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"In Whom also ye were circumcised . . . . . when ye were buried together with Him in
baptism" (Col. 2: 11, 12).
The circumcision was without hands and the baptism was without water, therefore
both are spiritual and find their reality only in the work of Christ.
Should one agree, yet plead for the retention of the typical ordinance of baptism, he
should read Col. 2: 16, 17, and, moreover, remember that most of the arguments in
favour of the perpetuation of water baptism, could equally be used in favour of the literal
perpetuation of circumcision: But all shadows are gone so far as the church of the One
Body is concerned, being for ever fulfilled and swallowed up in the fullness of Christ.
Let us now turn to Rom. 6: and again read the emancipating words of its opening
verses:--
"Know ye not, that so many of us were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into
His death? Therefore we are buried with Him by baptism into death: that like as Christ
was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in
newness of life. For if we have been planted together in the likeness of His death, we
shall be also in the likeness of His resurrection" (Rom. 6: 3-5).
We have drawn attention in other articles to the place that faith occupies in this
epistle, but faith is absent from this inner section (Rom. 6: 8 is the one reference, but its
use is not parallel with the use of faith in the earlier chapters). The statements of
Rom. 6: 3-5 are statements of fact, not merely of experience. When Christ died we died
with Him, when He was buried we were buried with Him, when He arose from the dead,
never again to submit to its dominion, we rose with Him. All this is fact. The believer is
"in Christ", and this union is by baptism; not indeed the baptism of water, but that true
and effectual baptism of the Spirit, which unites the believer once and for ever to Christ,
and identifies him with all that He as Saviour and Head accomplished.
Rom. 6: stresses the fact that we are baptized into the death of Christ, into His burial,
and into His resurrection.
Moreover, this chapter is not dealing with our sins, but with sin, the old man,
the dominion of sin, and the release of the members of the body from its demands.
What has been made ours actually by our being baptized in Christ by the Spirit, is made
ours experimentally when we "reckon" what God has reckoned us to be in Christ
(Rom. 6: 11). No amount of fasting, or neglect, or self-imposed tasks, or humility, is of
any avail. Our ground of triumph and our strength to walk in newness of life is in Christ
and His work for us, and our identification with Him. All else leads to bondage.
In the A.V. Col. 2: 12 reads as though the reference to baptism is continued
throughout the verse. This is not so however:--
"In WHOM (en ho) ye were circumcised . . . . . when ye were buried together with
Him in baptism. In WHOM (en ho) ye were also raised together."