5. The use of baptism.
Baptism, which is to be administered only once, is to be used by Christians throughout their lives. Nowhere do the apostles call for the repetition of baptism, but they diligently remind Christians of the baptism they received earlier.1094) This reminder is both for comfort and for admonition. Gal. 3:26-27 Paul reminds us that Christians have put on Christ through baptism, that is, without law, through faith in Christ, they have become children of God.1095) Rom. 6:3 ff. Paul uses baptism as a reminder, instructing Christians that through baptism they have become dead to sin and alive to life in righteousness. In a special way Peter presents 1 Pet. 3:21 puts the comfort of baptism in the light by saying: As Noah and his were saved by the water of the flood, so the water of baptism saves, that is, makes blessed (σώζει βάητισμα), reasoning, that the water of baptism is not the putting away of the filth of the flesh (ον σαρκός άπόϑεσις ρνηου), but the covenant of a good conscience with God, σννειόήσεως άγαϑης έπερώτημα είς ϑεόν. At this point it comes to the statement that baptism involves the establishment of a covenant of grace between God and the person of the baptized.1096) Rightly, therefore, the daily
1094) 1 Cor. 1:13: 6:11; 12:13; Rom. 6:3 ff; Eph. 4:5; Col. 2:12; Tit. 3:5. 6; 1 Pet. 3:21.
1095) On the "evangelical attraction" to Christ through faith as distinguished from the attraction to Christ through discipleship in life ("ethical" attraction), cf. Luther on this passage IX, 464 f.; also Meyer on this passage
1096) The meaning of έπερώτημα is known to be disputed. The word occurs only in this passage in the New Testament. Two meanings are registered from the profanity. The first and next meaning is: question, inquiry, interrogatio. From this, however, the meaning contract, stipulatio has developed in later Greek in judicial usage. (Cf. Cremer in the dictionary.) Those who here take έπερώτημα to mean "inquiry," with some variations of the thought, understand the passage to mean that in baptism the baptized inquire or ask of God for a good conscience. This view is excluded here because, according to the context, there is a statement about what baptism itself is, not about what those to be baptized or baptized do at baptism. Therefore, one cannot but stick to Luther's view: baptism is the covenant of a good conscience towards God (είς ϑεόν). Correctly Stöckhardt on this passage: "The first part of the apposition: baptism 'is not the putting away of the filth of the flesh' demands a continuation like this:
324 > Baptism. [English ed. ~ 276]
repentance of Christians (poenitentia stantium) is called a daily return to baptism or to the baptismal covenant, in that those who are in faith recognize themselves daily as sinners, take hold by faith of the forgiveness of sins promised in baptism, and thus, comforted, seek righteous fruits of repentance in a new life. Also, the repentance of the apostates (poenitentia lapsorum) does not consist in seizing the "second board" (secunda tabula) of papist penance, but in returning to baptism (reditus ad baptismum), namely, returning to the grace promised in baptism.1097) We must also be careful not to let confirmation take the place of baptism, because especially in our time, even in Lutheran circles, there has been a tendency to elevate confirmation at the expense of baptism. In Walther's Pastorale1098) there is the following reminder concerning this aberration: " The pastor must be careful not to present confirmation as an act that supplements and perfects the baptism received in unconscious childhood, as
but rather baptism is an inward purification of man, a cleansing, washing away of the conscience from sins, or, which is the same thing, procures for him who is baptized a good conscience before God." Baptism here, as Acts 2:38; 22:16; Eph. 5:26, as a means of forgiveness of sins. This is also evident from the addition, "through the resurrection of Jesus Christ" (δι άναοτάοεως Ίησον Χρίστον). Baptism applies the forgiveness of sins, which was actually declared on the part of God, as existing for all men, through Christ's resurrection from the dead.
1097) Luther's Large Catechism, M. 497, 79 ff. [Trigl. 751, Large Cat., Inf. Bap., 79 🔗]: "Repentance is nothing other than a return and access to baptism, that one repeats and practices that which one began before and yet left behind. I say this so that we do not get into the opinion that we have been in for a long time and have thought that baptism is now gone, that we can no longer use it after we have fallen into sin again. This makes it look no further than the work once done. And this is because St. Jerome wrote that repentance is the other tablet, so that we must swim out and come over after the ship is broken, into which we step and sail over when we come into Christendom. Now the custom of baptism is taken away, so that it can no longer be of use to us. Therefore it is not rightly spoken or ever rightly understood; for the ship does not break, because, as has been said, it is God's order and not ours, but this does happen, that we slip and fall out; but if anyone falls out, let him see that he swims over again and holds to it until he comes in again and walks in it, as begun before." Cf. here also Chemnitz, Examen, De bapt. p. m. 241 sqq.
1098) S. 266.
325 > Baptism. [English ed. ~ 276-277.]
if, for example, the confirmand had to make the confession and vows pronounced by the godparents his own. Rather, the act of confirmation should serve above all to remind both the confirmands and the entire congregation present of the glory of the baptism already received in childhood. To give confirmation a sacramental character is one of the not so rare aberrations of those who want to be considered strictly Lutheran-churchly. Compare the review of an essay from Vilmar's 'Pastoral Theological Papers', which, taken from the 'Erlanger Zeitschrift', is found in Lehre und Wehre, Jahrg. VIII, pp. 110-116."