God's Gifts - Baptism and Faith

When I was 9, I started attending Versailles Baptist Church.  I didn't like the worship services, but I loved the Sunday School classes.  We were always studying the Bible, especially the New Testament.


A few years later, I was baptized at that church.  Interestingly, my Baptism was the first Baptism I'd seen there.  I wasn't even aware of what was going to happen or the significance of it. 

Growing up in a Baptist church, I read the Bible through the lens of the Baptist perspective.  A person heard the gospel, decided to believe it, and then was Baptized.  In my mind, infant Baptism was crazy.  I didn't even know there was such a thing.

Years later, when I read Luther's Small Catechism with the verses about Baptism, I was stunned.  How did I, as a Baptist who read the Bible a lot, just read over those verses and not take in the words?

Baptism, which corresponds to this [waters of Noah's flood], now saves you...1 Peter 3:21

Let the children come to Me; do not hinder them, for to such belongs the kingdom of God.  Mark 10:14

Repent and be baptized...for the forgiveness of your sins...Acts 2:38

Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved.  Mark 16:16

One Lord, one faith, one baptism.  Ephesians 4:5

Those verses, and many others, completely changed how I view Baptism.

I recently read an article that addresses why Baptist churches insist that people, who were baptized as infants, be baptized again before joining that church.

...a true or valid baptism requires a right understanding of the gospel by the baptizee and a right proclamation of the gospel by the baptizer.

And from another article about children and their faith: 

In every case, a church ought to be careful, weeding through words to attempt to discern the motivation behind a profession of faith―in other words, its credibility.

Now think about this...

First, the Baptist position sets the church and church leaders up as the judge of people's hearts.  In other words, a person needs to be "worthy" of Baptism before receiving it.

Second, the Baptist position tells a person that his own profession of Faith, his own Baptism, even a Baptism in a Baptist church, that Baptism may be lacking because the baptized person didn't truly believe or rightly understand.

Wow.  Instead of Faith being a gift of God, outside of myself, Faith becomes a thing that I need to conjure up, to make sure I have, and have it in the right way.  And that's crazy.  

But my God isn't a god of confusion; He doesn't leave me hanging and wondering about my salvation.  He's a God of love.  His love is sure and true.  His Word is sure and true.  

My Faith isn't of me; it's not for me to "decide" to believe.  I could never be "sure" of any of my own beliefs, if my beliefs were good enough or right enough.  But Faith is a work of God in me, coming from outside of me.

But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved...Ephesians 2:4–5

That's the difference.  God gives me my Faith; and He gives it and sustains it through His Word, through Baptism, and through the Lord's Supper.  He's a God who keeps giving.  And salvation is all from Him and by Him.