Digital Logos Edition
This volume contains a lecture given by Karl Barth to a group of Swiss theological students in 1943, in which he presents his thoughts on baptism, gleaned from his study of the New Testament. He discusses the power, meaning, and efficacy of baptism in its biblical and theological context.
Get Barth's Church Dogmatics, this title, and more with the Karl Barth Collection (49 vols.).
“Let us remember that baptism is the representation, the seal, the sign, the copy, the symbol of our redemption. And let us remember that the power of baptism lies in the free word and deed of Jesus Christ. Our baptism is no more the cause of our redemption than is our faith. ‘Is then the outward bathing the washing away of sins? No; only the blood of Jesus Christ and the Holy Ghost cleanses us from all sin.” (Page 27)
“Baptism then is a picture in which, man, it is true, is not the most important figure but is certainly the second most important.” (Page 14)
“It bears witness to all these as the event in which God in Jesus Christ makes a man His child and a member of His covenant, awakening faith through His grace and calling a man to life in the Church. Baptism testifies to a man that this event is not his fancy but is objective reality which no power on earth can alter and which God has pledged Himself to maintain in all circumstances.” (Page 14)
“He Who, in every baptism which is properly administered in the services of the Church, is the Chief Character, the primary and true Baptizer, thus turned baptism into something powerful, living and expressive. Baptism is the acted parable of His death, in which (according to Romans 6:5) man is at his own baptism ‘planted.’” (Page 18)
“What befalls a man in that participation in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ through the work of the Holy Spirit, which is set forth in baptism, is indeed his rebirth to new life in the Age to Come.” (Page 12)