Seeds for 2/24/2023 - Colossians 2:12b
Scripture: “In Him you were also circumcised with a circumcision not performed by human hands. Your whole self ruled by the flesh was put off when you were circumcised by Christ, having been buried with Him in baptism, in which you were also raised with Him through your faith in the working of God, who raised Him from the dead.”
Observation: Baptism is a rite that marks persons as belonging to the new covenant, in the same way that circumcision was the rite that marked persons as belonging to the old covenant.
What else do we find here?
“buried with Him in baptism… raised with Him” - Baptism is a reenactment of the death and resurrection of Jesus that joins us with Him in dying and being raised to life again. Even if we belong to churches that make use of all three historic modes of baptism (sprinkling, pouring, and immersion), it’s important to recognize the symbolism of immersion. The sinful self is buried in a watery grave, so that we can rise again to new life. Baptism teaches us that salvation involves repentance, yes, but is about much more. Baptism is about dying to our old self and being raised to new life because of “the working of God,” and our trust in that work.
“through your faith in the working of God” - This is another way of getting at the truth in Paul’s famous formula in Ephesians, that we are saved “by grace through faith.” Grace is what God does that we cannot do and is an unearned, unmerited gift of love. But no gift makes an impact in our lives unless we receive it. Likewise, “the working of God” that gives us new life is available to us through Jesus’ death and resurrection, but only when we receive that work by faith in Him. This also means that baptism is not something we are doing, but instead a work of God that we are receiving.
Application: What in your life do you need to “die to” in order to let God produce new life in that area? How can you assume a posture of receptivity in your heart to the working of God to produce new life in you?
Prayer: Lord, thank you for baptism. Make death to sin and new life in you a daily lived reality in my life. Amen.
“But the seed falling on good soil refers to someone who hears the word and understands it. This is the one who produces a crop, yielding a hundred, sixty or thirty times what was sown.” (Matthew 13:23)
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Wow! My family, both paternal and maternal were Baptists. At the age of 12, I accepted Christ as my savior, the truth and the way. I can remember vividly being overcome with emotion, being touched by what I now know was the Holy Spirit. I was baptized by immersion (in Baptist terms, the washing away of sin) a few weeks later but in all these years, I don’t think I “fully” understood the rite of baptism until now. Powerful.