Water and the Word…

This weekend, Mallory will receive Holy Baptism! As a reminder, my posts on baptism are:
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3 and 3a
The Heart of our debate
Part 4
Part 5

And for further thought, a reminder of:
confessing evangelical’s post
and Kelly Klages q and a’s

I’d like to write more about Holy Baptism, and other matters of theology and politics. Mallory, however, requires my time and energy (eating between 500 and 1000 calories a day). So, I leave you with the words of Martin Luther in the Large Catechism, (McCain, CHP, Reader’s Edition), from Infant Baptism 56 and 57:

“I myself also, and all who are baptized, must say this before God, ‘I come here in my faith and in that of others. Yet I cannot rest in this, that I believe, and that many people pray for me. But in this I rest, that Baptism is Your Word and command. It is just like when I go to the Sacrament trusting not in my faith, but in Christ’s Word. Whether I am strong or weak, I commit that to God. But I know this, that He asks me to go, to eat and to drink, and so on, and He gives me His body and blood [Matthew 26:26-28]. That will not deceive me or prove false to me.’

“So we do likewise in infant Baptism. We bring the child in the conviction and hope that it believes, and we pray that God may grant it faith [Luke 17:2; Ephesians 2:8]. But we do not baptize it for that reason, but solely of God’s command. Why? Because we know that God does not lie [Titus 1?2]. I and my neighbor and, in short, all people, may err and deceive. But God’s Word cannot err.”