Baptismal Identity and Creedal Faith

The correct perspective from which to view God and humanity is our baptism into Christ and His mystical body, the Church.  The threefold divine name of the baptismal formula is indicative of our identity and narrative being as determined by the Triune God’s gracious action in history.  Indeed, the Triune structure of the baptismal formula was the basis of the first post-biblical creeds and the multi-year catechetical instruction that early Christians underwent before receiving baptism.  In order to be baptized into the Triune name, a catechumen had to first know the true meaning of the divine name.  Indeed, to know the meaning of the Triune name is to know the full corpus of Christian doctrine. 

For this reason, the best way to expound Christian doctrine is within the structure of the Creed, which speaks of the activity of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and from the perspective of how that one Triune God delivers the gospel to us.  The centrality of the Gospel promise is the flipside of the confession of the Triune God and His works.  As St. Paul told the Church of Rome, faith in Christ necessarily gives rise to a confession of faith: “. . . if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.  For with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved” (Rom. 10:9-10).  Personal faith (fides qua creditor) is therefore grounded in the objective truths of the faith (fides quae creditor).  Faith must publicly confess the truthfulness of all God has revealed in his Word as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.  As Jesus states: “So everyone who acknowledges me before men, I also will acknowledge before my Father who is in heaven, but whoever denies me before men, I also will deny before my Father who is in heaven” (Matt. 10:32-33).

From the draft manuscript for Lutheran Dogmatics: The Evangelical-Catholic Faith for an Age of Contested Truth (Lexham Press).

Image from Matthew Zickler, “Concerning Rebaptism for Christians,” LCMS Resources, May 4, 2017, https://resources.lcms.org/reading-study/concerning-rebaptism-for-christians/.