Read the Large Catechism with me.
Ten-minute studies on short readings from the Large Catechism.
Let's do this.
Click on the link below and read the short assigned reading. Then, if you have time, check out what I have to say about it. If not, no problem. Just soak up the goodness of the LC.
Holy Baptism, On Infant Baptism Part 3: Click here and read 74-86.
The basics:
- Repentance is really nothing more than living in your Baptism, because is it a killing of the old man and living in the new man.
- Baptism abides forever, even though someone should fall from it and sin. We do not need to be sprinkled with water again, but only to live in repentance (a return to our Baptism).
- Our Baptism is not something of the past which we can no longer use after we have fallen again into sin. Baptism never breaks, because it is the ordinance of God, and not a work of ours. We slip and fall into sin and must cling back to our Baptism.
- Baptism is a great and excellent thing which delivers us from the jaws of the devil and makes us God's own, takes away sin, and then daily strengthens our new man.
- Our Baptism is a daily dress in which we are to walk constantly. If we fall away from it, let us again come into it. Just as Christ does not recede from us or forbid us to come to Him again, even though we sin, so all His treasure and gifts also remain.
- If we have once obtained forgiveness of sin in Baptism, it will remain every day.
My thoughts today:
I wrote this a few years ago, but decided an updated version of it would be beneficial to our Baptism discussion...
Almost nine years ago, I was baptized into Christ. I did this because my boyfriend at the time (some Lutheran guy I ended up marrying) convinced me this was important.
Just like an infant at the font, I didn't really understand on that day what Baptism meant.
Just like an infant at the font, I was brought there by someone who loved me.
And just like an infant at the font, I was supported by one who would spend his life teaching me about what that day meant.
I have spent the last nine years and I will spend the rest of my days on earth trying to understand this profound mystery...just like I pray every infant does.
Why do I believe in infant Baptism?
Because I was all but an infant at the tender age of 22.
