This morning we gather to celebrate something wonderful. At the conclusion of this service, we will all drive over to the home of Glenn and Barbara Perry where we will witness the baptism of Roy and Donna Coats and Nathan and Colleen Staggs.
As many of you know, Nathan and Colleen believed on Christ a few weeks back while Roy and Donna, having believed a number of years ago, want to be immersed, in obedience to the Scriptures. And this morning and afternoon will be a time of celebration for Cornerstone Community Church as we will see a visual portrayal of what God has done in each of by his grace in order that we might be his children.
Therefore, this morning I want to speak a little bit about baptism. Even as I have been studying for this morning’s message, it hit me that I have not spoken much about baptism, and I feel the need to do more of it in the future, especially as we have more occasions like today.
I want to start by making a connection, however, between what we have been talking about for the past four Sunday’s and what we will speak about today. As we have been looking at God’s covenants which he made with Noah, Abraham, Moses, and David; I want us to turn back to God’s covenant with Noah and look at the sign that God gave them to show that they were the sons of Abraham.
In Genesis 17:9-14, we find these words, “God said further to Abraham, “Now as for you, you shall keep My covenant, you and your descendants after you throughout their generations. 10“This is My covenant, which you shall keep, between Me and you and your descendants after you: every male among you shall be circumcised. 11“And you shall be circumcised in the flesh of your foreskin, and it shall be the sign of the covenant between Me and you. 12“And every male among you who is eight days old shall be circumcised throughout your generations, a servant who is born in the house or who is bought with money from any foreigner, who is not of your descendants. 13“A servant who is born in your house or who is bought with your money shall surely be circumcised; thus shall My covenant be in your flesh for an everlasting covenant. 14“But an uncircumcised male who is not circumcised in the flesh of his foreskin, that person shall be cut off from his people; he has broken My covenant.”
The sign God gave the descendants of Abraham to show that they were the people of God was circumcision. Therefore, every Jew who was born was circumcised on the eighth day of his life. And his circumcision stood as a proclamation that he was a descendant of Abraham.
Well, when you get to the New Testament (and Matthew 3 in particular) we find John the Baptist creating a stir among the Jews. We looked at this text a few weeks ago, so maybe you can recall from Matthew 3 that John was in the wilderness crying for the Jews to repent of their sins and be baptized. Well then, maybe you also remember the scene where the Pharisees were offended by this because they were already Abraham’s physical descendants and, therefore, thought they had no need to repent. John’s announcement, however, was that God could raise up children of Abraham from the surrounding rocks. Therefore, all men needed to repent and show that they were relying wholly on the mercy of God to be God’s people as opposed to simply relying on their genealogy which traced them back to Abraham.
And this announcement paved the way for Gentiles to be saved with the realization that to be Abraham’s descendants, one needed only to believe on Jesus Christ—even as Paul wrote to the Galatians, “So you see that it is men of faith who are the sons of Abraham” and “If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s descendants, heirs according to promise” (Galatians 3:7 and 29).
Therefore, when we get to the New Testament, it is clear that it no longer matters whether one is a Jew or a Gentile for “there is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free man, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus” (Galatians 3:28). And because of that, circumcision no longer served as the sign that one was a “son of Abraham”/a child of God but now, baptism has taken its place. So, just as circumcision was administered to all the physical sons of Abraham who make up the physical Israel, so baptism is now administered to all the spiritual sons of Abraham who make up the spiritual Israel, the church. Therefore, can you imagine the excitement of Peter on the day of Pentecost as he tells all those who want to be children of God, “Repent, and be baptized”?
But the idea of circumcision is not lost completely with the New Testament. It is mentioned for one, in Colossians 2 where we will find our text for this morning. Paul writes to the Colossians in Colossians 2:8-15:
“See to it that no one takes you captive through philosophy and empty deception, according to the tradition of men, according to the elementary principles of he world, rather than according to Christ. For in Him all the fullness of Deity dwells in bodily form, and in Him you have been made complete, and He is the head over all rulers and authorities; and in Him you were also circumcised with a circumcision made without hands, in the removal of the body of the flesh by the circumcision of Christ; having been buried with Him in baptism, in which you were also raised up with Him through faith in the working of God, who raised Him from the dead. When you were dead in your transgressions and the uncircumcision of your flesh, He made you alive together with Him, having forgiven us all our transgressions, having canceled out the certificate of debt consisting of decrees against us, which was hostile to us; and He has taken it out of the way, having nailed it to the cross. When He had disarmed the rulers and authorities, He made a public display of them, having triumphed over them through Him.”
And with this text in our minds, I want to point out briefly a few things for which baptism serves as an external expression. First, however, let me say three things about baptism.
1) It is someone being immersed and then raised in water.
I say this for two reasons. The first one is to define what I am talking about by the word “baptism” in case there are any here who have not followed much of what I have said so far because he or she is unfamiliar with the term. The second reason is because baptism has been altered by some to simply be a sprinkling of water upon an individual.
The reason this is not good is because the word from which we get our word “baptism” is the Greek word baptidzo which means “immerse;” therefore, another way of baptism is not baptism at all. And secondly, by not baptizing in this way, we totally distort the proclamation which baptism should make which we will see shortly.
2) It is God’s idea.
Later, as we are immersing four people in water and raising them out of it, we may start to think, “Why did we choose this to show we are the spiritual sons of Abraham?” And the answer will be that we didn’t. God did. Baptism is God’s idea. Jesus told his disciples in Matthew 28:19, “Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.” We do it because Christ told us to do it. And we will only find the thief on the cross to serve as an example of a believer who was not baptized, and that only because he could not.
3) It is something that should be done only after one has believed.
I say this because some have seen the continuity between circumcision and baptism and have thus wrongly practiced baptism on infants. One of these is John Calvin. His (and others’) thought was, if the physical descendants of Abraham were circumcised at birth to show they were descendants of Abraham, then shouldn’t Christians baptize their infants to show they are spiritual descendants of Abraham?
But before we buy into that argument, we should again remember who are the spiritual descendants of Abraham, namely, those who have placed their faith in Christ. Therefore, since an infant does not do this, one should only be baptized after having believed on Jesus Christ for forgiveness of sin.
Now, let me point out a few things that those whom we baptize this afternoon and all of us who have been baptized upon our conversion were proclaiming in our baptism.
Colossians 2:12 reads, “And in Him you have been made complete, and He is the head over all rule and authority; and in Him you were also circumcised with a circumcision made without hands, in the removal of the body of the flesh by the circumcision of Christ.”
This is incredible figurative language in which Paul speaks here. He wants to show that you have been made spiritual descendants of Abraham by Christ and so he says that we have been circumcised with a circumcision without hands. In the New Testament, every time this phrase “made without hands” is used, it serves to show the contrast between things constructed by man and the work of God.
Now, hold on to this idea as we look at exactly what Paul means by us being circumcised with a circumcision without hands. He says in verse 13, “And when you were dead in your transgressions and the uncircumcision of your flesh, He made you alive together with Him …” And we know from Ephesians 2:1-5 that when Paul says that God “made you alive” he is saying that God has saved us/justified us/made us his children.
Therefore, to be circumcised spiritually means simply that God has made you alive. He has saved you and called you to be one of his covenant people. Therefore, we proclaim through baptism that this spiritual circumcision has taken place.
Paul writes in verse 12 that the Colossians were “buried with [Christ] in baptism.” Therefore, even as Christ died and was buried, so are we when God calls us to himself. For when Christ calls a man, that man dies. Paul told the Romans in 6:6-7, “… knowing this, that our old self was crucified with Him, in order that our body of sin might be done away with, so that we would no longer be slaves to sin; for he who has died is freed from sin.”
The only way that we could be free from our flesh which held us captive to sin was to die. Therefore, we have died with Christ and been buried with him in order that our old self might be done away. And we show this as one is immersed into the water in baptism.
Paul also writes in verse 12 that we “were raised up with [Christ] through faith.” The beauty of the gospel is that after Christ died, he was raised from the dead. The beauty of the fact that we have died in our flesh is that we were raised to life again as well. Remember Christ’s words in Mark 8:35, “He who loses his life for My sake and the gospel shall find it”?
Therefore, we run into a weird paradoxical situation where we have died and yet we live. Paul sums it up quite well, however, to the Galatians, writing, “For I have been crucified with Christ, nevertheless I live, yet not I but Christ who lives within me …” (2:20). We have died and yet we have been raised to live. We show this as the person is raised from the water to proclaim victory over death achieved by faith in Christ.
I think this is a beautiful aspect to think about every day. Even as we read a couple of weeks ago, we broke the conditions of the covenant. We were guilty and, therefore, we were in trouble. It was as if in the court room, there had been issued a warrant declaring our payment, and it was more than we could give. We were in hopeless debt.
And what did Christ do with this? Paul says in verse 14 that he “Canceled out the certificate of debt consisting of decrees against us and which was hostile to us; and He has taken it out of the way, having nailed it to the cross.” Isn’t that incredibly beautiful for us who have believed?
It is not as if Christ simply took the certificate and tore it up and said it wasn’t just. No, it was just. He, however, paid our debt by dying on the cross, and after that he took that certificate calling for our eternal death and nailed it to the cross. Therefore, if anyone comes looking for it, it can be found where Christ paid our penalty and declares us free and just.
Whether we realized it or not, we once walked in the power of the evil one. John writes, “We know … that the whole world lies in the power of the evil one” (1 John 5:19). And Paul writes, “And you were dead in your trespasses and sins, in which you formerly walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, of the spirit that is now working in the sons of disobedience” (Ephesians 2:1-2).
We were once entrapped in the power of the evil one, but as Christ died, was buried, and was raised, he (according to verse 15), “disarmed the rulers and authorities” and “made a public display of them, having triumphed over them.” Christ simply disarmed those who had power over us and took us for himself. He made a public spectacle of them.
And as we gather in a few moments and baptize these four, we will proclaim the victory anew. Every power that once held us has been disarmed and we are reminding the world of this publicly in baptism. Thus, it is a celebration of the glory and power of Christ.
And as we do this, there are many around the world who are proclaiming this same thing through this same act, and it is costing them their lives as they are under intense persecution. Therefore, let’s remember them in prayer. And let’s also remember that their death is simply the doorway to seeing face to face the one whose death and resurrection they were proclaiming in their baptism. To him be glory and honor forever and ever. Amen.