GOD’S WORD FOR YOU
ACTS 16:32-33
32 Then they spoke the word of the Lord to him and to everyone who was in his house. 33 He took them right at that hour of the night and washed their wounds. Immediately he was baptized along with his whole family.
The response of a true pastor to the question, “What must I do to be saved?” is Paul’s answer: Believe in the Lord Jesus. But then the question rises up naturally: Believe what? And so the true servant of the gospel will follow with the very gospel he serves. Paul himself said, “How can they call on the one they have not believed in? And how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them?” (Romans 10:14). He will proclaim Jesus, teach about Jesus, and correctly explain Jesus. Fools and swindlers infect our TVs today with a so-called Jesus who will help everybody get wealthy and happy. That isn’t the gospel of salvation. Others present a Jesus who should be copied, imitated, as if a Christ-like life is all God wants of us. That isn’t the gospel of salvation, either. That’s a legalistic, angry, bullying, Do This Or Else kind of gospel, and that’s no gospel at all. The rightly-divided, correctly-handled (2 Tim. 2:15) gospel presents the law that condemns our sins (which the jailer already knew), and the gospel that reveals the Savior from all sin, Jesus Christ. The jailer had perhaps never heard the name of Jesus before this night. But like the earthquake itself, he was shaken down to his very foundations, and the chains of the bondage of Satan fell from his soul as the news of salvation through Jesus was preached, and the doors of his private prison of unbelief were flung open, and his spirit was set free.
Paul and Silas preached to his whole household, in terms that this jailer-soldier would understand, as well as his devoted wife, their servants, and very probably their children, too. Each of them heard the gospel; each of them came to faith. Paul and Silas unlocked the shackles holding their souls, and they were free of sin, free of guilt, free of any doubts, free of the burden of uncertainty. It is that uncertainty that plagues most unbelievers. Uncertainty about heaven, uncertainty about hell, but most of all, uncertainty about what happens after we die. The message of the resurrection, of the rising of the dead to eternal life, is what people hunger and thirst for even if they don’t know it. It’s after unbelievers come to faith in Jesus that they admit this, a secret uncertainty they only saw as a little gnawing thing in their lives before this, but seen in the light of Christ and the promise of the resurrection, the whole burden of regret, loss, and grief falls away. We will see our loved ones again.
The response of the jailer was to wash their wounds. Now, at last, there was healing for Silas and Paul. And even as the jailer washed, so also he was washed. Just as we almost always do with adults, baptism follows preaching, for otherwise baptism won’t be understood. But it must be said, nowhere in the Bible does it say that baptism must be understood by the one being baptized, just as circumcision did not need to be understood by those who were circumcised. Nor did Noah’s sons and daughters-in-law need to fully understand how they were being saved, or the Children of Israel each perceive what was holding back the towering walls of the waters of the Red Sea as they passed through. Yet they were all saved. Since preaching is not available to an infant, the Lord has given us baptism. And yet for some Christians, baptism remains as the surest sign of their coming to faith. A scholar and a professional preacher might be tempted to have his feelings hurt that a cheap splash of kitchen water (such as the jailer used “immediately” in that hour of the night, and no immersion out in the river) would be a more cherished mark of faith than all of his carefully prepared sermons and clever drawings of how the gospel works. But a true, faithful scholar and professional preacher also has wisdom enough to say, “Christ must become greater; I must become less” (John 3:30).
The true gift of baptism, its purpose, is salvation. “God our Savior saved us, not because of righteous things we had done, but because of his mercy. He saved us through the washing of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit” (Titus 3:5). Peter agrees completely with Paul: “Baptism now saves you also– not the removal of dirt from the body but the pledge of a good conscience toward God. It saves you by the resurrection of Jesus Christ, who has gone into heaven and is at God’s right hand with angels, authorities and powers in submission to him” (1 Peter 3:21-22). God bless Peter for adding what he does about angels and authorities being in submission to Christ, for the arrogant and sinful human mind is so stubborn that it often refuses to accept baptism as a means of salvation and wants to turn baptism into nothing more than a sign, a work to be carried out, a thing to be obeyed. But baptism, Peter and Paul both say, saves. Who am I to oppose Peter and Paul as two witnesses in full agreement about this important truth from the Holy Spirit? And other passages demonstrate indirectly that baptism is a means of rebirth (salvation):
1, Galatians 1:25-27. Since we put on Christ through baptism, faith is granted in baptism. The granting of faith is of course rebirth.
2, Acts 2:38; 22:16; Ephesians 5:26. Baptism gives forgiveness. To be released from sin means to be reborn into a new life.
3, 1 Peter 3:21; Galatians 3:26-27; Mark 16:16; Titus 3:5. According to these passages, baptism puts a person into the covenant of grace, into the state of being God’s child, and into the expectation of eternal life, while it pulls him out of the kingdom of Satan. Therefore these passages demonstrate that baptism is an efficacious (effective cause of) means of rebirth.
Since this is a place in Scripture where many people look for proof of infant baptism, it seems good to place a defense of this practice here. Apart from the testimony of the Bible (above) about what baptism does, there are usually two objections: (a) that Scripture says nothing about children being baptized, and (b) that children do not or cannot accept the grace offered to them in baptism, that is to say, they cannot believe.
First, does Scripture say nothing at all about children’s baptism? Scripture does not report any indisputable instance of baptizing a baby or a child, but neither does it report any hint of a prohibition against it. The Bible doesn’t forbid baptizing anyone. “Baptism of children is more probable than the opposite teaching, especially in view of circumcision” (Hoenecke). An explicit command for children’s baptism is not given, but one is not needed. Women are likewise nowhere commanded to be baptized (they were of course excluded from circumcision), and only one instance of a woman being baptized (Lydia) is given. As we have already seen, John 3:15 designates baptism as the entrance into the kingdom of heaven, and Jesus forbids his disciples from keeping the little children (infants) from coming to him (Mark 10:14). The Lord obviously intends baptism to be for children and for infants.
Second, are children incapable of believing in Christ? This needs to be answered according to Scripture rather than by educational theory or by psychology. Matthew 18:1-6 teaches us that little children can be in the kingdom of God, and that the reason for this is that they believe. “I tell you the truth, anyone who will not receive the kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it” (Mark 10:15). This means that we should believe in Jesus in the way that a little child believes in Jesus; with a full heart, without any doubts. Hoenecke again says (in the 19th century): “Any other childlike quality that is beautiful and ever so dear may deserve praise, but it does not bring a person into the kingdom of heaven. Only faith does that.”
Finally, perhaps someone who denies infant baptism would like to contest whether I myself truly have faith in Christ, or my sons, or my mother or father, or sister or brother, since we all were baptized as little babies? Has the faith I had as a little boy, my baptismal faith, been replaced by another faith I achieved as an adult? When did that event take place? Should my pastor be condemned for allowing me, a child, to recite the Christmas story as a merely baptized brat and not a true believer? It is true, my understanding of certain doctrines has developed and deepened over the years. But if I was not a believer with faith in Christ when I was one or two, then I am still not today, because my faith in Jesus and my love for Jesus have not changed in all these years. He is still my only Savior. I am happily and firmly counted as one of those who trust in him, “who will never be put to shame” (Romans 9:33).
Let these answers about infant baptism stand as they are, but let the reader understand this: No argument with someone who rejects infant baptism will profit by talking only about infant baptism. It is the gift baptism brings that is the key. Luther asked the question we must be prepared to ask and answer: “What does baptism give or profit?” That is where we make our stand.
Baptism works forgiveness of sin, delivers from death and the devil, and gives eternal salvation to all who believe this, as the words and promises of God declare.
What are these words and promises of God?
Christ our Lord says in the last chapter of Mark, “Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned.”
In Christ,
Pastor Timothy Smith
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Pastor Smith serves St. Paul’s Lutheran Church, New Ulm, Minnesota
God’s Word for You – Acts 16:32-33 Washed and baptized