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pastor officiating a baptism? It's not by the official authority of a church trying to assert its
power, but alone by the authority of God, and the mission to which He has called us, which is
given to us in the Holy Scriptures.
However, this does raise some questions. We can read of the necessity of baptism in Mark
16:16, "He who believes and is baptized will be saved." So the Bible says belief is necessary for
baptism. Did Martin Luther see things differently?
How Martin Luther understood baptism
His dream was a church with voluntary membership where all had personally experienced
what the Gospel means for our lives. Thus, besides the regular church services with the whole
church and additional sermons in Latin for the educated and as training for students, he also
suggested a "third service," that is, a third liturgical form for worship. His idea was for a kind
of home Bible study group:
Those, however, who are desirous of being Christians in earnest, and are ready to
profess the Gospel with hand and mouth, should register their names and assemble by
themselves in some house to pray, to read, to baptize and to receive the sacrament and
practice other Christian works. In this Order, those whose conduct was not such as
befits Christians could be recognized, reproved, reformed, rejected, or
excommunicated, according to the rule of Christ in Matt. xviii. Here, too, a general
giving of alms could be imposed on Christians, to be willingly given and divided among
the poor, after the example of St. Paul in 2 Cor. ix. Here there would not be need of
much fine singing. Here we could have baptism and the sacrament in short and simple
fashion: and direct everything towards the Word and prayer and love. Here we should
have a good short Catechism about the Creed, the Ten Commandments, and the Lord's
Prayer. In one word, if we only had people who longed to be Christians in earnest,
Form and Order would soon shape itself. 1,2
Martin Luther wanted to have a church in which each individual lived out his or her faith
wholeheartedly and served others in the church and society. A church to which you would
voluntarily decide to belong and join by a profession of faith. That would have been a really
vibrant church. But Luther's dream didn’t come true. He was not able to establish a church
made up of voluntary members. Therefore, he relied on the help of the state to build up the
new Evangelical Church. Among other things, that meant that each newborn child would be
baptized directly after birth and would thus be a member of the church. But because an infant
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