“To baptize is to have the confidence that sinners who are bound will be set free. Freedom is not violated if one is set free. So it is that baptism is a ‘cure’ for sin. Sin is addiction to self, no matter how pious its form. An intervention from without is necessary. The dead are not consulted, nor do they play any part in their resurrection. God takes over such matters. We can be saved by divine intervention alone. The external act is as necessary to save the pious from themselves as the impious. So its never completed in this life and must hit us daily until at last it is done with us, and we finally whisper, ‘Amen!’ Baptism saves us.”

– Gerhard O. Forde, “The Preached God” (143)