In the
Small Catechism’s
Fourth Question about the Sacrament of Holy Baptism, Martin Luther asks: "What
does such baptizing with water indicate?" (Was bedeut den solch Wassertäuffen?). He goes on to answer the question by
saying:
It indicates that the Old Adam in us should
by daily contrition and repentance be drowned and die with all sins and evil
desires, and that a new man should daily emerge and arise to live before God in
righteousness and purity forever.
As he does again and again, Luther then
grounds his answer in the Scriptures by asking the follow up question, “Where is this written?” and answering, "St. Paul writes in Romans chapter six: 'We were
therefore buried with Him through baptism into death in order that, just as
Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may
live a new life.'" [Romans 6:4]
During my time at the seminary and early
years as a pastor, I considered this to be one of the most puzzling questions
in the Small
Catechism. The reason is that the verse Luther cites, along with its entire context, does
not support his answer exegetically.
Luther talks about drowning the Old Adam through daily contrition and
repentance. But in Rom 6:1-6 the apostle
Paul says:
What shall we say then? Are we to
continue in sin that grace may abound? By no means! How can we who died to sin
still live in it? Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into
Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried therefore with him by
baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by
the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life. For if we have
been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him
in a resurrection like his. We know that our old self was crucified with him in
order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing, so that we would no
longer be enslaved to sin.
Where Luther talks about the Old
Adam, repentance and contrition in relation to baptism, Paul is talking about how
baptism is the reason that Christians don’t
sin. That’s the point that he sets
up with his rhetorical question in 6:1-2, “What shall we say then? Are we to
continue in sin that grace may abound? By no means! How can we who died to sin
still live in it?” Christians can’t
because we have died to sin (6:2), and then Paul brings the Romans back to what
he assumes they too know: this happened
as they shared in Christ’s death through baptism (6:3).
Christians have
shared in Christ’s death through baptism.
Paul begins 6:4 by saying, “We
were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as
Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father ….” The reader expects the next move to
be that they will also share in Jesus’ resurrection. But instead, the apostle
says, “…we too might walk in newness of life.” This “newness of life” is what Paul describes
elsewhere as the saving reality of being “in Christ.”
Yet in this context the idea of “walking in newness of life” certainly
includes how Christians live. Paul
finally makes the expected connection in 6:5 when he adds: “For if we have been
united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a
resurrection like his.” Here we begin to see that for Paul resurrection and new
life in Christ (including how we live) are linked. The reason will become explicit in 8:11 – the
connection is the Holy Spirit.
Because
of this Paul can say in 6:6, “We know that our old
self was crucified with him in order that the body of sin might be brought to
nothing, so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin.” Freedom from sin – the
ability to avoid sin - is the point Paul drives home in 6:7-15. In fact Paul says in 6:10-13:
For
the death he died he died to sin, once for all, but the life he lives he lives
to God. So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in
Christ Jesus. Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, to make you obey
its passions. Do not present your members to sin as instruments for
unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God as those who have been brought
from death to life, and your members to God as instruments for righteousness.
Luther’s
repentance and contrition are nowhere to be found in 6:4 or the broader context,
and the text talks about burial, not
drowning. As Peters concedes: “Everything in the Small Catechism concentrates on the
well-known phrase about how the old man is drowned daily and how the new man
arises again each day. One must acknowledge that spiritual insights are
implicit in the citation of Rom 6:4, which only later Luther will accentuate in
a significant way” (Albrecht Peters, Commentary
on Luther’s Catechisms: Baptism and Lord’s Supper, 107).
It was Jonathan Trigg’s wonderful book
Baptism in the Theology of Martin Luther that
finally provided the answer for me. He writes:
The significatio of baptism is predicated upon the nature of the sign
of baptism- why has God chosen this
sign to be joined with the word in preference to all others? In what does its appropriateness
consist? Why does the water of baptism
and the manner of its administration have to say about life under the covenant
of baptism? (pg. 93; emphasis his)
Trigg pointed to Luther’s preference for
submersion (pg. 93; ftnt. 142) and noted: “There are two parts to the sign of
baptism. The baptisand is plunged beneath the water (at least symbolically) and
is raised up from it” (pg. 93).
Luther’s question,“What does such baptizing with
water indicate?” (Was
bedeut den solch Wassertäuffen?), is in fact an
invitation to reflect on the manner in
which water is applied to the individual in his day and the way this illustrates a specific truth about
Baptism. Luther’s question and answer
are based on the way the ritual act was done.
They are not directly related to the text of Rom 6:4 and the exegesis of
this verse.
It is clear that during the
fourteenth century infusion (pouring water on the infant) began to overtake immersion in the western Church. However, accounts of sixteenth century
Lutheran baptismal practice vary, and most likely this reflects the reality that practice
itself varied. Graff indicates that
Luther and Bugenhagen wanted submersion and that some Church Orders of the
sixteenth century followed them in this (Paul
Graff, Geschichte der Auflösung der alten
gottesdientstlichen Formen in der evangelischen Kirche Deutschlands 1:303). He adds
that many Church Orders only speak about “Baptism” and leave whether immersion or
pouring is used up to the decision of the pastor baptizing (1:304). Strodach
notes this diversity and adds that, in addition there was “superfusio, i.e., holding the naked child over the font and pouring
water over him profusely” (LW 53:100).
Rietschel acknowledges Luther’s preference for immersion but adds that
most often, as in Wittenberg, the superfusio
over the naked child was customary, while in other places the water was poured
over the head (Rietschel/Graff, Lehrbruch
Der Liturgik, 564). Rietschel goes
on to point to the depiction of baptism in the Cranach Wittenberg altar piece
as evidence for the practice of superfusio
in Wittenberg.
However, there can be no doubt about
the baptismal practice that provides the conceptual framework for the Fourth
Question in the Small Catechism. Luther’s Baptismal Booklet provides the
direction: “At this point he shall take the child and immerse it in the baptismal
font and say….” (Kolb/Wengert, 375) (Da nehme er das Kind und tauche es in die
Taufe und spreche….”; BSLK 540). "Tauchen" is regularly translated as “immerse” (Kolb/Wengert, 375) or “dip” (LW 53:100).
Immersion as the
means by which the water of baptism was applied held an important place in
Luther’s thought from the beginning of the Reformation. In the 1519 “The Holy and Blessed Sacrament
of Baptism” he wrote:
Although in many places it is no longer customary to
thrust and dip infants into the font, but only with the hand to pour the
baptismal water upon them out of the font, nevertheless the former is what
should be done. It would be proper, according to the meaning of the word Taufe, that the infant, or whoever is to
be baptized, should be put in and sunk completely into the water and then drawn
out again. For even in the German tongue
the word Taufe comes undoubtedly from
the word tief [deep] and means that
what is baptized is sunk deeply into the water.
This usage is also demanded by the significance of baptism itself. For
baptism, as we shall hear, signifies that the old man and the sinful birth of
flesh and blood are to be wholly drowned by the grace of God. We should
therefore do justice to its meaning and make baptism a true and complete sign
of the thing it signifies. (LW 35:29)
In “The
Babylonian Captivity of the Church” (1520) Luther states:
The second part
of baptism is the sign or sacrament, which is that immersion in water from
which it derives its name, for the Greek baptize
means ‘I immerse,’ and baptisma means
‘immersion.’ For, as has been said,
along with the divine promises signs have also been given to picture that which
the words signify, or as they now say, that which the sacrament ‘effectively
signifies.’ We shall see how much truth
there is in this. (LW 36:64)
In these texts
Luther asserts that the application of water through immersion visually
depicts a truth about baptism. In
particular, the “The Holy and Blessed Sacrament of Baptism” describes this as a
drowning of the old man. In the ritual
action, the body is plunged under water which corresponds to the fact that in
baptism the old man is drowned by God’s grace.
Luther develops
this thought further to include not only the immersion under the water but
also the raising out of the water in the Large
Catechism ( IV.64-67):
Finally, we must also know what
baptism signifies and why God ordained precisely this sign and external
ceremony for the sacrament by which we are first received into the Christian
community. [65] This act or ceremony consists of being dipped into the water, which covers us
completely, and being drawn out again. These two parts, being dipped under the
water and emerging from it, point to the power and effect of baptism, which is nothing
else than the slaying of the old Adam and the resurrection of the new creature,
both of which must continue in us our whole life long. Thus a Christian life is
nothing else than a daily baptism, begun once and continuing ever after. For we
must keep at it without ceasing, always purging whatever pertains to the old
Adam, so that whatever belongs to the new creature may come forth. [66] What is
the old creature? It is what is born in us from Adam, irascible, spiteful,
envious, unchaste, greedy, lazy, proud—yes—and unbelieving; it is beset with
all vices and by nature has nothing good in it. [67] Now, when we enter
Christ’s kingdom, this corruption must daily decrease so that the longer we
live the more gentle, patient, and meek we become, and the more we break away
from greed, hatred, envy, and pride. (Kolb/Wengert, 464-465)
The language of
LC IV.65 explicitly indicates that Luther has focused upon the ritual action in
which the body descends beneath the water and then emerges back out of it:
“This act or ceremony
consists of being dipped into the water which covers us completely, and being
drawn out again (daß man uns in
Wasser senket,
das über uns hergehet, und darnach wieder erauszeucht). These two parts,
being dipped under the water and emerging from it (unter das Wasser sinken und
wieder erauskommen)….”
Then Luther describes how this ritual
action points, “to the power and effect of baptism, which is nothing else than
the slaying of the old Adam and the resurrection of the new creature, both of
which must continue in us our whole life long” (LC IV.65). The plunging into water and emerging from it
signifies the killing of the old Adam which occurs as the Christians seeks to
restrain and purge the old Adam, so that also the new man created in Baptism
determines how the Christian lives:
Thus a Christian life is nothing else
than a daily baptism, begun once and continuing ever after. For we must keep at
it without ceasing, always purging whatever pertains to the old Adam, so that
whatever belongs to the new creature may come forth. (LC IV.65-66)
Now, when we enter Christ’s kingdom,
this corruption must daily decrease so that the longer we live the more gentle,
patient, and meek we become, and the more we break away from greed, hatred,
envy, and pride. This is the right use of baptism among Christians, signified
by baptizing with water. Where this does not take place but rather the old
creature is given free rein and continually grows stronger, baptism is not
being used but resisted. (LC IV. 67-68)
The old creature therefore follows
unchecked the inclinations of its nature if not restrained and suppressed by
the power of baptism. On the other hand, when we become Christians, the old
creature daily decreases until finally destroyed. This is what it means truly
to plunge into baptism and daily to come forth again. So the external sign has
been appointed not only so that it may work powerfully on us but also so that
it may point to something. (LC IV.71-73)
Finally Luther describes this living
in Baptism, signified by the going under the water and coming up again, as repentance:
Here you see that baptism, both by its
power and by its signification, comprehends also the third sacrament, formerly
called penance, which is really nothing else than baptism. What is repentance
but an earnest attack on the old creature and an entering into a new life? If
you live in repentance, therefore, you are walking in baptism, which not only announces
this new life but also produces, begins, and exercises it. In baptism we are given
the grace, Spirit, and strength to suppress the old creature so that the new
may come forth and grow strong. (LC IV.74-76)
This background makes it clear that
when the Fourth Question about Baptism asks, “What does such baptizing with
water indicate?” (Was bedeut den solch Wassertäuffen?), the
question takes up the manner in which
water is applied. In addition, the
specific manner which Luther assumes in his answer is submersion. This is confirmed by the language of “drowned
and die (soll ersäuft werdern und sterben) with all sins and evil
desires.” The ritual act of placing the
body under water signifies drowning and death, and within the baptismal life it
is carried out by “daily contrition and repentance.” Likewise the drawing of the body up out of
the water signifies “that a new man should daily emerge and arise (erauskommen
und auferstehen) to live before God in righteousness and purity forever.”
Luther
establishes these conceptual correlations:
Under the water Contrition and repentance Old
man drowned and dies
Out of the water Live in righteousness/purity New
man emerge and arise
If this is not
understood, Luther’s use of Rom 6:4 is quite puzzling. Exegetically, the verse is not speaking about
“daily contrition and repentance” nor does it refer to drowning. Instead, when we understand that “such
baptizing with water” refers to the ritual act by which water is applied, it
frees us to recognize that Luther uses the verse in order to draw upon a
network of interconnected theological truths about Baptism – truths which can
be linked to Rom 6:4.
I maintain that
the Fourth Question on the Sacrament of Baptism is one of the most difficult to
explain in the Small Catechism because
it assumes a ritual practice that is no longer ours. More than that, it is a practice that in our
setting calls to mind the false belief and demands of Baptists. In addition,
rather than a tight exegetical link to Rom 6:4, it uses a more diffuse
theological interpretation. I explain
the question to my catechumens in the following manner:
In the first question of
the Small Catechism (“What is
Baptism?”) we learned that Holy Baptism is the application of water “in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy
Spirit.” During the history of the
Church, this has been done in several different ways. We have learned that one of earliest practices was immersion as the body was plunged under the water and then brought back up to the surface. This practice continued in many areas of the
Church up unto the time of the Reformation when the Small Catechism was written.
Both the Small and Large
Catechisms use this method of applying water in order to explain the
meaning Holy Baptism has for our daily lives in the light of Romans 6.
