Sermon manuscript:
This Lent season we have considered baptism by answering the
fundamental questions of our catechism: What is baptism? What benefits does
baptism give? How can water do such great things? and What does such baptizing
with water indicate? Here, at the end of our series, we will take up a topic
that is important, especially where we live, because churches are divided on
the question of whether infants should be baptized.
Lutherans, Roman Catholics, Eastern Orthodox, and perhaps a
couple other smaller confessions have their babies baptized. The great many
church bodies that originated in Great Britain, such as Baptists, Methodists,
Presbyterians, Episcopalians; as well as others such as the Evangelicals, the
Hutterites, the Amish, and many others, either do not baptize their babies at
all, or they mean something different than we do when they baptize. Baptism is
said to be a mere sign or a kind of dedication, or initiation into the
community. It is not seen as the bestowal of forgiveness, life, and salvation.
So first, let me say a little something about controversies
in general. Whenever an article of faith becomes controversial, Christians talk
and write about it. By God’s grace this can open up new understanding for us.
It also can reveal those who are not genuine Christians so that they can be
marked and avoided. Controversies can be good, therefore, by increasing
knowledge and understanding on the one hand, and by purifying the church of false
teaching on the other.
However, controversies also can have many negative effects.
This is why the apostle Paul warns Christians to avoid useless controversies.
Controversies can draw out all the evils of the old Adam—pride, anger,
triumphalism, party spirit, and so on. Plus, as the controversy goes on, and
every Tom, Dick, and Harry writes a book about it, so that the material to be
learned grows and grows. It can get to the point where there is so much stuff
that has been said, and everybody wants to put their little twist on it, that
we might just want to give up. While this is an understandable reaction, it is
not good.
Remember what I’ve told you several times before: God’s
revelation to us is clear and simple. He says things like: Jesus is the Christ,
the Son of God. Go baptize in the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the
Holy Spirit. Baptism saves you. It is not God’s truth that is complicated. The
devil’s lies are complicated. He always basically says what he said at the
beginning: “Did God really say…?” Then, when the lies are complicated and
sophisticated, it can take a lot of effort to get things straight again.
Think of a ball of yarn. Originally it is wound in such a
way where it comes off simply and easily. But if someone comes and makes hay
with it so that it gets all tangled, then it can be quite a task to sort that
stuff out again. Of course it’s easier to just chuck the whole skein of yarn
and buy a new one. The devil would like us to do that with God’s revelation
too. He’d like us to believe that it is too complicated and full of
contradictions. Might as well chuck it and believe some other creed. This
inevitably means, though, that you end up believing in some other god instead
of bearing the cross of the true God.
With infant baptism we are dealing with something that has
been tangled over the past 500 years. There is a lot that we could talk about. We certainly won’t
deal with even a tiny fraction of the stuff that has been written about it.
What I want to try to do is apply the most fundamental teachings of the bible
to the situation. The argument goes like this: Baptism saves. Babies need to be
saved. Therefore babies should be baptized. Let me say that again: Baptism
saves. Babies need to be saved. Therefore babies should be baptized.
I do not intent to spend much time at all on the first part
of the argument, that baptism saves. We’ve been looking at that for four weeks.
I hope it is clear to you that baptism is not just plain water, but a washing
of rebirth and renewal in the Holy Spirit. I hope that you are convinced by the
apostle Peter that baptism is like the ark that saved Noah.
Let’s spend more time on the second part of the argument,
that babies need to be saved. A lot of folks have a hard time with this. Babies
are cute. They don’t seem to have the same calculating power and capacity for
evil that adults do. We don’t hold them responsible for the things that they
do, and rightly so. There’s plenty of time for instruction and discipline later
on in their lives. Since we don’t hold them responsible for their actions, it
doesn’t seem like God should hold them responsible either.
But we should not come at these things with our own feelings
and assumptions. We should understand these things according to God’s Word. God’s
Word tells us that Adam and Eve fell into sin and that this changed them and
all their descendants. They became sold under sin. All people were born with
what we call the “old Adam.” That is what we inherited from him just as surely
as we might inherit our eye color or hair color from our parents. David says in
the psalm that we recited tonight, “I was brought forth in iniquity and in
sin did my mother conceive me.” All people are under the power of the devil
until they are born again as children of God through baptism.
God’s Word also tells us God’s Law. It is by the keeping of
God’s Law that a person is righteous. It is by the breaking of God’s Law that
we know that we are sinners. Let’s take the summary of that Law and apply it to
little children. Jesus summarizes the Law when he says, “You shall love the
Lord your God with all your heart, soul, strength, and mind, and you shall love
your neighbor as yourself.”
Does an infant, even with its limited capacities, love the
Lord its God with its whole being? Does an infant love others? What I found
with our baby is that she was pretty clever at getting what she wanted, even if
it meant that Mom had to be woken up in the middle of the night.
But it can be kind of hard to tell this kind of thing with a
baby since its ability to communicate isn’t very sophisticated yet. How about
with toddlers? Do they love the Lord their God with their whole being? Do they
love others as themselves? I’m sure we’re all aware of the common reaction that
a toddler might have to baby sister or baby brother showing up. They’ve been
known to try to shove the baby off of Mom’s lap.
So since little children are declared to be sinners by God’s
Word, and since little children have not and cannot keep God’s Law, it is
obvious that they are sinners who need to be saved. Baptism saves. Babies need
to be saved. Therefore babies should be baptized. This is a solid, fundamental,
spiritual truth that cannot be denied. It is as fundamental and solid
spiritually speaking as the many needs that have to be met physically. We could
do similar arguments in the physical realm: Food nourishes. Babies need to be
nourished. Therefore babies should be fed. Clothes provide warmth. Babies need
to be kept warm. Therefore babies should be clothed.
We do not wait for babies to say please or thank you. If
they could talk, they probably would. They might very well say, “Pardon me.
Sorry to bother you, but could you provide me with a bit of milk?” So also,
spiritually speaking, having been informed by God’s Word about their condition,
they might very well confess that they were born in sin, born in bondage to
Satan with all his works and all his ways. But they would like to believe in
God the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, and be made into children of God.
Put yourself in the baby’s shoes. When you are hungry, don’t
you like being fed? When you are cold, don’t you like being made warm? When you
are burdened with sin don’t you want to be forgiven? Don’t you want to know
that God has made you his beloved child and promised you his Holy Spirit? Why
would you deny that, then, to a child? What would you say of someone who didn’t
feed or clothe their child? Aren’t they abusing that child? So isn’t it
spiritual child abuse to deny eternal salvation to them by withholding the gift
of baptism? I know that claim upsets people. Maybe we’d all like to pretend
that this is no big deal. It makes our lives easier that way. But perhaps the
accusation hurts because it’s the accusation that’s true that cuts the deepest.
Of course I understand that people do not do this
intentionally. A person would have to be the devil himself to knowingly
withhold baptism, knowing that it gives salvation to someone who needs to be
saved. People don’t baptize their children because they do not believe, or they
have been falsely taught. But then it is our responsibility to help them see
clearly.
Again, wouldn’t we do this with physical things? If some
poor soul thought that a baby didn’t need milk, wouldn’t we tell them
otherwise? We aren’t playing games here. This is not a hobby. Without being
born again, no one can see the kingdom of God for the simple reason that they
do not belong there and would not even be happy there. According to our first
birth, our birth from Adam, we belong with the devil. But God, in his mercy,
planned for our salvation before the foundation of the world. He intended to
redeem us by the holy, precious, innocent suffering and death of his only
begotten Son. He intended us to receive this and be made his disciples by being
baptized according to Jesus’s own word at the end of Matthew’s Gospel.
Nowhere, not in a single, solitary passage, does God say
that we should not baptize babies. If anything, the opposite is very strongly
implied. You heard tonight how Jesus became angry (something that happens only
a couple times in the Gospels) when the disciples were trying to keep the kids
away. He rebuked them sharply. Children are loved by Jesus and he saves them.
“Do not hinder the little children coming to him,” he says. Jesus says, “Baptize
all nations.” Surely, babies are included in nations, aren’t they? In our first
reading, Peter’s great sermon at Pentecost, he tells the Jews that this
salvation is for them and for their children. After he preached, 3,000 people
were baptized into Christ.
The basis for baptizing infants is not just one obscure
passage in a hidden book. It is front and center and at the heart of the
Christian Gospel. Babies are human beings just like us. The same logic that
applies to us also applies to them. Their hope of salvation is the same as
ours. They, together with us, by the power of the Holy Spirit, believe that
baptism saves. They know that they need to be saved (just as they, in some way,
know that they need food and clothing). Therefore, they thank God that they
were baptized in their childlike way. As Jesus says, “Out of the mouths of babes
and nursing infants the Lord has ordained praise.”
And if someone hasn’t been baptized, then let us sing
baptism’s praises. Do not mothers sometimes do this with some new food or
clothing that they’ve come across? They talk to other moms about why it’s good.
Let’s do the same thing with baptism, which meets our great spiritual need.
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