with each death:Death, you cannot end my gladness;
I am baptized into Christ!
When I die, I leave all sadness
To inherit paradise!
Though I lie in dust and ashes
Faith's assurance brightly flashes:
Baptism has the strength divine
To make life immortal mine.
There is nothing worth comparing
To this life-long comfort sure!
Open-eyed my grave is staring,
Even there I'll sleep secure.
Though my flesh awaits its raising
Still my soul continues praising:
I am baptized into Christ,
I'm a child of paradise!
LSB 594:4,5
16 comments:
That hymn is one of my favorites, too.
Is it possible for someone who is not among the elect to be baptized?
Dear Anastasia,
I think the question is one that is not helpful to ponder - for it leaves all things theoretical. Rather, the joy of the doctrine of election is that what God has in fact done for you in time He has planned to do for you from eternity. Thus, Baptism reveals your election in Christ, your being chosen by God, wanted by him, delighted in by him, and that such love for you was from before the foundation of the earth. We let it rest there.
Well, if you let it rest there, you leave a truck-sized hole in the comfort. Please believe I say this not to take away any comfort, but to suggest that it has a surer foundation than merely, "I am baptized."
Stalin, after all was baptized.
Anastasia,
Do you believe "Baptism has the strength divine to make life immortal mine"? I sure do. And it had the strength divine to do the same for Stalin; it may even have done so - though to all earthly appearances he walked away from his Baptism and abandoned the prerogative of being an heir of heaven completely. We do not claim or believe that Baptism saves without or apart from saving faith which trusts the promises of God in regards to Baptism and which lives in penitence.
Yup, penitence. And love. That's the rub.
The uncertainty factor is myself.
And because our penitence and love will always be fragmentary in this life, our certainty and joy come's from faith's holding tight to the promise of Baptism. "Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved" - yes, even though their penitence and their love is imperfect.
Right. The penitence and love, though, have at least to be there, to exist.
And they're always going to be imperfect.
And there's always the chance, however remote we may now think it, that we may completely turn our backs upon it before we are done.
So where does that leave our faith? Neither in baptism nor in ourselves, right?
Our faith does remain in Baptism, in God's gracious action in Baptism, and in that promise. While against our sinful flesh the danger of apostasy must always be urged and the Lord's warning remembered: "He who endures to the end will be saved" we also may draw great comfort (and it is Baptismal comfort) in the Apostle's words to the Philippians: "He who began a good in you will perfect it until the day of Christ."
So, as we're preparing to sing THIS Sunday:
Let me not doubt, but truly see
Your Word cannot be broken;
Your call rings out, "Come unto Me!"
No falsehood have You spoken.
Baptized into Your precious name
My faith cannot be put to shame,
And I shall never perish.
Faith clings to Jesus' cross alone
And trusts in Him unceasing.
And by its fruits true faith is known,
With love and hope increasing;
For faith alone can justify;
Works serve the neighbor and supply
The proof that faith is living.
"a good work in you"
So we're back at athe beginning, are we? Having come full cirlce, we're back to trusting in our baptism (but remember Stalin) and trusting that we do have enough love and faith and so forth.
Full circle? Perhaps. What I want to stress is the perpetuity of the promise of God in regards to Baptism. There is a reason that the NT uses the three tenses to describe its action: past, present and future.
He saved us by the washing of rebirth..
Baptism now saves you...
Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved...
Baptism stands there like a beaming light summoning us constantly to return to it and to trust the promises God makes us there. "Baptism has the strength divine to make life immortal mine." It really does!
And the person who has such trust in the promises will not be without the fruits of faith - the marks of penitence and love (though far from perfect).
If your point was merely that, then I've no objection. If your point is that Baptism is not sufficient of itself to save, to literally transfer us out of the kingdom of darkness and into the kingdom of the Beloved Son in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins - to give us the Holy Spirit and faith to hold tight the promises and strength to battle sin in our lives, well, then we disagree.
My point is not quite either of those. It is to ask where is our trust, ultimately, to be placed? And I doubt we shall disagree on that. But who knows, maybe I'll be surprised. What say you? Ultimately, where does our trust belong?
Ultimately in the Blessed Trinity, the God who has created us, redeemed us and is sanctifying us.
Bingo. I KNEW we'd end up agreeing!
He Himself is our Hope, our Comfort, our Salvation, the One we simply because He Is Who He Is. HE is the reason we are comforted by the remembrance of having been baptized. He is the reason we believe His "promises." (I do not regard them as "promises", as if we could only believe Him if He swears something under oath, as it were. Yet because of Who He Is, all His words do have the same effect as if they were promises.) He Himself is Who makes the Bible believeable.
And to be even more specific, as I'm sure you will also agree, it is the Holy Trinity *as revealed especially upon the Cross and in the Resurrection*, the One who wants our salvation infinitely more than we ourselves want it, That One is our Comfort.
Yes, my dear, on all of that you will only get a resounding "Amen" from me!
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