Baptism Archives - Jack Kilcrease

December 22, 2025December 22, 2025

Cleansing Waters: Baptismal Typology in Gerhard

Johann Gerhard makes the promise of justification, along with its effective outworking in Christian life through sanctification, central to his treatment of baptism. Gerhard writes that God has been faithful to his promises of justification and redemption through the whole course of salvation history. Baptism is simply the covenantal promise of grace and justification as it has been manifested throughout the history of salvation. As his main n premise, Gerhard held that God is faithful to his promises of forgiveness and grace. Therefore, the promise of justification present in baptism runs through various types and rituals in the Old Testament. Ultimately, for Gerhard the sacrament of baptism manifests God’s faithfulness and willingness to forgive sinners for the sake of the blood of Jesus….

Gerhard mines the Old Testament for types of baptism. Those familiar with Gerhard will know that, like others in the period of Lutheran Orthodoxy, he is extremely fond of typological readings of Scripture.¹ … [Christians today may find some of his typological interpretations unconvincing.] However, Gerhard finds more plausible prefigurations of the justifying and sanctifying properties of baptism in the texts of the Old Testament major prophets. God promised the prophet Isaiah that he would give water to the thirsty and pour out his life-giving Spirit (Isa. 44:3-4). He also promised that the resurrected Suffering Servant would “sprinkle many nations” (Isa. 52:15).²

December 19, 2025December 22, 2025

Baptized in the Substantial Blood of Jesus – Literally

Johann Gerhard asserts that the word and the water do not merely mediate the presence of the Triune God. The sacrament also conveys the presence of the risen man Jesus, who possesses a hypostatic unity with the second person of the Trinity. Jesus is not merely present according to his divinity, but also according to his deified and, therefore, omnipresent humanity. The substantial blood of the risen Jesus is literally present in the waters of baptism, which cleans us from our sins. Gerhard writes:

[T]he Son of God in the fullness of time took upon Himself a true human nature and united Himself with it in an indissoluble link. Thus it further follows that He is present at Baptism not only according to His divinity, but also according to His assumed human nature. And especially the blood of Christ is not to be excluded from holy Baptism: 1. Because the Son of God’s true human nature also assumed flesh and blood, in which, with which, and through which His human nature now performs all His works; 2. because the power of holy Baptism arises and springs forth from the merits of Christ and from the shedding of His blood as it occurred on the timber trunk of the cross; 3. Because in holy Baptism we were washed from sins through the blood of Christ; 4 because we were baptized into Christ’s death. Now, however Christ’s death also includes His shedding of blood.¹
Continue reading “Baptized in the Substantial Blood of Jesus – Literally”

June 19, 2024June 19, 2024

Now, Baptism Saves through Confession and Absolution

The simul of Christian existence necessitates the sacrament of confession and absolution. Additionally, an intimate connection exists between baptism and confession and absolution. In On the Babylonian Captivity of the Church, Martin Luther initially stated that there are three sacraments: baptism, confession and absolution, and the Lord’s Supper. By the end of the treatise, he changed his mind and reduced the number of sacraments to only two, namely baptism and the Lord’s Supper. This is not because Luther disregarded the sacramentality of the word of absolution, but rather because he saw absolution as derivative of the gospel-promise present in baptism.¹

The Problem of Post-Baptismal Sin

In the ancient Church, there was a strong and appropriate sense of baptism as the definitive rupture between the old life and the new life, including the final eschatological purification. Nevertheless, early Christians fell into a profound misunderstanding of this rupture due to both legalism and trust in an overly realized eschatology. Many reasoned that since baptism brought a final purification from sins, then the Church could not forgive post-baptismal sin. The teaching that baptism could not be repeated further reinforced this conclusion. After all, how could a Christian who sinned after his baptism regain salvation when the Church could not baptized him anew?

Yet, practically speaking, the pervasive nature of sin made it difficult to sustain the doctrine that Christians lost their salvation by sinning after baptism. One direct consequence of this teaching was that people delayed baptism and, therefore, also their full participation in the life of the Church. Such a doctrine was simply unrealistic about the possibility of remaining sinless in an age in which sin and death persist even for believers.

June 16, 2024June 16, 2024

Baptize Your Babies: The Bible Tells You So

When considering infant baptism, we must remember that baptism is an effective visible Word of God. Indeed, St. Paul tells us that baptism objectively kills and resurrects us in Christ (Rom. 6:2-10). Sin is fundamentally unbelief (Rom. 14:23), and faith is new life (Gal. 2:20).¹ In other words, just as the preaching office does, baptism enacts the law and gospel on our old person.² It is the visible form of the word of law and the gospel, which, as Paul reminds us elsewhere, objectively works death and life: “For the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life” (2 Cor. 3:6).

Hence, the argument that infants cannot repent and believe makes little sense since repentance and faith are not natural capacities in human after the Fall. Rather, they are the supernatural work of the Holy Spirit operating through baptism.³ Moreover, we have a very concrete biblical example of the Holy Spirit working faith even in fetuses. St. John the Baptizer recognized the Christ while still in the womb of Elizabeth (Lk 1:44).⁴ Jesus himself states that it is not by active and conscious decision that one becomes a Christian, but rather by receiving faith and the kingdom as a “little child” (Mk. 10:15).

June 13, 2024June 16, 2024

Why Do They Fall Away? The Problem of Post-Baptismal Apostasy

Both Anabaptist/Baptist and Reformed Christians generally argue that baptismal regeneration and justification directly contradicts the principle of sola fide. According to many Protestants, baptismal regeneration and justification makes no sense given that not everyone who is baptized is ultimately saved. To Anabaptists and Baptists, this suggests that baptism is only a symbolic gesture designed to publicly affirm regeneration and justification through other means. For the Reformed, on the other hand, baptism is a meaningful sign for the elect. The Spirit then regenerates the elect by working alongside baptism, but not through baptism as an instrument.

Baptismal Regeneration and Sola Fide

But is it true that baptismal regeneration and justification contradicts the biblical and reformational principle of sola fide? In fact, Lutherans and other Protestants conceptualize the doctrine of sola fide in a fundamentally different way. As noted in a previous chapter, Luther and the subsequent Lutheran tradition’s conceptualization of justification might be better characterized by the slogan “justification by the word” rather than “justification by faith.” In other words, most Protestants discern salvation based on a reflective faith that affirms the certainty of salvation through the certainty of saving faith. Lutherans, however, turn the individual away from inner resources and focus him on the external Word of God.

Seen in this light, baptism is a visible Word of God. The Holy Spirit works with the same power in, under, and through the Word in the water, the absolution, the preaching office, and the Supper. God in Christ directs us away from our subjective disposition, which is, of course, always tainted by sin. Instead he orients us towards his justifying promise of salvation actually present in baptism. If a person receives that baptismal promise, then he has justifying faith.