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.
As a result, the concept of penance developed to deal with the problem of post-baptismal sin. Penance evolved through various stages and was understood in different ways. To simplify a complex history, by the Middle Ages, penance had become a way of restoring baptism. It also repaired the negative effects of post-baptismal sin, namely, the temporal punishment due to sin.
Early and medieval Christian theologians assumed that the justifying and sanctifying properties of baptism subsisted in a momentary event. This meant that if they were not preserved through infused grace and moral fortitude, they could be lost. If lost, the fruits of baptism required restoration through supplementary justification and sanctification. One the one hand, Luther agreed with the ancient and medieval Church that the definitive nature of the justification and sanctification occurred in baptism. But, on the other hand, he conceptualized the nature of baptism and the temporality of consequent justification and sanctification differently based on the sacramentality of the Word of God.
“Now, Baptism Saves You”
God’s deed-word in baptism objectively justifies and sanctifies the sinner. This objective action can never be undone. As God’s definitive word about us, baptism permanently determines Christian identity as justified and sanctified, as Paul teaches in Romans 6:1-4. Through unbelief, a person may, of course, become alienated from his true baptismal identity in Christ. But one can never cancel that identity. Baptismal identity is based on an immutable promise of new life and salvation.2
As Luther shows, Christians can perpetually draw on the saving effect of baptism because the promise always applies through faith.3 St. Peter reminds us that “baptism now saves you” (1 Pt. 3:21, Emphasis added). In the Greek, the sentence could be more literally translated as “now, baptism saves.” In other words, as an event, baptism unequivocally saves now. Indeed, there is no limitation to the timeframe of baptism. It is never not now. Christians can always draw on the promise of baptism by making “an appeal to God for a good conscience, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ” (1 Pt. 3:21).
In this regard, we can see the connection between Luther’s doctrine of the absolute omnipresence of Christ and baptism. Baptism forges unity with Christ’s death and resurrection through the promise. Therefore, Christ, who is present in the Word of God and confined by neither time nor space, is continuously present to renew faith through the word of promise in baptism. Because the risen and ascended Jesus transcends time and space, the believer lives in a perichoresis of times. Insofar as the Christian is in Adam, his existence remains penetrated by the effects of the Fall. However, in that he is also in Christ, he is united now with the chronologically distant past events of the Messiah’s death, resurrection, and ascension.
Without recognition of the believer’s perpetual access to the event of baptism, it is easy to see why one might argue baptism periodically needs repair through a supplementary sacrament (i.e., penance). Later, this led the Reformed to reduce baptism to a covenant sign. Anabaptists and Baptists made it into a public declaration of voluntary faith.
Moreover, this is also why Lutherans, unlike the Reformed (following St. Augustine), do not often talk about perseverance of the saints. Augustine’s notion that the saints have a special gift to preserve their faith and sanctity presupposes that salvation is something we move toward in the future. On the contrary, Paul’s statements in Romans 6 suggest that now baptism is the definitive apocalypse in which God judges our old being and establishes our new being in Christ.4 The Christian life is, therefore, not a matter of moving toward salvation in the future by preserving our sanctity. Rather, Christians perpetually return to our already established eschatological righteousness as fully realized now in baptism.
Confession and Absolution as Return to Baptism
Gröde Island, Nordfriesland, c. 1910
The ability to perpetually return to baptism through daily repentance makes confession and absolution possible. The Church’s word of absolution is nothing but a return to the promise of forgiveness present in baptism. The fact that baptism occurs in the name of the “Father, Son, and Holy Spirit” (Matt. 28:19) is important in this regard because reception of the divine Name conveys the divine presence and promise. The gift of the divine Name makes the believer a temple of the Holy Spirit (1 Cor. 6:19), just as the Old Testament temple was a “house for my name” (2 Sam. 7:13). The Spirit enlightens the heart and mind, thereby creating repentance and faith in the believer. Christians then exercise these by believing the promise of baptism and absolution.
Secondly, the gift of the divine Name in baptism enables the believer to call upon God in repentance and trust. Remember the admonition from one of the later conversion narratives of Paul: “Rise and be baptized and wash away your sins, calling on his name” (Acts 22:16, emphasis added)…. Paul describes faith in the promise of the gospel (using Joel 2:32) in the words: “For ‘everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved’” (Rom. 10:13, also see Acts 2:21). God gave the Church his Triune name in baptism. Therefore, the Church is now the Temple of God (Eph. 2:21). Hence, like the Temple of the old dispensation, the Church is now dispenses forgiveness by the authority of the divine Name.
Individual believers can also call on the Name of God received in baptism for forgiveness. Moreover, God empowers believers to proclaim forgiveness in the divine Name to the nations. Christians, as royal priests, witness to the gospel and announce absolution for individual sins: “. . . repentance for the forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in his [Jesus’] name to all nations . . .” (Lk 24:47)….
The Office of the Keys
Jesus gives the authority to forgive sins to the whole Church. Contrary to the claims of later Roman Catholics, Christ’s gift of the binding and loosening keys to Peter in Matthew 16 is simply exemplary of a gift to all Christians by virtue of faith in the word of promise. In the passage, Peter proclaims his faith in Jesus as the Messiah and the Son of God. In response, Jesus gives Peter the keys to the kingdom of heaven. These keys loose and bind of sins. No one enters the kingdom without the forgiveness of sins.
One may doubt either this interpretation, or that Peter was simply the first to receive what the whole Church also receives based on its faith in Jesus. However, in Matthew 18, Jesus gives the Christian congregation the power to bind the sins of the unrepentant: “Truly, I say to you, whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven” (Matt. 18:18).
On other occasions, Jesus also gives ministers of the word the right to publicly exercise the office of the keys (Lk. 10:10-16, Jn. 20:22-23). Nevertheless, this is not a zero-sum game of authority. In their witness to the gospel and in their interpersonal relationships, individual Christians may forgive and remind other believers of the gospel. This is what Luther referred to when he wrote of the “mutual consolation of the brethren.” Indeed, Luther listed this mutual consolation as one of the five means of grace. Yet, just like the Levitical priests (Lev. 20:25) before them, ministers of the word are empowered to exercise the power of the binding and loosing keys before the public assembly of believers. They possess this power and public authority because the congregation of believers bestowed this office upon them.
Note that the ability to bind sins does not mean contrition is a kind of condition by which the sinner earns forgiveness. Nor does it mean that God is unwilling to forgive sinners. God has objectively forgiven all sinners already in Christ. The binding of sins does mean that the ordained minister tells the unrepentant that their open and habitual sin manifests their unwillingness to receive God’s forgiveness.
Denying the unrepentant of the Lord’s Supper so that they do not eat and drink judgment upon themselves (1 Cor. 11:31) is, in fact, a loving act. In cases of public sin, ministers may also need to remove the unrepentant sinner from the assembly of believers so that their sins do not infect others in the congregation or cause scandal (Matt. 18:15-20, 1 Cor. 5:1-11). These are not punishments, but rather are attempts to show the unbelieving and unrepentant the depth of their sin and bring them to repentance and reconciliation (1 Tim. 1:19-20).
- On the Babylonian Captivity of the Church (1520); LW 36:124. ↩︎
- Luther, “Sermon on Holy Baptism (1535),” 69-73. ↩︎
- SC IV; CT, 551. ↩︎
- See similar comments about Luther’s view of time by Bayer. Oswald Bayer, “Martin Luther,” in The Reformation Theologians: An Introduction to Theology in the Early Modern Period, ed. Carter Lindberg (Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing, 2004), 51-52. ↩︎
From the draft manuscript for Lutheran Dogmatics: The Evangelical-Catholic Faith for an Age of Contested Truth (Lexham Press).
Cover image from Pastor Dale, “Confession and Absolution for Epiphany 2A,” LCMS Pastors’ Resources, January 16, 2020, accessed June 11, 2024, http://lcmspastor.com/practical/worship-resources/liturgies/confession-and-absolution-for-epiphany-2a; other images from “Roundtable 10: Baptism,” Concordia: An On-Going Discussion of the Book of Concord, March 19, 2007, accessed June 11, 2024, http://bookofconcord.blogspot.com/2007/03/roundtable-10-augsburg-confession.html; and Lucas Cranach the Elder, Wittenberg Altarpiece, from Joshua Scheer, “2022 Lenten Series – Service Plan,” Steadfast Lutherans, January 15, 2022, accessed June 11, 2024, https://steadfastlutherans.org/blog/2022/01/2022-lenten-series-service-plan/.