Word of Salvation – Vol. 47 No.12 – March 2002
God Moves Us to Faith Through Baptism
Sermon by Rev MP Geluk
on Lord’s Day 27B (Q&A 74 Heid Cat)
Scripture Readings: 1 Corinthians 10:1-13; 1 Peter 3:13-22
Suggested Hymns: BoW 89b; 487:1,2; 196; 105:5,6
Beloved in the Lord.
May you truly believe that you are a child of God? May you really believe that God has forgiven your sins? Are you certain that you are a Christian? These questions, of course, have to do with assurance of salvation. Some will give a positive ‘yes’ and base their assurance on some wonderful experiences that they have had. They like to tell you about them. But experiences tend to lose their shine with the passing of time. Which means that faith also, when based on experience, loses its vitality.
Others say ‘no’. They are not sure if they are truly Christians because they are very conscious of their shortcomings and failures. These also go by their experiences and in their case it’s a negative result because the experiences were not good. If asked what they were, then they’d rather not talk about it.
Still others have become indifferent about believing in God and the need for repentance. They have experienced too many hypocrites in the church for them to be still interested. Or the Bible has lost its appeal for them. Or God should be doing a lot more in preventing terrible things from happening in the world.
But now we want you to come away from whatever experiences you might have had and look at what God has said about baptism, your baptism. Those who have gone for an experience-based faith usually forget the importance of their baptism. Especially when they were baptised as a child.
It means nothing for them anymore. And if they join a church where infant baptism does not count, then very easily they let themselves be rebaptised. They are now going by their religious experiences.
But today we want to emphasise that the Word of God, spoken at your baptism, is what you must believe. You see, faith is very sensitive. Unless you believe what God has said, faith will experience difficulties. God alone can open the way to faith and He also provides the means by which that faith is strengthened.
We are looking at the question – should infants also be baptised? The children of believers are meant here. Most of you were baptised because you were children of believers. Was that scriptural? We believe it is. So what is your baptism saying to you today?
Let us see how GOD MOVES YOU TO FAITH THROUGH THE WORD HE SPEAKS:
1. At baptism;
2. About baptism; and
3. In baptism.
How God moves you to faith through the Word He speaks AT baptism
We are familiar with this Word because we hear it spoken at every baptism. The name of the person baptised is announced and then follows the words, “I baptise you in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.” These words are straight from Matthew’s gospel. In chapter 28, in the verses we sometimes call “The Great Commission”, Jesus commanded His disciples, “Go and make disciples of all nations, baptising them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.” The words used at your baptism are, therefore, words from Scripture. They are from God.
Now what does it mean to baptise someone in the name of God? Well, it does not mean that the minister baptised you on behalf of God. It is not as though God was unable to be present at your baptism and thus got the minister to do the baptism in His name. We should understand it this way. To baptise someone in, or into, the name of God points to a relationship that exists between God and the person baptised. Let’s illustrate what we’re saying by using an example from the Bible.
In his first letter to the church at Corinth, the apostle Paul speaks about the exodus of the people Israel out of Egypt under Moses. He says this: “They were all baptised into Moses in the cloud and in the sea” (1Cor.10:2). The words, “They were all baptised into Moses” point to a relationship that existed between Moses and the Israelites. They were bonded together. Israel was not a loose collection of individuals as they went through the Red Sea. No, they were bound to Moses. They were united in Moses as they passed through the sea.
Although God spoke only with Moses, it was not meant for Moses alone. God’s words were meant for all who were part of Moses and who stood in a relationship with him. The Israelites were linked to Moses. They were Moses’ congregation. As such they were baptised into Moses and in that manner they went through the Red Sea. They were united in him. Israel was under the authority and protection of Moses. He was their leader.
Now being baptised in the name of God does the same thing. A relationship, a bond, exists between God and those baptised in His name. Those who are baptised belong to God. They come under His protection and authority.
So you were baptised into the name of God. But not only that. You were also baptised in the Name of God. The baptismal formula says, “I baptise you in the Name of God.” For us a name merely serves to distinguish one person from another. For God His Name means a whole lot more. God’s Name points out what He is for those baptised in Him. God is Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Jesus commanded the disciples to baptise in the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.
When you were baptised into the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit then you should not think that these names merely serve to point to God’s triune being. There is more to it than that. Father, Son and Holy Spirit in the baptismal formula point out what God is for us, what relationship He has with us, and what bond He has with us. At baptism God declares that the person baptised shares in God Himself, and that means nothing less than sharing in His salvation. At your baptism God revealed that you are His possession.
So the Name of the Father in the baptismal formula points out what God as Father means for you. To be baptised in the Name of the Father is giving you assurance that God makes an everlasting covenant of grace with you and adopts you as His child and heir of salvation. And therefore, God the Father surrounds you with His goodness and protects you from evil and turns it to your benefit. As Father He cares and provides for you.
The Name of the Son in the baptismal formula means that God is your Saviour from sin. Your baptism tells you that you are the possession of the Son, for God the Son is giving you assurance that He washes you from all your sins in His blood. Christ joins you to Himself so that you share in His death and resurrection. Through this union with Christ He liberates you from your sins and regards you as righteous before God.
And the Name of the Holy Spirit in the baptismal formula means that God is there to make you holy, to sanctify you. He has set you apart for Him to dwell in you. Your baptism says that you are the possession of the Holy Spirit for the Spirit is giving you assurance that He makes his home in you.
While dwelling within you, the Spirit continually works to strengthen and deepen your union with Christ. He makes Christ’s work of salvation, His washing away of your sins, a daily reality in your life. The Spirit further assures you that God helps you each day to live the new life you have with Christ till the day that you and all other believers will be presented without the stain of sin among the assembly of the elect in life eternal.
Notice that I said all that, not in the past tense but in the present tense. Your baptism is speaking about God, what he has been saying to you all your life and even now.
This relationship you have with God is, of course, the covenant of grace that God has drawn up with believers and their children. So you stand, therefore, in covenant relationship with God, being baptised in His Name, being united with Him in everything which He, in His sovereign good pleasure, wills to be for you in the covenant.
When we now return to the question – May you believe what your baptism tells you? – that God is your God and that you belong to His people of His covenant – and the answer can only be this: you must not doubt, and, you can certainly not remain indifferent, you must believe! Surely, God was not playing around with you when you were baptised. If He says in His Word at baptism that you belong to Him, that you are the possession of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and therefore share in God’s salvation, where then do you find a reason to doubt this? Or to place a question mark behind His Word at baptism? Or to be indifferent to what He has said?
Can you be really sure that you have been truly forgiven of the guilt of your sin? Well, the answer to that question should never depend on what you think of yourself. People either think positively or negatively about themselves, favourably or unfavourably. They do that because of what they have experienced about themselves. But by looking at yourself like that you will never be rid of doubt or uncertainty. You must look to God! And He said at your baptism that you belong to Him, that you stand in covenant relationship to Him. And now that’s the way it is. Not maybe, not perhaps, but for sure!
It is God’s sovereign good pleasure to decide who should belong to His covenant of grace. It was God’s will, not yours, that you were born. It was God’s will, not yours, that you were born of believing parents. And, it was God’s will, not yours, that the gospel came to you and that you entered into His covenant of grace from a background of unbelief.
God bonded Himself to you. He simply took hold of you. God did not have to wait until you made the first move. If that were so, then you would never have come. For no one comes to Christ unless the Father draws him (Jn.6:44). No, God came to you and He decided and swore by His own name – He said, as truly as I live, this person – and your name was called out – stands in covenant relationship with me. You were baptised into the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.
And now you’d better make up your mind to believe this. Maybe you question your baptism. Maybe you feel that when you were baptised as an infant you had no say in the matter. Maybe you feel a bit helpless about all this, being born of Christian parents and they wanting you to go to church and all that. Yes, whatever.
But neither you nor anyone else cannot undo what God has said at your baptism. By His own Word God has put Himself in a relationship with you that speaks of salvation. Even if you don’t believe this, or remain indifferent about it, you’ll never be free from it. Those baptised but remaining in unbelief, not responding to the call of God to believe Him, become covenant breakers, and they are held more responsible for what they did with God and His salvation than those who have never been baptised.
But you have not been baptised to make your judgment heavier. On the contrary, through what God has said at your baptism, He is seeking to move you to faith. He urges you to believe, to respond to His Word to you at your baptism. God is calling you to turn away from your sins, from your disobedience and unbelief, and to turn you to Christ. So these are the things you must think of when we consider God’s Word at baptism.
2. How God moves you to faith through the Word He speaks ABOUT baptism
When Paul arrived in Damascus after the Lord had appeared to him, and for three days was thinking and praying, the Lord made Ananias look him up. Through Ananias the Lord told Paul that he was to be the apostle to the Gentiles. Then Ananias said, “And now what are you waiting for? Get up, be baptised, and wash your sins away…”(Acts 22:16). Notice how Ananias referred to baptism as though it would wash away Paul’s sins.
Why does God speak about baptism in that way? It is clear enough from the Bible that salvation is not by or through baptism, but through Christ. Why did He make Ananias say to Paul, “be baptised, and wash your sins away”? Is God careless and inaccurate with His words about baptism? Certainly not! God means everything He says. It is God’s will, remember, to bring you to faith through baptism. God says things with the purpose of really getting through to us, of really driving home this point of believing Him at His Word.
When someone is baptised God says, here you have your washing away of your sins, here is your salvation. It is a promise of God, and God’s promises are as good as the real thing. Baptised people are washed from their sins by the blood of Christ as certainly as outward washing with water washes away dirt from the body.
Baptism is the evidence God gives that you can be sure about forgiveness and sanctification in Christ. Baptism is His divine pledge, a sign and a seal, and by it God wants to assure us that His salvation is sure.
But again, you have to humbly accept all this in faith at some point of time. If you came to repentance and faith as an adult, and then were baptised, then a right understanding of your baptism will further strengthen your faith in what God means to be for you. If you were baptised as a child of believing parents, then you must, at sometime in your life, believingly accept the same thing, namely, what God has said to you when you were baptised.
The first letter of the apostle Peter speaks about God’s judgment through the great flood that destroyed the wicked in the time of Noah. Noah and his family were saved by means of the ark. The water that destroyed everyone else safely carried the ark with those eight people in it. God made Peter say that the water of the flood symbolised baptism “that now saves you also” (1Pet.3:21). Again, that emphatic way of speaking about baptism as though it saves.
Of course, it is not baptism that saves. Only Christ saves. The ark on the water didn’t really save Noah and his family either. It was God who saved them. But baptism is such a forceful sign that the Lord simply says, “baptism saves you”. At least this strong language keeps us from seeing baptism as though it is nothing.
So are those of you who are baptised but have not yet committed your life to God responding? Are you believingly accepting God’s promise of salvation? If you are spiritually ready for it, then why not ask to publicly profess your faith and be admitted to the Lord’s Supper? Show by your behaviour and attitude that you are serious, that you truly love the Lord.
Not believing is bad. But that is not God’s fault. God has gone to considerable lengths in order to help you believe. He speaks comforting words at baptism and He gives you a powerful witness about baptism. You now must believe it and accept it. You must cling to your baptism.
3. How God moves you to faith through the Word He speaks IN baptism
The sacraments have no message of their own. What the sacrament says, the Word says also. As God speak to us in His word, so also does He speak to us in baptism, in the visible administration of it.
Let’s look at one common objection against baptising children of believers. It is this – infants cannot believe. How can you baptise them when there is no faith? To answer this objection we should not attempt a solution by saying that infants may have the potential or the capacity to believe. That is not a satisfactory answer at all because on reaching the years of discretion, not all believers’ children respond to God’s promise of salvation. Some believers’ children, in fact, reject God altogether.
The fact is that when a believer’s child is presented for baptism then nothing definite can be said about what may develop in that child. Is there anyone who can predict with accuracy whether that child will be a believer or an unbeliever in the future? No one knows. Children in infancy are too young to have faith and we cannot automatically conclude that faith will come in later years.
What is so good about the Catechism’s answer is that it does not even bother to consider questions about the possibility or the potential of the child to believe. It is quite fruitless to speculate what kind of response a child may give to God later. We pray that the child will respond in due course to the promises of God and come to faith and conversion. But we have nothing to do with any presumptions about a faith in the child or about the child being regenerated. Anything we say about the child is mere supposition and it gives no certainty at all.
We have everything to do with God’s promise, and regarding that we have complete certainty. And baptism is a sign and seal of that promise. Therefore, children of believers may be baptised on the basis of God’s promise to them. Baptism says that the children of believers as well as their believing parents are in the covenant of grace and belong to the Christian church. Baptism says that both redemption from sin and the Holy Spirit, the author of faith, are, through the blood of Christ, promised to believers and their children.
That’s the way we are meant to see it. Baptism does not say what the children will be in the future for God; but baptism does say what God both now and in the future is for them. We are not certain about the child but we are completely certain about God.
Objecting to baptising believers’ children because they know nothing of what is going on is really illogical. Because the same infants share in the Fall into sin and they know nothing about that either. They are born in a sinful state. We do not say to children: because you did not know about the fall into sin, it therefore does not apply to you.
Christians who are against baptising believers’ children have no difficulty here. They, too, believe the Bible’s teaching that the condemnation of Adam extends to the whole human race, including the children of believers. And Christians who believe that baptising believers’ children is Scriptural do not deny that their children have sinful natures and need to be born again and converted if they are to enter the kingdom of God.
But they also believe that if their children die in infancy, then, because they belonged to God’s covenant of grace, they will be with God in heaven. And it’s doubtful if believers against infant baptism will say that their children who die in infancy have gone to hell.
Christ’s blessings are ascribed to believers’ children even as Adam’s sin is ascribed to them. God declares it so, that’s all there is to it. We are sure of this – God’s promise of salvation is given to believers and their children (Gen.17:7; Acts 2:39). And baptism is simply a sign and seal of this promise.
God, then, wants to deliver you from all doubt. He wants to bring you to faith through baptism. When baptism is administered in the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, then it is a real baptism. You may truly believe the Word of God spoken at baptism, about baptism, and in baptism.
Amen.