In a sermon, “The Holy and Blessed Sacrament of Baptism” from 1519, Martin Luther offered the following comments about baptism which LDS and others might find interesting:
1. Baptism [Die Taufe] is baptismos in Greek and mersio in Latin, and means to plunge, something, completely into the water, so that the water covers it. Although in many places it is no longer customary to thrust and dip infants into the font, but only with the hand to pour the baptismal water upon them out of the font, nevertheless the former is what should be done. It would be proper, according to the meaning of the word Taufe comes undoubtedly from the word tief [deep] and means that what is baptized is sunk deeply into the water. This usage is also demanded by the significance of baptism itself. For baptism, as we shall hear, signifies that the old person and the sinful birth of flesh and blood are to be wholly drowned by the grace of God. We should, therefore, do justice to its meaning and make baptism a true and complete sign of the thing it signifies.
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3. The significance of baptism is a blessed dying unto sin and a resurrection in the grace of God, so that the old person, conceived and born in sin, is there drowned, and a new person, born in grace, comes forth and rises. Thus, Jesus, in John 3[:3, 5], says: “Unless you are born again of water and the Spirit, you may not enter into the kingdom of heaven.” For just as a child is drawn out of his mother’s womb and is born, and through this fleshy birth is a sinful person and a child of wrath [Eph 2:3], so one is drawn out of baptism and is born spiritually. Through this spiritual birth, one is a child of grace and a justified person. Therefore, sins are drowned in baptism, and in place of sin, righteousness comes forth.
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6. Baptism was foreshadowed of old in Noah’s flood, when the whole world was drowned, except for Noah with his three sons and their wives, eight souls, who were saved in the ark. That the people of the world were drowned signifies—as St. Peter explains in his second epistle—that through baptism a person is saved. Now, baptism is by far a greater flood than was that of Noah. For that flood drowned people during no more than year, but baptism drowns all sorts of people throughout the world, from the birth of Christ even until the day of Judgement. Moreover, while that was a flood of wrath, this is a flood of grace, as is declared in Psalm 29[:10], “God will make a continual new flood.” For without doubt many more people have been baptized than were drowned in the flood.
7. From this it follows, to be sure, that when someone comes forth out of baptism, one is truly pure, without sin, and wholly guiltless. Still, there are many who do not properly understand this. They think that sin is no longer present, and so they become remiss and negligent in the killing of their sinful nature, even as some do when they have gone to confession. For this reason, as I have said above, it should be properly understood and known that our flesh, so long as it lives here is by nature wicked and sinful . . .
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8. A baptized person is, therefore, sacramentally altogether pure and guiltless. This means nothing else than that the person has the sign of God; that is to say, one has the baptism by which it is shown that one’s sins are all to be dead, and that one also is to die in grace and at the last day is to rise again to everlasting life, pure, singles, and guiltless. With respect to the sacrament, then, it is true that one is without sin and guilt. Yet, because all is not yet completed and one still lives in sinful flesh, one is not without sin. But, although not pure in all things, one has begun to grow into purity and innocence. (The Catholic Luther: His Early Writings, eds. Philip D.W. Krey and Peter D.S. Krey [New York: Paulist Press, 2016], 90, 91, 93, 94)
