Encore Post: When we baptize a new Christian, we ask him to promise several things and to confess several things. Following the ancient tradition of the Church, we ask the candidate if they believe what the creed proclaims. But we do this with three questions: “Do you believe in God the Father…?” “Do you believe in Jesus Christ…?” and “Do you believe in the Holy Spirit…? We do this because each person of the Holy Trinity has His own role in our life and salvation.
This is a bit of a mystery, since all three persons are involved in all these acts of love for us, yet the Scripture speaks of each having these roles. Rather than try to puzzle out how this is so, we rejoice that each person loves us in his own way.
Martin Luther in his Small Catechism calls each person’s work an article and speaks about them separately. So, he talks about the good news that God the Father created and provides for us, God the Son redeems us with his own blood and the Holy Spirit makes us holy. This good news gives us joy, especially since we just considered his law in the Ten Commandments. We have been confronted by the fact of our sinfulness. Now we can have peace in the gospel of the forgiveness of sins, life and salvation.
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Yeah! This Is What We Believe And Have Faith On.