and not even the power of the devil himself can snatch us away.
And as you come forward to receive the other blessed sacrament, the Body and Blood of our Lord in bread and wine, come with a repentant heart, acknowledging your sins, and trusting with all that you are in the forgiveness of sins given and shed for you. Come confessing the one true Christian faith as one people, one body, confessing in common union the one faith, one hope, one baptism, and one Lord who is Christ the savior. Amen.
