Baptism and the Holy Spirit...
Illustration
Object:
Baptism and the Holy Spirit belong together intimately according to Luke. For John Calvin the Spirit is the power of God (Institutes [Westminster ed.], pp. 142-143). Martin Luther explains the role of the Holy Spirit in creation and how the Spirit uses water to create and give life:
As a hen broods her eggs, keeping them warm in order to hatch her chicks, and, as it were, to bring them to life through her, so scripture says that the Holy Spirit brooded, as it were, on the waters to bring to life those substances which were to be quickened and adorned. For it is the office of the Holy Spirit to make alive.
(Luther's Works, Vol. 1, p. 9)
The Reformer also nicely explains that the significance of the gift of the Spirit in baptism matters in everyday life:
In the first place you give yourself up to the Sacrament of Baptism and to what it signifies. That is, you desire to die, together with your sins, and to be made new at the last day... From that hour he [God] begins to make you a new person. He pours into you his grace and Holy Spirit, who begins to slay nature and sin and to prepare you for death and the resurrection at the last day.
(Ibid., Vol. 35, p. 33)
As a hen broods her eggs, keeping them warm in order to hatch her chicks, and, as it were, to bring them to life through her, so scripture says that the Holy Spirit brooded, as it were, on the waters to bring to life those substances which were to be quickened and adorned. For it is the office of the Holy Spirit to make alive.
(Luther's Works, Vol. 1, p. 9)
The Reformer also nicely explains that the significance of the gift of the Spirit in baptism matters in everyday life:
In the first place you give yourself up to the Sacrament of Baptism and to what it signifies. That is, you desire to die, together with your sins, and to be made new at the last day... From that hour he [God] begins to make you a new person. He pours into you his grace and Holy Spirit, who begins to slay nature and sin and to prepare you for death and the resurrection at the last day.
(Ibid., Vol. 35, p. 33)
