Baptism and Confession/Absolution
PART IV
THE SACRAMENT OF BAPTISM
I
What is Baptism?
Answer: Baptism is not simply water, but it is the water used according to God’s command and connected with God’s word.
What is this word of God?
Answer: It is the word of our Lord Jesus Christ, as recorded in the last chapter of Matthew: “Go ye therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them into the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.”
II
What Gifts or Benefits Does
Baptism Bestow?
Answer: It works forgiveness of sins, delivers from death and the devil, and gives everlasting salvation to all who believe, as the word and promise of God declare.
What is this word and promise of God?
Answer: It is the word of our Lord Jesus Christ, as recorded in the last chapter of Mark: “He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that disbelieveth shall be condemned.”
III
How Can Water Do Such
Great Things?
Answer: It is not the water, indeed, that does such great things, but the word of God, connected with the water, and our faith which relies on that word of God. For without the word of God, it is simply water and no baptism. But when connected with the word of God, it is a baptism, that is, a gracious water of life and a washing of regeneration in the Holy Spirit, as St. Paul says to Titus, in the third chapter: “According to His mercy He saved us, through the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Spirit, which He poured out upon us richly, through Jesus Christ our Saviour; that, being justified by His grace, we might be made heirs according to the hope of eternal life.” This is a faithful saying.
IV
What Does Such Baptizing with
Water Signify?
Answer: It signifies that the old Adam in us, together with all sins and evil lusts, should be drowned by daily sorrow and repentance, and be put to death; and that the new man should daily come forth and rise, to live before God in righteousness and holiness for ever.
Where is it so written?
Answer: St. Paul, in the sixth chapter of the Epistle to the Romans, says: “We ere buried therefore with him through baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we also might walk in newness of life.”
Of Confession
What is Confession?
Answer: Confession consists of two parts: the one is that we confess our sins; the other, that we receive absolution or forgiveness from the pastor as from God Himself, in no wise doubting, but firmly believing, that our sins are thereby forgiven before God in Heaven.
What sins should we confess?
Answer: Before God we should acknowledge ourselves guilty of all manner of sins, even of those of which we are not aware, as we do in the Lord’s Prayer. To the pastor we should confess only those sins which we know and feel in our hearts.
What are such sins?
Answer: Here examine yourself in the light of the Ten Commandments, whether as father or mother, son or daughter, master or servant, you have been disobedient, unfaithful, slothful, ill-tempered, unchaste, or quarrelsome, or whether you have injured any one by word or deed, stolen, neglected or wasted aught, or done any other evil.