You might have noticed something different about last week’s article. That’s right, it wasn’t me. It was Pastor Quartermous from Foristell Christian Church. I want to thank him first of all for his intelligent insight and his introduction to the teachings of the Christian Church there in Foristell.

I first want to say that I am honored to have him share this spot in the Journal with me. From what I have read from him before, I know that he is an honorable man who believes and trusts in Jesus Christ for his salvation.

I would also have to say that my church, along with most Christian churches agree with almost everything he talked about. We both believe that the Bible is the inspired and inerrant word of God and is the only rule and norm for faith and life. We also both believe that the world was created in six, consecutive 24 hour days. We, in the Lutheran church, also believe that baptism is necessary for salvation, although not absolutely necessary, take the thief on the cross for instance.

We are also trying to be a church that believes and teaches what the first Christians believed and taught. But we also believe that those first Christians had articles and confessions of faith, creeds, to express what they believed about the God of the Scriptures. In fact, I would venture to say that Pastor Quartermous’ whole article last week was a statement of what his church believes and teaches, and correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t the very definition of a creed “a statement of what one believes and teaches”?

In our creeds, the Apostles’, Nicene, and Athanasian, we are simply stating what the Bible has stated about God. We don’t add anything to it. It is simply a summary of the Bible’s teachings about God, just like Pastor’s summaries of what his church believes and teaches as he had in his article last week.

Now, it is important to say here that both of our churches, along with anyone who believes that Jesus Christ died on the cross for them, which is the Gospel in a nutshell, will be in heaven. Members of Foristell Christian Church believe that, members of most of the churches in Warren County believe that, and members of St. John’s Lutheran Church most certainly believe that. We will see each other in heaven some day despite the differences we may have.

The big difference between St. John’s and Foristell Christian Church is in our views on free will, which ultimately show themselves in our differing views on baptism. In the Lutheran church we believe that when it says “Surely I was sinful from birth, sinful from the time my mother conceived me” in Psalm 51:5, it means that I was a lost and condemned sinner even before I was born, when I was still in my mother’s womb. We would give that sin a name. It is called original sin. We also believe what it says in Ephesians 2:1-10 where it talks about us being dead in our transgressions and sins and how God made us alive in Christ, even though we were dead in transgressions.

Therefore, since we were dead, could we bring ourselves back to life, or even have any part in it? Can a dead person hear? Can a dead person move? Can a dead person willfully do anything? No, not unless God acts upon them and brings them back to life. We see this very plainly in the raising of Jairus’ daughter. She was dead. Jesus came to her and said, “Little girl, I say to you get up.” She did, but only because Christ raised her from death. Once she was dead she could not breathe again nor could she make her heart start to beat. The same is with us in spiritual life. God uses his Word, and in the same way Baptism, which contains water and his word, to bring us back to life, to breathe life into us. The good news of John 3:16, “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son that whoever believes in him should not perish but have everlasting life” is very true for us. It is as if he is saying through these very words “My child, I say to you, get up, rise from the dead, and live, because of what Jesus did on the cross for you.”
Because of what it says in these verses and what it says in many other verses, the Lutheran church would say that we have no free will apart from the will to sin on account of the fact that we were sinful from the time our mother conceived us. Foristell Christian Church would say that we still have, inherent in us, a will to take what God has to give us, namely the forgiveness of sins. In fact, they may even use the same verses that I have used but interpret them in a different way.

Here’s the difference on Baptism in a nutshell. Foristell Christian Church believes that Baptism is an act of obedience. It is something we do because God has commanded us to do it. They would say that, it is something we do to show that we believe in Christ. They also believe that there is forgiveness in Baptism as we also do, but that they take that forgiveness through this act of obedience.

The Lutheran Church believes that Baptism is simply a means of grace. It is not something we do, but something that God does to us, through the water and the Word. We would say that it is not an act of obedience, because a dead person, one who is dead in his trespasses and sins, cannot act in obedience to someone which he is not nor ever has been obedient. In other words, the Lutheran Church believes that baptism is a means by which our Lord Jesus instills faith in us and by which he washes us of our sins. One takes, the other receives. This is why, in our church, an infant can be baptized. Not only do the Scriptures tell us to baptize all nations, and not only do the Scriptures tell us that the whole households were baptized, and not only are there records of infant baptisms as early as the second century (100’s A.D.), but in our church Baptism is solely an act of God upon humans. The human being does nothing but receive the blessings that our Lord Jesus bestows in and through baptism. Therefore, since the human does nothing, it matters not how old he or she is.

The other thing, which I don’t want to spend too much time on today, is the whole thing of immersion. There are actually several different instances in which the word baptism is used. It is also used in many different forms. It is seen as baptismos as Pastor Quartermous pointed out, but also baptidzo, baptidzein, baptidzontes, and many others. Some of these point to an immersion simply by context, but never is it commanded that we baptize by immersion only. The word baptize at least in all of the lexicons (Greek dictionaries) that I have, always say that this word, in its various forms, means simply to wash. Whether it is immersion, sprinkling pouring, or whatever way you wash, to us anyways, doesn’t matter. It does matter to several other denominations and so we respect their ideals, although we do not agree with them.

I hope that you will take both of our articles to heart as both of them have one goal, that the hearers come to a belief in Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of their sins so that they may receive eternal life.