Of the same family

I have been reading about Baptism. The man talking about Baptism is an English preacher in the middle of the nineteenth century. He suggested there were two traditions about Baptism: one Catholic which said that the sacrament took away the sin and made you a child of God. The other was Calvinist which said that the Baptism awakened faith in the believer and made a person a child of God.

This English preacher believed that both were misguided. That we were all children of God already and Baptism was just the public recognition of it.   Some people lived all their lives not knowing that they were children of God. Not knowing their family and some how trying to find out who they belonged to.  Others rejoiced, celebrated and enjoyed living in the confidence that they were children and joint heirs with all the rest of people.

That was what Jesus came to show us, to show us the Father. That we are children of the most high.  We can claim to be self-sufficient. We can rebel against the family. We can run away from home. That lots of people live and die never knowing or understanding that they are children of the Holy One.  But there are others who "name it and claim it" and proclaim it by baptism and by the way they live in ways that are pleasing to the Father.

See what love the father has for us that we should be called the children of God. That is a Baptism statement.  It is not that Baptism gives us a new identity, it is the mark and the means by which we claim the identity we already had.  Makes a lot of sense to me.