As all spiritual blessings which Christ has secured by His vicarious death belong to all believers, 1 Cor. 3, 21. 22, directly and immediately (that is, without the mediation of a clerical estate), so also Baptism. For this reason the question as to who should administer the Sacrament of Baptism (administrants of Baptism) becomes very simple. In the absence of called and ordained pastors every Christian believer has not only the privilege, but also the duty to baptize (emergency baptism; lay baptism). In organized Christian congregations the called and ordained pastors administer the Sacrament by virtue of their office in the name of the believers who called them.
The Calvinists, who discountenance baptism by laymen, especially by women, claiming that only ordained ministers can rightly administer the Sacrament, go beyond, indeed against, Scripture, 1 Cor. 3, 21. The real reason why they take this stand is that they erroneously believe Baptism is not necessary, since salvation does not depend upon "water baptism," but upon the grace of election and of the divine covenant. (Cf. Alting, Syllabus Controversiarum etc., p. 263;1 cp. Pieper, Christl. Dogmatik, III, p. 328.) Their argument that laymen, by baptizing, presume to exercise the functions of the public ministry is only a pretext; what motivates their objection to lay baptisms is really their repudiation of the means of grace. Their claim is that baptismal acts performed by laymen have no efficacy (Baptismi nullam vim e3se). But actually, according to their principle, by which they reject the means of grace, Baptism is not efficacious under any circumstances, since it does not effect regeneration, but only symbolizes it.