LCMS Convention Proceedings St. Louis, Missouri — 1995, Page 80

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150TH ANNIVERSARY BIBLE STUDY 81

righteousness which we have done, but according to His
mercy He saved us, by the washing of regeneration,” the
washing which is regeneration, “and renewing of the Holy
Spirit.” So Luther says in the Large Catechism that Bap-
tism is that through which we are first received into the
Christian community. And it is one of our great privileges,
my great privilege each Sunday when we are home, to wor-
ship in the church in which I was baptized and to see that
font into which I was received and was brought into com-
munion with the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.
That’s why we say, “How shall the child be named?” We
haven’t really named the child until the Baptism, because
the name signifies that this one with this name, Karl
Luther, is now brought into communion with the Father
and the Son and the Holy Spirit.

Baptism saves? Don’t we say Christ saves? How can we
say Baptism saves and then turn around and say Christ
saves? Which is it? Well, this Baptism is not separated from
the work of Christ. If we were to use our logo in a different
way and think of the heart now as being our heart, from
the cross there is this channel, perhaps that’s even a bet-
ter word than means. There is this channel that leads to
human hearts, this means by which God brings us the ben-
efits of the cross of Jesus Christ, and one of those is Holy
Baptism. Indeed, it’s not that Baptism gives us a third of
forgiveness and the Word gives a third of forgiveness and
the Lord’s Supper gives us another third of the forgiveness.
But all of them, because they are tied together, as we shall
see, with the Word of God, bring us God’s free, gracious
mercy, forgiveness, life, and justification, as we heard the
other day.

Baptism saves. What does it do? “It works forgiveness of
sins, delivers from death and the devil, and gives eternal
salvation to all who believe this, as the words and promises
of God declare.”

So Peter laid out to those Jews in chapter 2 of Acts, re-
minding them that they had killed the Prince of life and that
God had raised Him from the dead. His hearers were shak-
ing in their boots and said, “Men and brethren, what shall
we do?” Peter said, “Repent and be baptized in the name of
Jesus Christ.” Why? “For the forgiveness of sins!” And when
Ananias came to visit Paul after his conversion, he told him,
“Arise and be baptized and wash away your sins.”

Water does this? “It’s not the water indeed that does this,”
Luther reminds us, “but the Word of God which is in.and
with the water, and faith which trusts such Word of God in
the water.” St. Paul reminds us in that beautiful section of
Ephesians 5 about the love of Jesus for the church, that
Jesus gave Himself for the church “that He might sanctify
and cleanse it with the washing of water by the Word.”

So again Luther says, “It is sheer wickedness and devil-
ish blasphemy when our new spirits, in order to slander
Baptism, ignore God’s Word and ordinance, consider noth-
ing but the water drawn from the well, and then babble,
‘How can a handful of water help the soul?” Of course, my
friend, he says, “who does not know that water is water, if
such separation is proper? But how dare you tamper thus
with God’s ordinance and tear from it the precious jeweled

clasp with which God has fastened and enclosed it and from —

which He does not want His ordinance to be separated? For

the nucleus in the water is God’s Word or commandment
and God’s name, and this is a treasure greater and nobler
than heaven and earth” (LC IV 15-16).

How does Peter put it? “Being born again by the Word
of God which lives and abides forever,” to which God has
added this outward symbol and sign of water.

But there is more than forgiveness in the Sacrament.
With it comes new life, and Paul speaks of that so beautifully
in our second lesson, and that is from the sixth chapter of
Romans, beginning at the third verse: “Don’t you know that
as many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were bap-
tized into His death? Therefore, we are buried with Him by
Baptism into death, that just as Christ was raised from the
dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk
in newness of life. For if we have been planted together in
the likeness of His death, we shall be also in the likeness of
His resurrection, knowing this, that our old man is crucified
with Him, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that
henceforth we should not serve sin.” ~

We are baptized into His death. By His Baptism we be-
come partakers of His death and the benefits of His death.
Oh, no, Baptism is not separated from that glorious mes-
sage of justification, forgiveness, being declared free
through the merits of Christ.

There is more. “We are buried with Him by Baptism into
death.” What does that mean? Yes, it means that our sins
were buried with Jesus in His tomb, but it means more
than that. Verse 6 reminds us that our old man is crucified
with Him. For “how shall we who are dead to sin live any
longer therein?” And verse 11, “dead indeed into sin.” So
Paul reminds us that those who are Christ’s have crucified
the flesh with its passions and desires. “Buried with Him
by Baptism into death that just as He was raised again by
the glory of the Father, so we should walk in newness of
life.” “If anybody is in Christ, he is a new creature.” He’s
different. Paul says in Ephesians 4, “Put on the new man
which was created according to God in righteousness an
true holiness.”

Therefore, we do not look on our Baptism as something
that just automatically now saves us, regardless of what we
do or how we live. Luther speaks of that (quoted on page
22 of the manual) when he says, “You have been absolved
from sin and come to grace ... in order to live a different life

“now and to abstain from sins. To be baptized and yet to re-

main in sin makes no sense. For Baptism is administered
for the very purpose of taking away sin that a man may
now become pious and increase in good works; that, where
he formerly was disobedient, angry, envious, faithless, and
unchaste, he may now lay aside these vices, pray a Lord’s
Prayer instead, and henceforth earnestly strive to be obe-
dient, patient, and kind. If you fail to do this, then do not
think that all is well with you, and do not glory greatly in
the grace of Christ and excuse your sin with it”

Death in Baptism. Life in Baptism. It is said that the
early converts in the church symbolized that in a beautiful
way in that they were often baptized in a dugout under-
neath the ground. They went into this dugout, went “into
the tomb,” where they were in a sense buried, baptized,
then changed their clothes, went up on the other side to
come out to a new life—symbolizing death with Christ, life

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