Question about Adult Baptism

[Costeon]

I am not Lutheran, but I have an interest in better understanding Lutheran baptismal theology, and I was hoping someone could clarify something for me regarding the theology of adult baptism.

Regarding infant baptism, I think I may have a basic grasp of Lutheran theology on it: baptism is a means of grace, and God creates faith in the infant at baptism, and at the moment of this created faith, the infant is justified and regenerated. Is this basically accurate?

But what about adults? Do Lutherans believe that God creates faith in an adult, or brings an adult to faith, at baptism too, so that they are justified and regenerated at baptism as infants are, or is it thought that God generally brings adults to faith through the Word alone before baptism, so that they are justified and regenerated before it? I have been reading Melanchthon’s Loci Communes, and in his chapters on Signs and Baptism, I gathered that perhaps the role of baptism is conceived of as functioning differently for adults than it does for infants, or at least at times it functions differently.

Any clarification on this would be greatly appreciated!

 

[Daniel9v9]

Hey, welcome! The peace of Christ to you!

I serve in the Lutheran Church, but as a former Pentecostal, I can appreciate your questions. At least for me, I remember it being difficult to grasp the Lutheran understanding of Baptism because I was trying to understand it through an Arminian framework.

Anyway, there's no shortage of words when talking about Baptism, but I wrote an overview of various aspects of Baptism and how it relates to children and adults here (Post 17):
Attending An LCMS Church But Have Some Problems With Their Theology

Hope this helps! I'd be glad to expand and clarify.

Blessings +

 

[Costeon]

Hey, welcome! The peace of Christ to you!

I serve in the Lutheran Church, but as a former Pentecostal, I can appreciate your questions. At least for me, I remember it being difficult to grasp the Lutheran understanding of Baptism because I was trying to understand it through an Arminian framework.

Anyway, there's no shortage of words when talking about Baptism, but I wrote an overview of various aspects of Baptism and how it relates to children and adults here (Post 17):
Attending An LCMS Church But Have Some Problems With Their Theology

Hope this helps! I'd be glad to expand and clarify.

Blessings +

Thank you very much for the reply and for the link to the other post. So let me get you to clarify a few things from your post.

"So we can rightly understand from this that children are ordinarily adopted and welcomed into the kingdom of God through Baptism."

". . . and this gift is ordinarily given to children through Baptism, but also through God’s Word."

Based on my current understanding, I thought that children were always adopted through baptism and that the gift of faith was always given to children in baptism. When you say "ordinarily," what would be a circumstance when this would not be true for children?

"An adult may hear the Gospel and believe, or he may hear the Gospel, be baptised and believe, but a child can receive the Gospel through Baptism and be raised in the faith."

So, if I'm understanding this correctly, baptism does not play precisely the same role in an adult's life as it does for children. Here is how I understand what you're saying about adults: God may use, depending on the situation, the gospel alone to bring someone to saving faith or may use the gospel and baptism. Is this correct? If so, is there an ordinary way this works? Does God ordinarily use baptism to effect faith in an adult, or ordinarily just use the gospel? Why would God just use the gospel alone and not baptism? How would your church, for example, accept that someone had come to faith if he or she had not yet been baptized? Just based on the person confessing he or she had faith? Sorry for all the questions!

 

[Till Schilling]

God wishes to save and has given us several means of grace. They all bring about the same: faith and trust in our hearts in the saving work of Christ. We cannot get enough of that. So we continue to remember our baptism and the strong promise of God to save us through it, and continue to use and meditate the word, and continue to participate in the Lord’s supper and believe its promises. It is ongoing. The application of Salvation is at the same time a specific event - baptism- at the same time continuous.

 

[Daniel9v9]

Thank you very much for the reply and for the link to the other post. So let me get you to clarify a few things from your post.

"So we can rightly understand from this that children are ordinarily adopted and welcomed into the kingdom of God through Baptism."

". . . and this gift is ordinarily given to children through Baptism, but also through God’s Word."

Based on my current understanding, I thought that children were always adopted through baptism and that the gift of faith was always given to children in baptism. When you say "ordinarily," what would be a circumstance when this would not be true for children?

"An adult may hear the Gospel and believe, or he may hear the Gospel, be baptised and believe, but a child can receive the Gospel through Baptism and be raised in the faith."

So, if I'm understanding this correctly, baptism does not play precisely the same role in an adult's life as it does for children. Here is how I understand what you're saying about adults: God may use, depending on the situation, the gospel alone to bring someone to saving faith or may use the gospel and baptism. Is this correct? If so, is there an ordinary way this works? Does God ordinarily use baptism to effect faith in an adult, or ordinarily just use the gospel? Why would God just use the gospel alone and not baptism? How would your church, for example, accept that someone had come to faith if he or she had not yet been baptized? Just based on the person confessing he or she had faith? Sorry for all the questions!

Sure, thing! I'd be glad to elaborate.

That Baptism is ordinarily necessary implies that it is the ordinary means Christ has instituted for adopting us as His children, and this is the same for adults and children. In other words, it's Mark 16:16: "Whoever believes and is baptised will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned."

It's good to notice here that (1) Faith and Baptism go together, and so, Baptism is normative for becoming a Christian. This is also emphasised in the Great Commission, where the Church is called to make disciples and/by baptising them. But at the same time, we also see that (2) a lack of Baptism does not condemn, but only unbelief condemns. And likewise, Baptism apart from faith is of no use, which is to say that Baptism is not a mechanical ritual.

So, anyone who is able to be baptised should receive God's gift of Baptism, but those who for whatever reason are unable to receive it, we take comfort in that our God is not bound by means, but can and does work faith through His Word alone.

God has commanded His Church to baptise in His name, just as He commands us to proclaim the Gospel. But to the one who receives Baptism, the one who receives the Gospel, it is pure grace; a gift. It is not a work we do for ourselves or for God, but something God does for us through His Church. So, we always want to understand Baptism as a gift, because the further away we get from that understanding, the less we understand the function or purpose of Baptism.

It can be helpful to compare Baptism with the Lord's Prayer. That is, when Christ died on the cross and exclaimed "It is finished!", He paid for all of our sins, past, present, and future. He defeated sin, death, and the devil, and paid for our sins in full, not in part. He is the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world! Yet, even so, He taught us to daily pray: "Our Father in heaven ... Forgive us our sins ..." Does this mean that His work on the cross was insufficient? Are our sins greater than the person and works of Christ? Did He only die for our original sin, as some teach? Or our past sins only, as others teach? No, to all. This, rather, is God's overflow of grace! To be a child of God means to be forgiven once and for all, and every day. It means we can't escape is love and mercy! We can't escape His forgiveness!

Now, where does He promise to forgive us? He chose us before the foundation of the world, He reconciled us through Christ, and he promises to wash away our sins when we receive Him in faith, when we pray for forgiveness, in Baptism, and in the Eucharist. He pours out His love and grace on us, and comforts us with the Gospel in our ears, and by water, and bread and wine. God be praised!

For comparison's sake, just as we don't say that the Lord's Prayer is a mechanical prayer, or a work that we do to merit forgiveness, or a rite that we invented, or something useful apart from faith, or something we need to check off in order to be saved, or purely a command we follow, or any kind of way around Christ, it is the same with Baptism. Baptism is God's gift for all, and it's the same forgiveness and the same imparting of the Holy Spirit, and we rejoice in it!

 

[ViaCrucis]

Thank you very much for the reply and for the link to the other post. So let me get you to clarify a few things from your post.

"So we can rightly understand from this that children are ordinarily adopted and welcomed into the kingdom of God through Baptism."

". . . and this gift is ordinarily given to children through Baptism, but also through God’s Word."

Based on my current understanding, I thought that children were always adopted through baptism and that the gift of faith was always given to children in baptism. When you say "ordinarily," what would be a circumstance when this would not be true for children?

"An adult may hear the Gospel and believe, or he may hear the Gospel, be baptised and believe, but a child can receive the Gospel through Baptism and be raised in the faith."

So, if I'm understanding this correctly, baptism does not play precisely the same role in an adult's life as it does for children. Here is how I understand what you're saying about adults: God may use, depending on the situation, the gospel alone to bring someone to saving faith or may use the gospel and baptism. Is this correct? If so, is there an ordinary way this works? Does God ordinarily use baptism to effect faith in an adult, or ordinarily just use the gospel? Why would God just use the gospel alone and not baptism? How would your church, for example, accept that someone had come to faith if he or she had not yet been baptized? Just based on the person confessing he or she had faith? Sorry for all the questions!

This was something I struggled with as well when I was first getting into Lutheran theology, and even for sometime after being Lutheran.

The key is that it is Word and Sacrament, not Word or Sacrament. That means that Word and Sacrament are together, not separate. The whole reason Baptism is efficacious is because God's Word is connected to and comprehended together with the water (if it were merely water and just water, it would just be getting wet); but we see St. Paul in Ephesians 5:26 write that Christ has cleansed us by "the washing of water with the word".

I came from a mixed non-denominational and Pentecostal upbringing. The first eight years of my life were in a large non-denominational church; from eight until eighteen I was a member of a Pentecostal (Foursquare) congregation. As such, I grew up from infancy hearing about Jesus, so there was never a time in my life when I didn't believe in Jesus--I was taught about Jesus as I was being taught how to walk, talk, and being potty-trained. I didn't receive baptism until I was seventeen years old.

Does this mean that I didn't believe before I was baptized? No. Does this mean my baptism wasn't efficacious because I had faith before I was baptized? No.

Word and Sacrament, together. This isn't just how God creates faith in us initially; this is the continual, continued, power and work of God--saving and justifying us.

Justification isn't just some particular moment in time when we first believed--it is the ever-present truth and reality that God speaks to us through the Gospel. It's there in the Word, it's there in our baptism, it's there in the Lord's Supper, it's there in Absolution: Ever with us is Jesus Christ, and all His saving work and grace, through Word and Sacrament.

God is continually sustaining us with His grace, by the power of the Spirit, through His gifts of Word and Sacrament. So that the power of God is always manifest in Word and Sacrament, for us, to keep us, hold us, heal us, forgive us, draw us, invite us, etc.

So Baptism is still Baptism, whether for an infant or an adult. It is always God's Word comprehended in and connected with the water, and thus it does and accomplishes what God says it does and accomplishes. On account of the Word.

Which is why even though I wasn't baptized until I was 17, I can still look to my baptism and confess all of God's promises which are attached to and found in God's precious gift of this Sacrament. Yet, I also know that I've believed my whole life--because from before I was even born my parents were confessing and believing in Jesus, and so I entered this world hearing God's Word long before I could comprehend it--and God through His Word, works and creates faith.

So there isn't a competition between my early childhood faith and my later baptism: It is all the work of God, the gift and power of God, His grace through Word and Sacrament.

-CryptoLutheran

 

[Ain't Zwinglian]

But what about adults? Do Lutherans believe that God creates faith in an adult, or brings an adult to faith, at baptism too, so that they are justified and regenerated at baptism as infants are, or is it thought that God generally brings adults to faith through the Word alone before baptism, so that they are justified and regenerated before it?

Perhaps Oscar Cullman's analogy of citizenship would help. An adult applying for citizenship here in the U.S. will go through a naturalization process. The process will acculminate with the Oath of Allegiance and then one is considered a citizen.

Whereas, children born in the U.S. are considered citizens at birth.

For infants, baptism is the normal way to be brought into the Body of Christ. For adults, a declaration of believe is necessary.

 

[Costeon]

Sure, thing! I'd be glad to elaborate.

That Baptism is ordinarily necessary implies that it is the ordinary means Christ has instituted for adopting us as His children, and this is the same for adults and children. In other words, it's Mark 16:16: "Whoever believes and is baptised will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned."

It's good to notice here that (1) Faith and Baptism go together, and so, Baptism is normative for becoming a Christian. This is also emphasised in the Great Commission, where the Church is called to make disciples and/by baptising them. But at the same time, we also see that (2) a lack of Baptism does not condemn, but only unbelief condemns. And likewise, Baptism apart from faith is of no use, which is to say that Baptism is not a mechanical ritual.

So, anyone who is able to be baptised should receive God's gift of Baptism, but those who for whatever reason are unable to receive it, we take comfort in that our God is not bound by means, but can and does work faith through His Word alone.

God has commanded His Church to baptise in His name, just as He commands us to proclaim the Gospel. But to the one who receives Baptism, the one who receives the Gospel, it is pure grace; a gift. It is not a work we do for ourselves or for God, but something God does for us through His Church. So, we always want to understand Baptism as a gift, because the further away we get from that understanding, the less we understand the function or purpose of Baptism.

It can be helpful to compare Baptism with the Lord's Prayer. That is, when Christ died on the cross and exclaimed "It is finished!", He paid for all of our sins, past, present, and future. He defeated sin, death, and the devil, and paid for our sins in full, not in part. He is the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world! Yet, even so, He taught us to daily pray: "Our Father in heaven ... Forgive us our sins ..." Does this mean that His work on the cross was insufficient? Are our sins greater than the person and works of Christ? Did He only die for our original sin, as some teach? Or our past sins only, as others teach? No, to all. This, rather, is God's overflow of grace! To be a child of God means to be forgiven once and for all, and every day. It means we can't escape is love and mercy! We can't escape His forgiveness!

Now, where does He promise to forgive us? He chose us before the foundation of the world, He reconciled us through Christ, and he promises to wash away our sins when we receive Him in faith, when we pray for forgiveness, in Baptism, and in the Eucharist. He pours out His love and grace on us, and comforts us with the Gospel in our ears, and by water, and bread and wine. God be praised!

For comparison's sake, just as we don't say that the Lord's Prayer is a mechanical prayer, or a work that we do to merit forgiveness, or a rite that we invented, or something useful apart from faith, or something we need to check off in order to be saved, or purely a command we follow, or any kind of way around Christ, it is the same with Baptism. Baptism is God's gift for all, and it's the same forgiveness and the same imparting of the Holy Spirit, and we rejoice in it!

I apologize for my delayed reply. I greatly appreciate your excellent reply and think you have clarified this for me. Thank you!