LCMS Convention Workbook St. Louis, Missouri — 2019, Page 215

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II. THEOLOGICAL DOCUMENTS­­—COMMISSION ON THEOLOGY AND CHURCH RELATIONS
for us and His loving face beaming upon His beloved
creation.13

Baptism Makes Us Members of a New
Community
Not only do we begin a new life with God as our Father
through Baptism, but we begin a new life with all the
members of God’s family in which we now find ourselves. By becoming children of Abraham (and thus
children of God), we become numbered among the
(innumerable!) offspring that God promised to Abraham. These descendants of Abraham include not only
the Israelites who lived by faith in God’s promise but also
all believers scattered throughout the world. Baptism
incorporates us into a community that reaches back
thousands of years and that extends around the entire
world. We know that community today as the Church,
the new Israel, the Body of Christ.
Paul draws on this theme and deepens its meaning
when he writes to the Christians in Ephesus: “There is
one body and one Spirit … one Lord, one faith, one baptism” (Eph. 4:4–5). He expands on it further in his letter to
the Christians at Corinth:
For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though
many, are one body, so it is with Christ. For in one
Spirit we were all baptized into one body — Jews
or Greeks, slaves or free — and all were made to
drink of one Spirit (1 Cor. 12:12–13).

way or another, serve to build up and edify the one Body
of Christ (1 Corinthians 12).
Love guides our use of these gifts for each other, as
Paul writes in his famous chapter on love (1 Corinthians
13). In the early years of the church’s growth, we see that
love put into action as Gentile Christians around the
world collected money for the Jewish Christians in Judea
suffering under a famine (Acts 11:27–30). The apostle
Paul reminds his readers throughout Galatia to do the
same for each other: “So then, as we have opportunity,
let us do good to everyone, and especially to those who
are of the household of faith” (Gal. 6:10). This was one of
the features that stood out about Christians within the
ancient world and prompted pagans to exclaim, “Look
how they love one another!” This is what life under the
restored reign of God looks like in practice.
Baptism’s formation of Christians into a new
community carries with it significant implications for
our practice of Baptism. Ordinarily, it is most fitting
to perform Baptism within the context of the entire
assembled congregation. A public Baptism highlights the
rite as an act of adoption by which we are welcomed and
incorporated into a new family and community. The rite
of Baptism itself emphasizes this when the congregation
welcomes the newly baptized “in Jesus’ name as our
brother/sister in Christ, that together we might hear His
Word, receive His gifts, and proclaim the praises of Him
who called us out of darkness into His marvelous light”
(LSB 271).

In Baptism, we are united with Christ and thereby
also united with every other baptized Christian. We
share the same promises and the same hope as part of
the same Body of Christ. Herein lies our indissoluble
unity as Christians.
Paul uses Baptism’s incorporation of Christians
into the one Body of Christ as a basis for urging the
unruly Corinthians (they provide an especially good
case study!) to get along with each other, to bear each
other’s burdens and to live in peace with one another.
Since Baptism makes us members of God’s family, we
are called to look after each other — even if we do not
always know each other personally or like each other
very much! Paul reminds the Corinthians that even as
members of one body, they have different God-given
interests and talents. All of these gifts and talents, in one

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BAPTISM: A NEW BEGINNING

(Gen. 3:8–10). This gift of forgiveness in Baptism is highlighted by the vivid image of washing.
As God’s chosen people, the citizens of Israel were to
lead holy lives: lives lived in congruence with God’s will
for His creation and dedicated to His purposes within
His creation. When God’s people failed to do so — that
is, when they sinned — it was as though they had chosen
to go out and roll around in the mud and in the muck
of their own filth. They need to be washed clean before
coming back inside (see Ps. 24:3–4).
It is in this context that the most basic meaning of the
word “baptize” moves into the foreground. In its literal
sense, the New Testament word “baptize” indicates a
washing with water for the purpose of cleansing. In the
ancient world, the word was used for washing tables
and dishes — and people. The imagery of baptizing with
water picks up these ideas and applies them to us as an
act that washes us and cleans us up so that we might
be presentable to God and thus be able to attend God’s
festival banquet.
When the apostle Paul recounted his pre-conversion
life in which he persecuted and killed followers of Jesus,
he recalled how Ananias told him: “And now why do you
wait? Rise and be baptized and wash away your sins, calling on his name” (Acts 22:16). Later, Paul uses this same
imagery in writing to the Christians at Ephesus: “Christ
loved the church and gave himself up for her, that he
[Christ] might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the
washing of water with the word [Baptism], so that he
might present the church to himself in splendor, without
spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy
and without blemish” (Eph. 5:25–27, emphasis added).
In the New Testament, the washing of Baptism often
comes with the reminder that it is good to be clean —
coupled with the encouragement: Don’t go getting dirty
again! For example, Paul tells the Christians in Corinth:
“And such were some of you. But you were washed,
you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of
the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God”
(1 Cor. 6:11). This verse comes on the heels of reminding
them about their former sin-filled lives outside of Christ
(“such were some of you” in 1 Cor. 6:1–11). It then provides the basis for Paul’s exhortation to live as “[temples]
of the Holy Spirit.” He urges them, “So glorify God in
your body” (1 Cor. 6:12–20).
The gift of the forgiveness of sins promised us in
Baptism brings us into such an intimate relationship with
God our Father that we may always run to Him for for-

THE THEOLOGY AND PRACTICE OF HOLY BAPTISM

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3. THE GIFTS AND BENEFITS OF BAPTISM

I

n his Small Catechism, Martin Luther asks,
“What benefits does Baptism give?” He answers: “It
works forgiveness of sins, rescues from death and the
devil, and gives eternal salvation to all who believe
this, as the words and promises of God declare” (SC,
Baptism). Luther’s list provides a handy way to organize
our reflection on the various gifts and benefits that are
promised and delivered to us in this new life with God
and His people.

Baptism Promises the Forgiveness of Sins
Today, it is easy to take the language of “forgiveness” for
granted or to empty it of its power by turning it into a
platitude. To get a better sense of how life-altering forgiveness can be, consider this: When we forgive someone, we are promising them that we will not allow the
past to determine our future relationship with them. So
when God forgives us, God promises us that He will not
allow our self-centeredness to determine or affect our life
together with Him as we move forward into the future.
The past is ancient history. God has buried the past in
the depths of the sea (Micah 7:19) and no longer remembers it (Is. 38:17; 43:25; Ps. 103:12). Our relationship with
God (and with each other) is given a fresh start.
We can see this particularly with respect to Israel’s
relationship with God. Time and time again, Israel failed
to live as God’s chosen people by turning in upon themselves. Each time they turned their back upon God, they
fractured their relationship with Him. This could only be
repaired by God Himself and His forgiveness. Time and

13
Henry W. Reiman, “Luther on Creation: A Study in Theocentric Theology,” Concordia Theological Monthly 24, no. 1 (January 1, 1953): 34.

THE THEOLOGY AND PRACTICE OF HOLY BAPTISM

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THE THEOLOGY AND PRACTICE OF HOLY BAPTISM

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On the other hand, Christ’s resurrection marks the
breaking in of a bright new future resulting from Christ’s
obedience and subsequent installation as Lord at the
right hand of God. As Martin Luther puts it, “[We] are
presently in the dawn of the age to come.”15 The dawn is
not yet the full light of the noonday sun. The sun still lies
below the horizon, but its light is bouncing off the sky
and beginning to illumine the land. The full light of day
is on its way.

Baptism Promises Freedom from Death
and the Devil

In Romans 6, Paul provides us with the most comprehensive treatment of how Baptism interweaves our story
with Christ’s:

Paul often uses this imagery of death and new life to
compare the consequences of Adam’s rejection of the
Creator’s will with the results of Christ’s obedience to His
Father.
Therefore, just as sin came into the world through
one man, and death through sin, and so death
spread to all men because all sinned (Rom. 5:12).

take over His creation, God made a promise that a descendant of Eve (namely, Jesus) would crush the head of
the serpent and undo the curse of death (Gen. 3:15–19).

Do you not know that all of us who have been
baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his
death? We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was
raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we
too might walk in newness of life. For if we have
been united with him in a death like his, we shall
certainly be united with him in a resurrection like
his (Rom. 6:3–5, emphasis added).
The “death” we undergo in Baptism is “like his”16 in
that “our old self was crucified with him in order that
the body of sin might be brought to nothing, so that we
would no longer be enslaved to sin. For one who has
died has been set free from sin” (Rom. 6:6–7). We are set
free from the life of death that has ruled the world since
Adam.
Paul makes it clear, however, that this was not the end
of the story. For we were buried with Christ in order that
we might be raised with Christ into a new life and a new
world:

For if many died through one man’s trespass,
much more have the grace of God and the free gift
by the grace of that one man Jesus Christ abounded for many (Rom. 5:15).

Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that
we will also live with him. We know that Christ,
being raised from the dead, will never die again;
death no longer has dominion over him. For the
death he died he died to sin, once for all, but the
life he lives he lives to God. So you also must
consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God
in Christ Jesus (Rom. 6:8–11).

Paul highlights this contrast again in his great chapter
on the resurrection: “For as by a man came death, by a
man has come also the resurrection of the dead. For as
in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive”
(1 Cor. 15:21–22). What does this mean for us?
On the one hand, Christ’s death marks the beginning
of the end of death — death that had ruled the world
from the time of Satan’s deception and Adam’s rebellion.
To make it clear that He would not give up on His creation despite the devil’s attempt to usurp His reign and
14

Schlink, The Doctrine of Baptism, 24.

THE GIFTS AND BENEFITS OF BAPTISM

15
Quoted in Oswald Bayer and Thomas H. Trapp, Martin Luther’s
Theology: A Contemporary Interpretation (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans,
2008), 108.
16

14

Schlink, The Doctrine of Baptism, 48.

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Given the crucial importance of forgiveness for our
relationship with God and others, it should not surprise us that the New Testament speaks about Baptism
as being administered for the forgiveness of sins. Peter
highlights this connection in his sermon on the day of
Pentecost. When the assembled crowd realized that the
one they had wanted to be crucified and killed had just
been brought back to life, they wondered, “‘What shall
we do?’ (Acts 2:37) Peter replied, ‘Repent and be baptized
every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the
Holy Spirit’” (Acts 2:38).
The Nicene Creed also emphasizes this connection
between Baptism and forgiveness when it confesses that
we believe in “one Baptism for the remission of sins.”
“One Baptism” highlights the dramatic once-and-for-all
nature of Baptism that transitions us to a totally new and
wondrous life and future. The “forgiveness of sins” tells
us what is so wondrous about it: “Where there is forgiveness of sins, there is also life and salvation” (SC, The
Sacrament of the Altar). The past is the past. God will
never dredge up the past and throw it into our face.
God’s forgiveness not only has the power to re-establish our relationship with Him, it also has the power
to give us a clear conscience again. It enables us to feel
clean again — on the basis of His sure and certain Word
and promise — so that we need not feel shame before
God and seek to hide from Him as Adam and Eve did

THE GIFTS AND BENEFITS OF BAPTISM

giveness. This is why Christians often see confession and
absolution as an important way in which we live out our
baptismal relationship with God. When we fail to live as
the new people of God (and that does and will happen!),
we can come to God with the confession and request:
“Please take these sins and get them out of my sight.
I don’t want them anymore!” In response to this plea,
God speaks His word of forgiveness over and over again
within the Church: “I forgive you!” This is done most
commonly in public in the context of the Divine Service,
but it can also take place in personal, private, one-on-one
situations (see SC, Confession and LSB, pp. 292–293).

Nothing marks the dramatic break with one’s past life
more decisively than death. It brings to an end everything that preceded it. At the same time, nothing marks
the dramatic beginning of a new life more than the resurrection of the body. Thus, the death and resurrection
of Christ is one of the most vivid images used by Paul to
speak about the transition that takes place in Baptism.
Jesus Himself made this connection when He linked
His baptism by water in the Jordan with His baptism by
death on the cross at Golgotha.14

again, God did just that. He forgave His people and gave
them a new start.

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Paul’s primary emphasis here is that Baptism unites
us with Christ’s resurrection. For if Christ had not been
raised, there would be no reason to talk about the significance of His death — much less the importance of
Baptism.
Dying and rising with Christ in Baptism serves as
the basis for many of Paul’s exhortations about what it
means for baptized Christians to live a new life under the
lordship of Jesus:
Do not present your members to sin as instruments for unrighteousness, but present yourselves
to God as those who have been brought from
death to life (Rom. 6:13).
If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the
things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the
right hand of God. Set your minds on things that
are above, not on things that are on earth. For you
have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in
God. When Christ who is your life appears, then
you also will appear with him in glory (Col. 3:1–4).
Martin Luther extends the significance of this onceand-for-all burial and resurrection that takes place in
Baptism by suggesting it as a daily pattern for the Christian life. He urges that our old self-centered life “should
by daily contrition and repentance be drowned and die
with all sins and evil desires, and that a new man should
daily emerge and arise to live before God in righteousness and purity forever” (SC, Baptism). As we discussed
in the previous section, this takes place through the
confession of our sins (in which we die to sin) and the
reception of forgiveness (in which we are given a new
and fresh lease on life).
And what of the old evil foe, the devil? Paul speaks to
this reality as well. In Christ’s triumphant resurrection
from the dead, He laid waste to Satan’s power to accuse
and destroy us, taking captive all evil spiritual powers
against us. We participate in this triumph because we
have been joined to Christ in our Baptism, that is, we
have died and been made alive:
In him also you were circumcised with a circumcision made without hands, by putting off
the body of the flesh, by the circumcision of
Christ, having been buried with him in baptism,
in which you were also raised with him through
faith in the powerful working of God, who raised
him from the dead. And you, who were dead in
your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your
flesh, God made alive together with him, having

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2019 Convention Workbook