uther tin L f Mar o ologyThe The The Theology of Martin ...

The Theology of Martin Luther

Transcript - CH509 The Theology of Martin Luther © 2019 Our Daily Bread University. All rights reserved.

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LESSON 16 of 24CH509

Luther’s Doctrine of Baptism

The Theology of Martin Luther

In AD 1520, Luther laid out his program for reformation in a series of four tracts. Perhaps the most important of these was the tract entitled The Babylonian Captivity of the Church. In that treatise, Luther laid out what he believed was the Babylonian captivity of the medieval church, a captivity which the hierarchy from pope to local priest had imposed tyrannously upon the church. The chief instrument of affecting that tyranny, from Luther’s point of view, was the sacramental system of the Middle Ages. Luther believed very much that God works through the sacraments of baptism and the Lord’s Supper, he did not discard the whole sacramental system but he radically revised it for use in an evangelical church.

The medieval church had struggled with the definition of sacrament, the term sacrament (as a translation for the Greek mysterion) occurs in the New Testament, in the Vulgate once, but the term there means something else than the term sacrament is used by the church. So it was clearly like the word Trinity, a doctrinal definition of the church (which Luther believed the church was free to make, he was not biblicistic in that narrow sense). He used the word sacrament, but he recognized the varying definitions with which the medieval church had wrestled. Until relatively late, until the 15th century, there was no conciliar declaration of exactly which Christian rites were sacraments. Augustine had defined the term sacrament as the visible form of an invisible grace, but at various times he could include a wide variety of visible forms as those which conveyed the invisible grace of God, including the Apostles’ Creed and the Lord’s Prayer.

Important for Luther’s understanding of sacrament was also Augustine’s use of the word sacramentum as a synonym for pure gift. He used the conceptual framework of sacrament and example to describe the person and work of Jesus Christ. By example, he meant the model which Christ gives; by sacrament, he meant the pure gift of God’s grace, the gift of forgiveness which Christ embodies and bestows.

The successors to Augustine worked with a variety of definitions of the term sacrament, and therefore, they had varying lists of

Dr. Robert A. Kolb, Ph.D.Experience: Professor of Systematic Theology

at Concordia Seminary, St. Louis, Missouri



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sacraments. Hugh of Saint Victor had thirty different activities of the church which he believed were visible forms of God’s invisible grace. But Peter Lombard helped establish the number seven. He included on his list of sacraments, baptism, confirmation, the Lord’s Supper, penance, extreme unction, ordination, and matrimony as the seven sacraments of the church. And throughout the high Middle Ages, into the late Middle Ages, this list became pretty much standard, and it was affirmed officially by the Council of Florence in 1439.

The sacraments were very important in a non-literate world. They were the word of God in a special form. And for people who could not read, who were dependent on hearing, the visible form of the word became extremely important, especially in a world in which preaching itself was not all that common. But there were a couple of problems that developed within the medieval church regarding the use of these visible forms of the word. One was that the sacraments came to be understood in what we understand as an ex opere operato view of the way in which the sacraments (the word of God itself) worked. By ex opere operato, the medieval church meant, in its theology, simply the view that the church had affirmed since the period of the Donatistic controversies in the 4th century. It meant that the word works because it is the word of God; the promise is valid because God has spoken it. However, in the popular view of the later Middle Ages, ex opere operato had come to mean that the word could work magically, apart from faith. This ex opere operato view of sacramental grace suggested in the popular mind that a simple ritual participation apart from faith in Jesus Christ could make the magic of the sacraments work. And the reformers uniformly criticized that, Luther insisted indeed that the word of God is the word of God, and the promise is valid because God speaks it. But he insisted also that the benefits, the reception of the benefits of the sacrament [are] indeed separable from the promise of God. The believer can turn his or her back against that promise and run away in the mystery of evil in a fallen world.

The second problem that Luther encountered with much of the sacramental practice of the Middle Ages was that it had been perverted into a system of works. And we will see this particularly as we address the topic of the sacrifice of the masses; Luther had grown up with it, again in popular religion. The medieval church did not understand what Luther would call his distinction between two kinds of righteousness, so even at its best (from Luther’s perspective) medieval theology taught that the sacraments are merely avenues (means) whereby grace-wrought works can be performed. He believed that the medieval church had obscured the insight that God bestows His righteousness through the word



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in all its forms, also in its sacramental forms, freely without any human merit, without any human worthiness. He believed that the sacraments had been perverted into a system which encouraged the doing of good works and faith in good works, even if that faith in the good works rested on a kind of prior commitment of God to accept the good works, a prior commitment of God’s grace.

Then Luther also saw in the sacramental system of the Middle Ages a tool for priestly and papal tyranny. He saw that the sacraments had become, in the hands of the priests, not a promise of God so much as a weapon, a weapon to keep the people in line because it gave the priests special status, he was the one who could command the special powers of God.

One of the most widespread forms of protest against the church and against particularly the tyranny of popes and priests emphasized then an objection to the sacraments as this kind of tool of priestly tyranny. There was a series of small groups that arose after the year 1000 in various parts of western Christendom with a kind of five-point program for protest and a five-point proposal for reform. These groups were often millenarian; they hoped to establish the kingdom of God and to establish it soon. They did believe that this kingdom of God would be established on the basis of the Bible alone, they rejected tradition, and they found in the Bible not a system of salvation by grace through faith but a moralistic system. They were legalistic, they believed in salvation through good works, even if the good works were grace produced. These groups were also anti-clerical, and because they were anti-clerical they were anti-sacramental. In part, that anti-sacramental stance stems from their spiritualizing roots, they wanted a heavenly view of religion, they wanted a spiritual kind of religion, they wanted to be separated from pagan magic. So they rejected the sacraments because they saw the abuse of the sacraments in popular religion, in the practice of religion at the village level, because they saw superstition in the whole sacramental system. But above all, they objected to the sacraments as instruments of sacerdotal power, and so these groups would often symbolize their protest and their actions of protest by the desecration of sacramental elements.

Luther was not tempted, I think, to join this kind of protest movement, as he shaped his own program for reform, though the power of this conception of what reform ought to be can be seen in the fact that his colleague Andreas Bodenstein von Karlstadt did take on much of this medieval popular form of protest in his own reform program. He got the inspiration to try to reform the church from Luther, but he didn’t understand Luther’s theology and his own particular program reform was very much biblicistic, largely moralistic, was certainly anti-clerical (he laid aside his



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own clerical garb, for instance, and wanted to be known as Brother Andrew), and he rejected the medieval sacramental system.

Luther did not, but he very carefully defined what a sacrament is. And that definition can be seen as operating already in the Babylonian Captivity of 1520, and it includes three points. First of all, a sacrament is, in the Augustinian sense, pure gift. It is the gift of the word, and it is a word of promise. The word, Luther believed, was the very power of God for salvation. So when God promises the forgiveness of sins, he bestows the forgiveness of sins and the forgiveness of sins always means for Luther life and salvation. So this promise brings the Gospel, it brings the restoration of life as a creature of God in Jesus Christ. As the word of God, its nature is determined by God, Luther believed, and as the promise it elicits faith, it demands faith, it creates faith. So the benefits of this word of promise depend upon the response, the enjoyment of the benefits depend on the response. But the word is valid because God has spoken it. This word of promise in sacramental form is enveloped in a material sign. That’s why, in part, Luther struggled with whether confession and absolution should be a sacrament. He could see the laying on of hands as a material sign, but he finally retreated from including penance or confession and absolution. In part, because laying on of hands is not quite like the water of baptism or the bread which conveys Christ’s body, the wine which conveys Christ’s blood in the Lord’s Supper. Thirdly, the combination of word and promise and material sign needed to be instituted by Christ Himself. It had to have a divine command behind it before Luther would admit it to sacramental status.

So as he wrote the Babylonian Captivity in 1520, early on in that treatise he concedes sacramental status to penance or to confession and absolution, rightly practiced (he had a severe critique there against medieval abuses of the sacrament of penance). But he finally concludes that baptism is continued in confession and absolution, and confession and absolution is, therefore, not a separate sacrament. And, as a matter of fact, in his treatment of baptism in the Small Catechism, as we shall later see, he emphasizes not only the “once for all act” of baptism but he emphasizes its continuation in confession and absolution.

He believed very much in marriage, but he believed that marriage is an institution of God for all people, and it does not carry a word of promise of the forgiveness of sins simply in the act of marriage, so he discounted it as a sacrament.

Luther himself did not practice confirmation, though his followers continued an evangelical form of confirmation. And even in



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Wittenberg after his death, confirmation was restored.

He continued ordination, and his colleague Philipp Melanchthon could concede that it was something like a sacrament because it brought a promise not of forgiveness for the person who was being ordained but because the person was being ordained to convey the word of promise. But Luther’s followers never accepted ordination as a sacrament.

He also discarded the seventh of the medieval sacraments, the extreme unction, the use of oil in preparation for dying.

So Luther proclaimed two sacraments throughout most of his ministry, incorporating confession and absolution into his understanding of baptism.

In the Middle Ages, baptism had functioned as a kind of entry point into the family of God; it was the first reception of God’s grace. But it was really little more. The first plank for the shipwrecked sinner, baptism, would not keep the sinner afloat, according to Saint Jerome, so the plank of penance was needed to repair it. Luther rejected that point of view, he criticized it in the Babylonian Captivity in 1520, he criticized the whole medieval church, as a matter of fact, for relegating baptism simply to being an entry point, a first reception of God’s grace.

He did teach that the medieval church had kept baptism relatively untarnished for children; it used baptism to bring children the promise of God. But in the Middle Ages, Luther said, Satan had ruined baptism for adults, he had banished it from adult consciousness, and Luther wanted at the very heart of his reform program to bring that consciousness of God’s grace in baptism back so that the entire identity of the believer would be centered upon God’s gracious promise, God’s gracious gift, of death to sin and resurrection for and in daily life.

II. In his Babylonian Captivity of the Church, 1520, Luther argued for Key Role of Baptism in the Whole of the Christian Life

A. Baptism as the root expression of the divine promise in Christ

B. Its daily use in the consolation and comfort of believers

C. Luther wrote this concept of its daily use into his liturgical works

1. Emphasizing its role in the battle against Satan



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2. Seeing it as one example of the continuation of God’s deliverance of His people

So already from 1520 on, he argued for the key role of baptism in the Christian life as the divine promise which invites faith, but also creates faith. Luther saw in the baptismal promise an unfailing pledge of God’s presence in our lives, of God’s presence in our behalf. So he wrote in the Babylonian Captivity that baptism is indeed much more than just a washing, sinners require killing. So Luther said God does us the favor of doing us to death, as people whom he cannot stand in His presence. So on the basis of Romans 6, the images of which are repeated in Colossians 2, this is not just an allegorical death, he says, it’s not just a symbol of death. It is a real change in existence. And it is a real change in existence because baptism is a word from God, it is the word of the Lord who created through His word in the first place, who brought the worlds into existence through His word, and this is the word then of the God who wants to give His people new life through Jesus Christ.

So Luther insisted that baptism is not just an entry point, it is indeed something for daily use. It is something for consolation and for comfort. In Romans 6, Paul really uses baptism as a word of law. He poses the question after reciting the grace of God in Chapters 3, 4, and 5, he poses that question of whether we cannot sin that grace may abound, and he answers that question with a resounding no, because of our baptismal identity. Luther didn’t pick up on that use of baptism to focus the burden on us again so much, but he did use it for consolation and comfort.

As the key to Christian identity, as we have already heard in our treatment of justification, baptism establishes that we are children of God. It is the word of justification, it is the word that affects that joyous exchange, it places our sins in Christ’s tomb, it places Christ’s innocence and righteousness in us. So Luther could say not only justification but also all sanctification is a fulfilling of baptism.

Sin cannot annul God’s promise, God’s promise is sure. Only our unfaith, only our unbelief, only our turning our backs on the baptismal identification of us as children of God can prevent its power and its promise from being effective in our lives. So Luther believed God remains active in delivering on the promise of baptism, as He has the word preached to His people, as He has it conveyed in absolution, as He has it fed to His people in the Lord’s Supper, as He has His people deliver it to one another in their mutual conversation and consolation. So the effect of this baptismal word is a daily dying and rising in the horizontal realm



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of human life. Baptism, Luther said, is a call to death; it is a call to suffering in service to the neighbor. So Luther believed the whole of the Christian life can be wrapped up in the promise of baptism.

He expresses this clearly in one of his hymns, written in 1541, the hymn “To Jordan When Our Lord Had Gone.” Beginning with the theme of the baptism of Jesus, Luther fleshes out a definition of baptism and then talks about a couple of aspects of God’s word as it comes in baptismal form.

“To Jordan when our Lord had gone, his father’s pleasure willing,

He took his baptism of Saint John, his work and task fulfilling.

[Luther begins and then gives us a capsule definition of baptism]

Therein God would appoint a bath, to wash us from defilement.

And also drown that cruel death, in his blood of assoilment:

a new life he would give us.”

Two themes, two images of what God’s word actually effects in baptism, that of washing and of drowning and the bestowal of new life. He continues his definition.

“So listen and well receive what God does call baptism,

and what a Christian should believe to shun error and schism

[a counter against opponents who were denying baptismal grace in his day].

Water indeed, not water mere, in it can do his pleasure,

his holy word is also there with spirit rich unmeasured,

he is the one baptizing.”

God, Luther emphasizes, is in charge of the sacrament and He works here through His word, not merely through the water. The definition continued in the last stanza of this hymn.



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“The eye but water does behold, as from man’s hand it floweth.

But inward faith, a power untold, of Jesus Christ’s blood knoweth.

Faith sees therein a red flood roll with Christ’s blood dyed and blended,

which hurts of all kinds maketh whole from Adam here descended,

and by ourselves brought on us.”

Not only Adam’s bestowal of original sin but also our own sin needs the healing, the dying of baptism that comes as Christ’s death is bestowed upon us.

In the fourth stanza of this hymn, Luther emphasizes God’s role again, the whole Trinity is in action as Jesus is baptized and as we are baptized too.

“Also, God’s son himself here stands in all his manhood tender,

the Holy Ghost on him descends in doves appearance hidden.

That not a doubt should ever arise that when we are baptized,

all three persons do baptize, and so here recognized,

will make their dwelling with us.”

Baptism, according to Luther, is the Trinity’s claim upon us, and therefore, we are baptized into Father, Son and Holy Spirit. We are baptized into the name of the Trinity and are made disciples. Luther confessed (echoing Matthew 28:19), Christ to his followers says, go forth, give to all men acquaintance that lost in sin lies the whole earth and must turn to repentance. Who trusts and is baptized, each one is thereby blessed forever, is from that hour a newborn man and thenceforth dying never, the kingdom shall inherit. Christ commanded baptism as he defined what is means to become a disciple, so that we might inherit His kingdom and never die, as the new people of Christ. And the new people of Christ, having received this baptismal word, live in faith.



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Luther continues,

“In this grace who puts no faith abides in his trespasses,

and is condemned to endless death deep down in hell’s abysses.

His holiness [the holiness of works] avails him not nor ought which he is doing.

His inborn sin brings all to nought and maketh sure his ruin,

himself he cannot succor.”

So the need for faith is clear, the need for faith is always there as God speaks His word. Luther emphasized again the nature of baptism and the nature of its work, as he composed orders for baptism in the 1520’s. The first of these he wrote in 1523, he revised it in 1526 and again in 1529. But as we look to the prayers and the forms which he wrote there for the observance, the celebration of baptism within the worship service, we see again certain basic themes in his understanding of what God is doing as He baptizes through His people.

First of all, he warns about the seriousness of baptism. Remember, he writes, that it is no joke to take sides against the Devil. And not only to drive him away from the little child but to burden the child with such a mighty and lifelong enemy. Remember too that it is very necessary to aid the poor child with all your heart and strong faith, earnestly to intercede for him that God in accordance with this prayer would not only free him from the power of the Devil but also strengthen him so that he may nobly resist the Devil in life and death. I suspect that people turn out so badly after baptism because our concern for them has been so cold and careless. We at their baptism interceded for them without zeal.

The battle is on. Baptism is a declaration of war. He who wants the child for himself forever in hell is going to do battle. And, therefore, Luther included elements of the exorcism of medieval baptism beginning his order of service with the words, depart thou unclean spirit and give room to the Holy Spirit. And then placing the sign of the holy cross on forehead and on breast or heart, Luther began by praying, O almighty eternal God, Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, look upon this Martin, thy servant whom thou has called to instruction in the faith (Luther never understood baptism apart from the follow-up of teaching and faith). Drive away from him all the blindness of his heart, break



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all the snares of the devil with which he is bound. Open to him, Lord, the door of Thy grace, so that marked with the sign of Thy wisdom (a reference to I Corinthians 1 where the foolishness of the cross is the wisdom of God) he may be free of the stench of all evil lusts, and serve Thee joyfully according to the sweet savor of Thy commandments in Thy church, and grow daily and be made meet come to the grace of thy baptism to receive the balm of life.

In this initial prayer, Luther is sketching out the battle against Satan, the eschatological battle that is involved in baptism. He is also noting that baptism embraces the whole of the Christian life and sets forth, on the basis of Christ’s sacrifice, the follow-up sacrifices in the horizontal sphere that are made with the sweet savor of fulfilling the commands of God, as we grow daily and are made fit to come to the Lord with these kinds of sacrifices. The people of God already accepted by Him [are] now serving Him in daily life. And the end result of this word of baptism will be the reception of the balm of life, Luther confessed in this prayer.

Luther also then set God’s action in baptism in a much broader context, the whole salvation history of the people of God. And he used in these first baptismal services what is sometimes called his water prayer, though again it is important to note that for Luther baptism is never mere water only, but it is water that is comprehended in the word of God. But God’s action in His word had taken place in the context of other uses of water, so therefore, Luther could pray, Almighty eternal God, who according to Thy righteous judgment did condemn the unbelieving world through the flood, and in Thy great mercy did preserve believing Noah and his family (a reference also in terms of baptism, to its destructive power over and against the sinner, as well as its saving power for the believer who receives the gift of faith in baptism); who did drown hard-hearted Pharaoh with all his host in the Red Sea, and did lead thy people Israel through the same on dry ground, thereby prefiguring this bath of Thy baptism. And who through the baptism of Thy dear child, our Lord Jesus Christ, has consecrated and set apart the Jordan and all water as a salutary flood and a rich and full washing away of sins (if obviously that water is connected with the word in the sacrament itself), we pray through the same, Thy groundless mercy, that thou will graciously behold this Martin and bless him with true faith in the Spirit, so that by means of this saving flood all that has been born in him from Adam (that is, his sinfulness) and which he himself has added thereto (though his own sinfulness) may be drowned in him and engulfed. And that he may be sundered from the number of the unbelieving, preserved dry and secure in the holy ark of Christendom, that he may serve Thy name at all times fervent in spirit and joyful in hope, so that with all believers he may be made



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worthy to attain eternal life according to Thy promise through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

And on the basis of that rehearsal of the mighty acts of God’s word in connection with water, destroying sin and giving new life, saving the people of God, Luther then turned again to battle Satan with that word. So he addresses the Devil, therefore, thou miserable Devil, acknowledge Thy judgment and give glory to the true and living God, give glory to His son Jesus Christ and to the Holy Spirit, and depart from this Martin, His servant. For God and our Lord Jesus Christ has of His goodness called him to His holy grace and blessing, and to the fountain of baptism, so that thou (devil) mayest never dare to disturb the sign of the holy cross which we make on his forehead, through Him who comes again to judge.

Luther continued to proclaim the word of God in the form of an address to the Devil, harken now, thou miserable Devil, adjured by the name of the eternal God and of our savior Jesus Christ, and depart trembling and groaning. Conquered together with thy hatred so that thou shall have nothing to do with the servant of God who now seeks that which is heavenly and renounces thee in thy world and shall live in blessed immortality. And he commands the Devil further, give glory therefore now to the Holy Spirit who comes and descends from the loftiest castle of heaven in order to destroy thy deceit and treachery. And having cleansed the heart with the divine fountain to make it ready, a holy temple and dwelling of God, so that this servant of God freed from all guilt of former sin may always give thanks to the eternal God and praise His name forever and ever. Amen.

There in that eschatological prayer, Luther takes on Satan himself with the word of God and acknowledges what God is doing as He kills and makes alive, and sends Satan reeling on the basis of His own resurrection.

III. Infant Baptism and Infant Faith

A. Babylonian Captivity on infant faith

1. Infants helped by vicarious faith (rejected by Luther later, inconsistent with his understanding of the Word and faith)

2. Word of God can change all hearts

3. God responds to prayers of believing church


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B. Arguments for infant baptism

1. Historical

2. Model of entrance into kingdom as little child

3. Sense of Gospel and presupposition that God effects salvation through power of Word placed in selected elements of His created order

In the 16th century, as well as in the 20th century, the question of infant baptism, and particularly of infant faith, is raised. Luther struggled with that question; he did not take anything for granted in that regard. He recognized the challenge that was coming from that medieval protest movement, and then from contemporary Anabaptists who did not believe that baptism is the work of God but believed it was a human ritual, a human work, a commitment to God by the human creature. In part because they did not believe infant faith; Luther did, although his definition of infant faith and his defense of infant faith varied throughout his career.

He began in 1520, as he argued against the magical superstitious view, as he saw it, of the medieval church, he argued that infants are helped by the vicarious faith of those who are present at the baptism, the congregation of God’s people. That was obviously inconsistent with his theology, and after about 1521 that argument no longer appears in his works.

More constant in his understanding of infant faith is his resignation to the fact that infant faith is a mystery, but in connection with that Luther turns again to the word of God. The word of God changes the hearts of adults who are ungodly, who resist His grace. If that word can change the hearts of conscious thinking, rejecting adults, then Luther says, certainly it can change the heart of an infant, whatever the psychological state of that heart may be.

He also argues in this connection then that the validity of the promise does not rest on faith, faith is simply the response. It grasps the benefits, it makes use of the benefits, but the promise of God, God’s assurance that we are His children is there. Christ saves, he argues, not faith, faith only receives the salvation that Christ gives, and Christ gives that in the promise of baptism.

He also pointed to the example from the first chapter of Saint



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Luke, of John the Baptist who leapt in the womb of his mother Elizabeth in response to Mary’s coming and Mary’s greeting. Luther takes that as with the medieval church as a sign that even in the womb there was the possibility of a human response to the grace of God.

Luther also argued that God responds to the prayers of the believing church, when it presents the infant, its members can be sure that God is establishing the relationship, whatever psychological form the human side of that relationship is. In adults we know that that human side involves the psychological characteristics of faith, we do not know what that means for an infant, Luther argued, [and] so we simply accept the fact that God through the power of His word does establish the relationship.

Luther marshaled a number of other arguments for infant baptism. He argued, for instance, historically as well as exegetically. He cited examples from the early church where the ancient fathers speak of infant baptism. And so he argued that God had used infant baptism in every age to sanctify His people, and if God had done so in every age, Luther was certain He would continue to do so because that was His arrangement for bringing the word to all people, as our Lord suggests in Matthew 28.

Luther admitted that there is no specific biblical command for baptism of children. He did argue, however, that the absence of specific prohibition in a command to baptize all nations, not just their adults, or in the description of the baptism of the whole household of the jailer of Philippi in which there must certainly be children, was an indication that indeed infants should be baptized and were baptized already by the apostles.

Perhaps more important for his argument was that argument which came on the basis of passages in which Jesus said that we must be like little children to enter the kingdom of God. Luther took this to mean that indeed it is a well-intentioned and specifically chosen model which Jesus used in John 3 when he said to enter the kingdom of God you must be born again. New birth, of course, if it is like natural birth, can involve no commitment from the child, no action of the child to merit birth. Conception and birth are simply gifts that parents give. So Luther’s suggestion is that to enter the kingdom of God like a little child, to be born again, means to receive the kingdom of God, to receive new birth simply as a gift, without any previous contract or commitment, without any previous obligation taken by oneself. The gift of new life, like the gift of physical life, is simply a gift from the parent who gives.



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IV. Rejection of Anabaptists

A. View of baptism as human rite renders believers uncertain of salvation

B. Baptism is thus made into a good work

So he rejected the views of the Anabaptists who, as he understood them at least, believed that baptism was only a human right, was only a human commitment. That made the Gospel of the Lord uncertain, Luther believed, and the Gospel must be a sure word of promise.

Baptism, he believed, in the Anabaptists view becomes a good work, it makes an idol of the believer’s own commitment. And in the words of Paul Althaus, Luther believed faith is corrupted and destroyed when it becomes its own object. Faith in faith is false faith, faith in Jesus Christ and in the promise that He gives (also, in His baptismal word) is what saves.

V. For Luther, Baptism Expresses Whole of God’s Grace and s a Summary of the Whole of the Christian Life

This reaction against contemporary Anabaptists only reinforces our view that has played into lectures throughout this series. For Luther, baptism was the great expression of God’s grace, it was the summary of God’s word, it was the sum of the whole Christian life. For in baptism, God had brought sinners into death, had laid them in His tomb and raised them to new life. And the whole Christian life is then a life of repentance, as Luther said in the Ninety-Five Theses. The whole Christian life is a daily repetition, the gift from the Holy Spirit of death to sin once again, the gift from the Holy Spirit of new life, new righteousness, [and] the innocence of Christ as He bestows it through His recreating word.

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