News outlets called it the largest gathering of humanity in the history of the world.

No, it was not the 600,000 people who attended the NFL draft in Green Bay, Wis., in April. It was a group one thousand times larger than that.

Earlier this year, an estimated 660 million people traveled to northern India for Maha Kumbh Mela, a Hindu festival celebrated every 12 years. Those travelers were interested in one thing: taking a dip in a river they believe is sacred. Hindu belief maintains that stepping into that river cleanses a person from sin.

Where does an idea like that originate? It comes about by misusing the information God gives all people outside his Word. Let me explain.

Without even opening a Bible, everyone knows that there is a God.

Creation broadcasts that message: “The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands” (Psalm 19:1). A person’s conscience also attests to the existence of God (see Romans 2:14,15). A conscience reacts to the law of God that is naturally written in a person’s heart. So every person begins life with the knowledge that certain things in life are right or wrong and that there is some kind of God who does not like it when people do wrong things.

Why has God provided this information? “God did this so that [people] would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from any one of us” (Acts 17:27).

When I taught history, I encouraged students to examine how people in an ancient civilization used their natural knowledge of God and his law. Did they reach out and try to find out who the true God is? Or did they manufacture their own god(s) and way of salvation?

On their own, people will never correctly answer the question posed by the Philippian jailer: “What must I do to be saved?” (Acts 16:30). Only the Bible provides that answer. It is faith in Jesus Christ. Sometimes, though, people’s ideas faintly resemble biblical truth; for instance, imagining that sins need to be washed away by water.

But water associated with a false god will not do a person any spiritual good. On the other hand, water connected to the Word of the only true God cleanses a person from sin. God “saved us through the washing of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit” (Titus 3:5).

Recall what our catechism teaches about water and the Word: “It is certainly not the water that does such things, but God’s Word which is in and with the water and faith which trusts this Word used with the water. For without God’s Word the water is just plain water and not Baptism. But with this Word it is Baptism, that is, a gracious water of life and a washing of rebirth by the Holy Spirit” (Luther’s Small Catechism, Baptism, The Power of Baptism).

To the eye, there is something more impressive about throngs of people wading in a river than one person cupping water into his hands, pouring it over a person’s head, and speaking a few words of Scripture. But looks are deceiving. The first scene portrays people engaged in an activity devoid of any spiritual blessings. The second setting illustrates how the only true God cleanses a person of sin.

Water and the Word of God. That is the key—to forgiveness of sins, life, and salvation.

James Pope | FIC Editor

Author: James Pope
Volume 112, Number 07
Issue: July 2025