[AI translation] Again, I would like to share the teaching of the Word of God on the meaning and essence of baptism. Three weeks ago we heard that baptism, because we are all baptized: a symbol and a seal, symbolizes being washed by the blood of Christ, being immersed in Christ's death and being raised with him to a new, sanctified life. And all this grace is sealed for us, as if the Lord Himself were encouraging us to accept with courage the forgiveness of sins, eternal life, the death and resurrection of the Lord Jesus, because what He has done for us is truly ours, truly and completely! And if we have already accepted this grace for ourselves, made it our own by a conscious decision of faith, which is represented by baptism: then let us accept it calmly and gratefully for our children! Well, that's what I want to talk about now, the biblical basis of infant baptism: why do we baptize our children and what does it mean for them?Let us start from the practice of baptism itself today. The head of the child to be baptised is sprinkled with water representing the redeeming blood of Christ, while we say: 'I baptise you in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. - So it is as if, in this solemn, precious moment, God the Father were to bend down here at the Lord's Table, lay his holy hand on the head of the little child and say, "I establish an everlasting covenant of grace between this child and me, I receive him as my child, I make him my heir, I care for him. I will be his father forever! Let us take this literally, for He Himself has promised it! So the eternal, mighty God, who rules over all things, bends down to such a tiny, helpless man and makes a covenant with him. A covenant means that in some way the child's destiny, his life, is interwoven with the life of God. Threads are woven between the child and the heavenly Mother, linking the child to the Father and the Father to the child, so much so that the Father takes that child as his heir. The heir is someone who will one day come into possession of all the riches that the heir possesses. By baptism into the name of the Father, it is as if the Father were to inscribe a rich heavenly inheritance in that child's name.
I baptise you in the name of the Son... - It is as if the Son, Jesus Christ, were standing here at this very moment at the Lord's table, and He were making a promise to Him, saying: On Calvary I have shed my blood for this child, I will undertake to cleanse this soul from its sins, I will receive this man into the fellowship of my death and resurrection, I will extend to him the scope of my redemption, I will impute to him the merits of my life and death, so that God will not look upon him as a sinner, but as a righteous, holy one - as me!
I baptize you in the name of the Holy Spirit - when this declaration is made at the Lord's table, the Holy Spirit is there and makes a promise: And I will take up My abode in the child and will sanctify him as a member of Christ, will make him a partaker of all that Christ has obtained for him, that is, I will make salvation and eternal life a reality for him lived by faith.
Yes, it is something of this kind of rich, great promise for our children to be baptized in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. So in the name of the Triune God! Let me emphasise that 'in the name', that is, not in the name - that is, the child is baptised not in the name of God, as it were, on God's behalf, as God's substitute - but in the name: that is, by baptism we bring the child into the covenant of the Trinity God with believers, we bring that child into the covenant of which we ourselves are members. As it were, we bear witness that God is now extending the covenant of his grace to this little child, whom, behold, we have given the sign of the covenant, the water of the blood of Christ. Az Atya-Fiú-Szentlélek Isten, a három-egy Isten a Biblia tanúsága szerint a hívő emberrel szövetséget kötő Isten, a szövetséges Isten!
Listen to what God says to Abraham: "And I will establish my covenant between me and you, and between you and your seed after you, according to your generations, an everlasting covenant, that I may be your God, and your seed after you." (Genesis 17:7) This chapter is about God's covenant with Abraham, the Abraham who had no children at that time. And it is explicitly stated that this covenant applies not only to Abraham, but to all who will come after him. It's as if God is saying, "Abraham, take note that what we do here applies to your children, to your descendants. Although in body only the Jews are descendants of Abraham, in spirit the Bible calls believers "Abraham's offspring" (Gal 3:29), and Abraham the father of believers. The Apostle Peter himself, filled with the Pentecostal spirit, explains the Word thus: "For unto you is the promise, and unto your children, and to all that are afar off, even to some whom only the Lord our God will call." (Acts 2,39) So the promise to Abraham is to all those whom God has called to himself, whom God has chosen for himself: the spiritual nation which God has called out from among the nations, the peoples in the physical sense, chosen for salvation, gathered around Christ.
This is the chosen people of the New Testament, the covenant people of God, the heirs of the covenant with Abraham, the Messianic people. The people of whom Christ is King, redeemed by Christ from sin and Satan, held under His kingship, and which He will lead to ultimate victory at His return. And it is precisely the blood of Christ - that is, outwardly, baptism - which is the sign of belonging to the Messianic people, by which God marks His own, as it were, and separates believers from other peoples. Baptism is therefore the sign of the covenant that God made with Abraham, that is, with believers and their descendants. For He shows mercy a thousand times over to those who love Him. To the believer is this promise: "I will be your God, and your seed after you." (Genesis 17:7) In connection with this Word, Calvin remarks: "Those who enter the church by faith are counted with their posterity as members of Christ, and are called with them to salvation. And even if infants, because of their age, do not receive God's grace by faith, when God calls their parents, He embraces them at the same time. We do not therefore rashly offer infants the baptism to which the Lord calls them when He promises to be their God." (cf. Evang. Harmony IV. 207.) By baptism we are, as it were, acknowledging God's promise that He will be God, the covenant God of this child, for this child is also the offspring of Abraham, a member of the Messianic people. This child is also a child to whom all the promises of the covenant apply, and therefore let us immerse him, let us initiate him into the covenant of the Trinity God, baptizing him in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit!
But is it not wrong that the child does not understand any of this? But he understands nothing of the misery of sin and damnation, and yet he has a part in it, and yet it applies to him! He who believes this, which the Word of God teaches, that our children are conceived and born in sin, and therefore come into the world defiled by sin, destined for damnation, will gladly embrace the possibility of baptism as a sign of the promise of salvation from sin and damnation, as a sign of belonging to the Messianic people. Unbeknownst to them, they share in the consequences of Adam's sin, so they may as well share unknowingly in the grace of Christ! Suppose a mother were reluctant to accept a savings and loan book in which someone had deposited a large sum of money in the name of her just-born child. She would refuse, saying: No, what would a baby like that do with money? That child would later, when he or she grew up, surely be indignant and blame the mother: "You could have accepted it! You should have accepted it on my behalf! It was in my name, and you should have claimed my right to it, because I could not have done it myself at the time! Do you understand that it is not only our right but our duty to have children baptized? We owe it, we are responsible to do it!
But here we must say something very firmly. Something that already follows from the foregoing. Let it be known: not every child has the right to baptism, but only the children of believing parents. Only believing parents have received the promise of the covenant from God, and therefore only their children can be considered covenant offspring. So, in fact, only children whose parents - or at least one of whose parents - are considered believers, professing to be among the Messianic people, could be baptized in infancy. "But to others I say, not the Lord, if a brother has an unbelieving wife, and she wishes to live with him, let her not be put away. And if any woman have an unbelieving husband, and he will live with her, let her not put him away. For the unbelieving husband is sanctified in his wife, and the unbelieving wife is sanctified in her husband: otherwise your children would be unclean, but now they are holy." (1 Cor 7:12-14) So if the parents are believers, members of the Messianic people, the covenant, by a conscious decision of faith, then their children are holy. Moreover, if only one parent is considered a believer, their children are still holy and partakers of the covenant. But if neither the father nor the mother is a believer: their children are not holy either, and therefore cannot be baptised or marked with the badge of the Messianic people.
In the whole New Testament we do not find a single instance of the apostles baptizing the children of unbelieving parents. Calvin, in the Geneva Catechism, when asked why infants should be baptized, answers, "That baptism might be a witness to them that they are heirs of the blessing which God has promised to the seed (offspring) of believers." The statement that only the children of believing parents can be baptized is expressed in all Reformed liturgies. That is why in all baptism liturgies, including ours, there is a question concerning the baptism of parents in the faith. So when we recite the Apostles' Creed at baptism, it is not only an ancient custom, but in it the parents and godparents declare, as it were, before the whole congregation that yes, they too belong to the people, to the Messianic people, who believe in the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, that is, in God the covenant. It is not, therefore, that the faith of the parents is a substitute for the faith of the child - that the parents profess faith in place of the children - but that a child can only be considered a covenant child, and therefore eligible for baptism, if he or she comes from believing parents.
Finally, baptism obliges the parent to ensure that the inheritance which God has written in his name in baptism is received by the child when he is born, and that he receives it in self-conscious faith. It is not therefore the case that by baptism we have secured the salvation of our children, but that by baptism we parents have committed ourselves to work for the salvation of our children in every way we can, through prayer, education and example. It is a responsibility that parents cannot pass on to anyone else. It cannot be done for us by the faith teacher or the church. God is increasingly putting the faith formation of our children back where it belongs: in the family! Let us accept and regard the members of our family, small and large, as heirs of God's gracious promises (written in an invisible hand: heirs of the kingdom of God, of His covenant.) The badge of Christ's blood, the new covenant, symbolized by the water of the cross, commits us to the formation and living of a Christian family life of faith. You too, you too! There is no greater joy than to look around the family knowing that this, that, and the other belong to the Lord, that we are all His people here. Such family life is the happiest family life!
It is truly as we sing in Psalm 89:
Blessed is the nation that rejoices in you,
All their work, O Lord, they do well.
Before thy shining face they walk boldly,
And in thy name they rejoice without ceasing,
For you exalt them to great glory,
And multiply Thy benefits upon them.
(Psalm 89:4)
Amen
Date: 4 November 1951.