LCMS Convention Proceedings St. Louis, Missouri — 1962, Page 25

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DOCTRINAL-DEVOTIONAL ESSAYS 25

IV
The Doctrine of Baptism

Willis E. Laetsch
Concordia Teachers College, Seward

Under God’s guidance and on the basis of His Word
it will be your and my privilege to study, all too briefly,
what Luther has called the superabundant riches of
the grace of God — this morning the Sacrament of Holy
Baptism and tomorrow the Sacrament of the Lord’s
Supper.

The sacraments are superabundant riches because
the mere Word, the Gospel, in and by itself confers and
appropriates to the sinner God’s grace and the forgive-
ness of sins. However, both Scripture and experience
teach that nothing is more difficult for one who has
recognized his sinful state and condition than to believe
that God is gracious and forgiving. As an earlier dog-
matician (Chemnitz) says: “Our carnal infirmity hin-
ders, disturbs, distracts, and weakens our faith. For
it is hard to continue firmly persuaded of those things
proposed in the Word which are not apparent to the
senses.” God, superabundantly rich in mercy, has met
the need of sinful man in a superabundant way, not
only by and through the Word but also by visible means
of grace, the sacraments. All praise and thanks to Him!

It is altogether proper that we study Holy Baptism
first, for it is the sacrament of initiation, while the
Lord’s Supper is the sacrament of confirmation. By
Baptism we are regenerated; by the Lord’s Supper we
are fed and nourished to eternal life. As therefore in
nature, so also in grace, we must be born before we are
fed, we must be begotten before we can grow. By Bap-
tism we are received into the covenant of God; by the
Lord’s Supper we are preserved in it. By Baptism faith
and the other gifts of the Spirit are excited in us; by
the Lord’s Supper they are increased and confirmed.

What, then, is this superabundant richness of God,
Holy Baptism?

An answer based on Scripture is that of one of our
fathers, Dr. A. L. Graebner: “The sacrament of Baptism
is the act of sprinkling, pouring, or by immersion apply-
ing upon a living human person water in the name
of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost,
the Triune God, who is Himself present with the water
connected with the sacramental word and efficaciously
offers the gifts of His grace and operates toward their
acceptance, as in infants, or toward perseverance in and
greater assurance of their possession, as in adults who
have been previously regenerated by the Word.”

No believing Christian who knows his Bible requires
any lengthy proof for the statement that Baptism has
been instituted by our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
In the same words in which the resurrected Lord com-
missioned His disciples to preach the Gospel, He insti-
tuted Baptism: “Go ye, therefore, and teach [make
disciples of] all nations, baptizing them in the name
of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost,
teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have

commanded you.” Thereby Christ designated Baptism,
together with His Word, a means of grace, through
which He rescues man out of his perdition and bestows
upon him all the blessings of His redemption. Bound
to His will, the believing Christian in full assurance
trusts that as long as the earth remains, Christ will
not withdraw His saving power from His own institu-
tion of Baptism.

The believing Christian must then stand amazed at
the temerity, the audacity, of those today who say that
Baptism is a figment of the human mind, the mind
of the writers of the New Testament, and that it was
practiced in the early church without the command of
the resurrected Lord; or that true faith in the Gospel
can exist without the desire for Baptism and that there
is a way into the kingdom of Christ which excludes
Holy Baptism. One of the reasons offered is that the
early Christians could not have been so advanced in
theology as the words “in the name of the Father and
of the Son and of the Holy Ghost” would indicate.
Dr. Pieper rightly says, “Such objectors very unhis-
torically impute their own poor knowledge of the Chris-
tian doctrine to the primitive Christian church. The
words of God’s inspired Word are clear and simple,
‘Make disciples — baptizing them — teaching them.’”

Our dogmaticians on the basis of Scripture declare
that the essentials of Baptism are three: water, the
application of water, and Christ’s word.

With regard to the first essential, water, Luther
says, “If you were to use for it anything else than the
appointed substance or the substance named, and still
pronounce the right words, that would be no baptizing
but cheating and a mockery of the sacrament by one
who willfully ignores the ordinance and command in
which the substance is clearly named.”

So far as the application of water is concerned, Bap-
tism can be performed by immersion, pouring, or sprink-
ling, because, as has been repeatedly explained by
many scholars, the original Scripture word “baptize”
merely denotes the application of water without any
implication as to the way it is applied.

The third essential in a valid Baptism is Christ’s
word, namely, the word He used when He instituted
Baptism: “in the name of the Father and of the Son
and of the Holy Ghost.” Although this is clearly taught
in Scripture, there are theologians who teach that the
New Testament knows only of a Baptism in the name
of Jesus, citing as an example Peter’s Pentecostal ex-
hortation, “Repent, and be baptized every one of you
in the name of Jesus Christ.” But since it was Christ
who had commanded Baptism in the name of the Father,
Son, and Holy Ghost, this Baptism is a Baptism “in the
name of Christ.” Besides, whoever is baptized in the
name of the Triune God is baptized in the name of
Christ, or vice versa, for Scripture clearly teaches that
one cannot know the Father without simultaneously
knowing the Son and the Holy Ghost.

In his Large Catechism Dr. Luther writes: “Baptism
is no human trifle but instituted by God Himself, more-