Baptismal meditation

Paul’s description of the armor of God draws on Isaiah 59, the description of God’s own armor. We deck ourselves in the same armor He does. But Paul is also referring to another set of garments found in the OT. In the OT, the high priest wore a breastplate and crown and girded his loins, and Paul is describing a suit of armor similar to the “armor” of the priest, who was the commanding officer of Israel’s liturgical army. Baptism is an investiture – one that is both an induction to priesthood and one that is a call to battle.

Baptism is thus an enlistment, and for infants baptism means being drafted into an army they didn’t choose to join. That’s what’s happening to Elbereth today: She is being marked as a member of Christ’s church, which is the church militant. And that means she must, in whatever way God calls her, participate in His battle to set the world right.

Among your duties as parents, you are called to train her to participate in this warfare, and in the context of our sermon that means training her to pray. Reminding her of her baptism is an important part of that training. Christians often have trouble in prayer because they are deeply aware of their own sins, and their own unworthiness to stand before God. We are unworthy to stand before God. We are rebels against Him, and deserve no good, no acceptance. We are not on the side of the righteous who can ask God to fight for us; we are among the wicked enemies of God. We face God as an enemy rather than fighting alongside Him.

There are important truths in this line of thinking: We are unworthy to stand before God, in our flesh we are rebels against Him, capable of nothing good. But the truths in this line of thinking get twisted into error, and very fundamental error. It sounds very Protestant to say we are “sinners,” but that statement actually undermines the whole Reformation. We sin, but God does not classify us or regard us as sinners. That’s the whole point of justification by faith; continuing to say “we’re sinners” when God has said “you’re righteous” is simply unbelief.

We sin, but that doesn’t mean that we are enlisted in the army of the wicked. We aren’t, and baptism is a sign that we aren’t. By baptism, we are clothed in Christ; in baptism we put on the armor of God; in baptism, we are made priests and kings to God, and deputed to a place in the worship of the church militant. By baptism, we are placed on God’s side of the war of human history, and called to fight with Him in His strength.

As you know, none of this is automatic. Soldiers go AWOL, and some form a treacherous “fifth column” loyal to the opposing army. Elbereth is called to respond to her baptism in faith, to remain loyal to Jesus her Commander, and to mature and improve upon her baptism. Your calling is to train her to battle against her own sin and her flesh, to lead her to find her particular calling, to teach her to pray that righteousness and justice will be done. Cultivate in her a righteous indignation at injustice, cruelty, and sin, and a deep passion for justice and kindness. And assure her, by reminding her regularly of her baptism, that God has placed her in the army of the righteous, and that she can trust Him for victory.