To put an exclamation point behind the promise that each individual is the object of God’s grace and that the benefit of Chris’s sacrifice is intended for each of us, God has given us the sacraments. They are seals and assurances meant for the individual, as distinguished from promises addressed to the whole world. In Baptism, God promises grace, pardon, and life eternal to one person at a time. Baptism unites the individual to Christ and all that he has done for our salvation. While the individual may decide to turn his back on the promise in Baptism, and reject its saving benefit, the promise stands. Should the fallen later hear the promise of the gospel and by its power return, the promise made by God in Baptism will remain firm and sure.
Just as firm and sure is the promise affixed to the Sacrament of the Altar. There we eat and drink the price of our salvation, Christ’s true body and true blood. There one repentant sinner after another, one at a time, comes to receive under the forms of bread and wine the Savior himself. In receiving the Savior, one at a time, each receives the promise Jesus made: “This is my body; this is my blood; it is given, it shed for you for the forgiveness of sins.”…What could be more certain or more sure than the grace and love of God for those Jesus has washed in Baptism and fed with himself at the altar?
Daniel M. Deutschlander
The Narrow Lutheran Middle (pg 19)
