TheDag said:
This is something I've never understood. Either it is necessary or it isn't necessary. There is no difference between necessary and absolutely necessary.
Dag,
Scripture teaches explicitly that God has attached forgiveness to three things: 1) the preached Word, 2) Baptism, and 3) the Lord's Supper. These are not debatable.
Scripture teaches that believers
should be baptized.
Scripture teaches that some who believed were not baptized and yet were guaranteed salvation.
The conclusion that Confessional Lutherans come to then, is that Baptism is necessary, but not absolutely necessary, which seems contradictory, but is not.
I don't know about down in OZ, but here in the States there is a denomination (called the "Church of Christ") which teaches that baptism is
absolutley necessary for salvation. Their practice is that as soon as someone professes belief, that person is immediatelly baptized, becasue if they are not they will still not go to heaven. Even if that person is climbing the steps on the altar on the way up to get dunked and accidentlaly falls and cracks their head open, they are damned. Lutherans would NEVER say this!! Because in this scenario, baptism is a work done
by the person, but Lutherans believe that baptism is a act done by God.
Lutherans, when someone professes belief, schedule that person for a quick catechism class (to make sure the person isn't just doing it for "social" purposes) and then schedule the baptism. If this person, in the intervening time between their profession of belief and their baptism, gets in a car wreck or someother such tragedy, we still trust in the grace of God that that person is indeed saved. God has forgiven their sins, by the means of the preached word. They are saved, because salvation is of God, not of the individual.
Now on the other hand, if a person professes belief and yet REFUSES to be baptized, Lutherans see that as a denial of God's grace, and that person is not saved.
So...necessary, but not
absolutely necessary. There is no contradiction.