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, Part 3: Click here and read 23-31.
The basics:
- Luther uses this section to help us learn why and for what purpose Baptism is instituted - what it profits, gives, and works.
- The power, work, profit, fruit, and end of Baptism is this - to save. To be saved is to be delivered from sin, death, and the devil, and to enter into the kingdom of Christ, and to live with Him forever.
- The fact that Baptism saves shows us again that it cannot be just water, but water with the Word and name of God. Where the name of God is, there must be life and salvation.
- Faith is what saves us. Faith must have something which it believes, that is, of which it takes hold, and upon which it stands and rests. Thus faith clings to the water, and believes that it is Baptism, in which there is pure salvation and life.
- Whoever rejects Baptism rejects the Word of God, faith, and Christ, who directs us and binds us to Baptism.
My thoughts today:
We live in a world searching for proof of everything. We want the answers. We want to see for ourselves. We cling to the scientific findings of the newest doctors and researchers. We take hold of their knowledge and cling to it. We doubt everything. We are all doubting Thomases.
That is why these words from Luther are so awesome -
"...faith must have something which it believes, that is, of which it takes hold, and upon which it stands and rests. Thus faith clings to the water, and believes that it is Baptism, in which there is pure salvation and life; not through the water, but through the fact that it is embodied in the Word and institution of God, and the name of God inheres in it...but where the name of God is, there must be also life and salvation."
We need not search for something to take hold of and to stand firm in, because God gave us Baptism. It is something tangible in which my proof-seeking flesh can turn.
I sinned...
But I am Baptized.
I doubt God's promises...
But I am Baptized.
The answer to all my fears -
"But I am Baptized."
I live in that Baptism each day. I cling to it and God holds my grip firm. In my Baptism I have been and continue to be saved from my sin, death, and the devil.
This does not mean a person's Baptism saves them without faith. Faith is what clings to the Baptism. For "whoever rejects Baptism rejects the Word of God, faith, and Christ, who directs us thither and binds us to Baptism."
