# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_Januar 1862_S13
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

A New Teaching on Baptism. 13

the field of man is worked both above and below — above by the air and light of the word of God, below by the nourishing powers and moisture of the sacraments. As for what both word and sacrament effect, however — here we have only baptism in view, that is, regeneration, and in this respect the two are alike. Thomasius acknowledges that only by a kind of violent stroke can the power of regeneration be separated from the word of God, where the word is received in faith even without baptism having taken place. That very passage alone should warn against this, where Paul says, 1 Cor. 4:15: "For though ye have ten thousand instructors in Christ, yet have ye not many fathers: for in Christ Jesus I have begotten you through the gospel." That baptism cannot and may not be thought of here is shown by Paul's word in the same letter to the same persons, 1:14: "I thank God that I baptized none of you, but Crispus and Gaius." (Compare Smalcald Articles, Part 3, Ch. 8, on Cornelius.) Subtle interpreters, of course, know how to help themselves. They say: to have been begotten is not yet to have been born. But let them compare the Greek text with John 3:3 and 1:13.

So, in this respect, Thomasius has been cautious enough, and his teaching is, at first glance, more tolerable than the teaching of those who empty out the word of God in favor of baptism and even go so far as to venture the unheard-of claim that baptism is absolutely necessary for salvation — a claim for which, quite strangely, Mark 16:16 is cited. I am nevertheless convinced that his teaching not only suffers from internal contradictions, but also collides hard, on the very tracks it has laid down, with the doctrine of justification. I will only bring out the main points, since a sharper treatment is not in place here.

Evidently Thomasius has divided regeneration into two halves, corresponding to the two halves of man, and that is what is new in his teaching — but that is also what is questionable about it. Through the word, the one half of man, the conscious personality, is regenerated; through baptism, the other half of man, the natural substrate. To be sure, both halves of man, being vitally joined, also exert an unmistakable influence on one another, and the regeneration that occurs on one side makes itself felt on the other as well. Nevertheless, that does not essentially change the matter. If a regeneration through baptism must still be added to the regeneration through the word, if the one supplements the other, and if this supplementing is necessary, then we are left, more or less, with two half-regenerations, which together first make up a whole. Now what is to become of the one who has been regenerated by faith in the gospel but has departed this world before baptism? Or what is to become of the one who, as an unweaned infant, departed this world immediately after baptism, without hearing the gospel? Thomasius will say: both of them are regenerated, so both enter the kingdom of God. I say: No! According to his own system they are only half regenerated, and cannot, according to John 3:3, simply enter the kingdom of God without further ado. Or, if one wishes to be fair, they can, according to the