And many TRUST that water baptism can SAVE ,like when they read Acts 2:38 and Mark 16:16 .
dan p
You might be surprised to learn that nobody believes getting wet saves them.
What we believe, and by "we", I mean those of us who hold to a traditional and biblical understanding of the Sacrament of Holy Baptism, is that Baptism is a means of grace through which God, yes, saves us. But that's because we believe that God's saving power and work is something that happens right here and now. When we hear the Gospel and believe, when we receive Baptism, when we partake of the Lord's Supper, when the word is preached and God works and strengthens our faith.
As a Lutheran I affirm the central teaching of the Evangelical Reformation: Justification by grace alone through faith alone.
What is the doctrine of justification by grace alone through faith alone? Simply it is this: God out of the superabundance of His grace and kindness grants to me and all sinners the perfect righteousness of Jesus Christ, declaring me righteous on Christ's account, imputing to me (accrediting to me) the righteousness of Jesus Christ. And this I receive through faith, and faith alone. So that when the word is proclaimed and I hear it, God works and creates faith (Romans 10:17) to receive this immeasurable gift. Not by anything I have done, not by my own power, my own reason, not by works, not even by believing the right things--but purely out of God's own loving kindness. For "by grace you have been saved, through faith, and this is not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not by works, so that none may boast" (Ephesians 2:8-9).
Therefore all which I have, I receive passively, like a naked beggar on the street whom God has seen, and into my empty hand He places this gift, and all gifts. And what is this gift? The righteousness of Christ Himself, at the Court of Mt. Calvary I was declared free and innocent, based solely on the merit of Christ alone. And so I have been clothed with Christ (Galatians 3:27), and have eternal life in Him, from Him, and with Him. I am a joint-heir with Christ, a child of God, the Holy Spirit alive in me as the guarantee of all these promises.
So wherever there is faith--wherever God is working to create faith--there He is justifying me freely by His grace. Declaring my sins forgiven. The once-and-finished work of Christ is my daily salvation, my hourly salvation, my moment-by-moment salvation. For God declares me forgiven, He declares me righteous on account of Christ and what He has done alone; and so through faith I am reckoned righteous solely by God's own loving-kindness.
Does getting wet save me? Of course not.
But was God saving me in my baptism? Of course He was. For there, connected with the water, is His very word, and so He washes me and cleanses me (Ephesians 5:26). So that I have the remission of sins (Acts 2:38), clothed with Christ (Galatians 3:27), buried with Christ and have new life with Christ (Romans 6:3-4), and indeed saves me, not as though it were cleaning dirt off my skin, but the answer of a good conscience before God by the resurrection of Jesus Christ (1 Peter 3:21).
You won't find any church that says, "Oh, well you got baptized, it's okay if you don't believe" because that's nonsense. It is impossible to separate baptism from faith. God, through His ordered means of grace, works and creates faith--and that is why Jesus our Lord says, "I am the True Vine, you are the branches, abide in Me". Apart from Him we wither and die, in Him we have life abundantly and eternally.
We abide in Christ through faith, we abide in Christ because God is shouting Jesus to us everywhere: In the Scriptures, in the Sunday morning preaching, in our hymns, in the prayers of the people, in our baptism, in the Lord's Supper, in Confession and Absolution. God has filled His Church with so much abundant grace that she is overflowing with it.
-CryptoLutheran
