# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_October 1860_S294
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

294 Old Testimonies against New Errors concerning the Effect etc.

namely, that faith seeks and lays hold of the word of promise, wherever God, through his own institution, sets it before us. But if anyone, from hearing the word, has true faith in Christ, and the opportunity is not granted him to use the sacraments according to the divine institution, then in such a case there is certainly no unconditional necessity of the sacraments for salvation to be assumed — such that salvation would be denied to those to whom the possibility of using the sacraments is not given, although they lay hold of the Mediator Christ in the word through faith. For to the thief on the cross, who grasped Christ in the word of promise through faith, paradise is certainly promised, although no opportunity was given him to receive baptism... In what way, then, baptism makes us blessed, 1 Pet. 3, as it is a bath of regeneration, Titus 3, Paul explains simply when he says to the Ephesians, chapter 5: He has cleansed his congregation by the washing of water in the word. And Augustine concludes the same from that saying of Christ: You are clean because of the word that I have spoken to you. Rightly, then, does the Apology of the Augsburg Confession say that the word and the sacraments have the same effect, the same power or efficacy, the sacraments being seals of the promises, which Augustine therefore calls visible words." (Examen Concilii Tridentini. Part II, f. 212 sq.)

Johann Gerhard writes: "The Calvinists object: Sometimes such persons are baptized who have already, beforehand, been reborn through the word and the Holy Spirit, as appears from the example of the eunuch, Acts 8:38, and of those upon whom the Holy Spirit had already fallen beforehand, Acts 10:47. Since, then, baptism was for these no means of regeneration, one cannot say that it serves this purpose for the rest. — I answer: 1) Although these and many others were truly reborn before the use of baptism, this takes nothing away from the efficacy of baptism, that it should not, on that account, be and be called the bath of regeneration. 2) And this can be explained by the example of the word, which is heard by many who have already been reborn beforehand; none the less the word is nevertheless that saving means through which we are reborn, as of an imperishable seed. 1 Pet. 1:23; James 1:18. 3) Just as, then, faith and the gifts of the Holy Spirit are increased in the reborn through the hearing and pondering of the word, so the same thing also happens through baptism; indeed, baptism also powerfully seals in them the gift of regeneration. 4) In the question of the benefit of baptism, a distinction must therefore be made between children and adults. For children, baptism is chiefly the ordinary means of regeneration and cleansing from sins etc., and besides that a seal of righteousness and a confirmation of faith; for believing adults, baptism serves chiefly for the sealing and attestation of the grace of God, of adoption, and of eternal life, and besides that it increases the renewal and the gifts of the Holy