Common Agreement on Mutual Recognition of Baptism - National ...

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They emphasized that the Word of God engrafts believers into the body of
Christ. Thus baptism was understood as a visible form of that Word, conveying
and communicating the grace of God only as it is administered in conjunction
with the proclamation of the Word. ii There could be no baptism unless there
was also proclamation of the Word. Also, because of their emphasis on the
power of the Word of God, reformers emphasized the need to administer the
sacrament of baptism, as all of the rites of the church, in the vernacular. That
which was not understood could not be properly received and thus could not be
efficacious.
They focused attention on the water as the primary and only essential symbolic
element. Thus they eliminated elements of the rite that were deemed nonessential
and non-scriptural: elements such as oil, salt, spittle, and candles.
Related to this was their concern to clarify that baptism itself is a sign and
promise of the baptism of the Holy Spirit. iii
They focused attention on the ecclesial dimension of the sacrament. Thus they
emphasized the importance of baptizing in the context of the gathered
community, and strongly resisted the practice of private baptism. iv Because
Reformed Protestants denied that baptism was necessary for salvation,
―emergency baptisms‖ were eliminated, and only ordained ministers were
permitted to administer baptism, within the body of the church.
They focused attention on the connection between baptism and nurture in
Christian faith. As a result of this, many reformers were concerned to choose
appropriate godparents for infants to be baptized, and charging them with
helping to raise the baptized child in the faith, though at other times the parents
themselves were admonished to raise the child in the faith. Some Reformed
rites also include admonitions to the congregation to assist in Christian nurture.
The implications of these revisions to baptismal practice were twofold: on the one hand, baptism
was no longer understood to be necessary for salvation or engrafting into Christ, but on the other
hand, reformers in various ways sought to highlight water baptism as a real means of grace that
conveyed what it signified: forgiveness of sins and regeneration. These four emphases
(centrality of the Word, focus on water, ecclesial nature of baptism, and connection of baptism
and ongoing nurture) have continued to be central principles in Reformed baptismal practices
until the present, though they have not always received equal attention or led to the same
outcome.
Though Martin Luther is not strictly speaking a part of the Reformed Protestant family,
his reforms clearly influenced the liturgical developments in the Reformed tradition. In his
baptismal liturgies, we can see increasing focus on the water as the central element in baptism, as
well as emphasis on the Word in connection with the rite. His first vernacular reformed rite of
baptism retained much of the medieval baptismal rite of Magdeburg, which was widely used in
his time, though in his ―epilogue‖ he made it clear that elements such as ―breathing under the
eyes, signing with the cross, placing salt in the mouth, putting spittle and clay on the ears and
nose‖ were not central to baptism (First Taufbűchlein, 1523). In his second Taufbűchlein (1526),
Luther trimmed many more elements of the medieval rite, focusing even more strongly on the
water. v His interest in the central symbol of water can also be seen in his ―Flood Prayer,‖ in
which the flood and exodus are interpreted as types of baptism. This liturgical element became
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