The Portraits of Baptism - Colossians 2:11-12

Introduction

This morning is our graduate recognition Sunday, and it’s ironic because as we prepare to send our students off to college, I have a college on my mind. In September, Andrew and I had lunch with the Send City coordinator with NAMB who’s overseeing church planting ministries in SLC. He was telling us about what was happening around Brigham Young University. BYU is named in honor of the second president of the LDS church. It was founded and is currently operated by the Mormon church. Provo, UT where the school resides is more than 99% Mormon in its population. And, God has decided to do a great work of salvation right there in their midst. A series of churches have been planted there in cooperation with NAMB and hundreds of the LDS college students are professing faith in the Jesus of the Bible right there in the soul of Mormon country.

But as wonderful as that is, there are significant social costs to LDS students who convert to orthodox Christianity. They are expelled from school, lose all scholarships they’ve earned, are booted from on-campus housing, and lose their on-campus jobs in response to their conversion. Further, they are very often estranged from their families and from the communities in which they were raised and call home. Conversion to the Jesus of the Bible comes with an enormous cost. Maybe, you’d say, “But, how do they know?” And, that brings me to my point. If these students were content to keep their feelings about Jesus private, if they were content to keep their prayers private, if they were to just believe in Jesus in their dorm room and the silence of their hearts, they would have no problems and pay no costs. But, as we see in the Bible, as we see throughout history, as we see today in Provo, UT, you can’t keep an encounter with the risen Christ to yourself.

God’s Word

Private faith doesn’t offend or incur costs. It’s the public practice of your faith that does. These converted LDS students have a painful awareness of the fact that when they are baptized into Christ they are charting a new life, a new family, a new reality for themselves at a great cost.

Baptism is always such a declaration. Baptism is a public declaration that you are now a follower of Jesus and that you have embraced his way of life by faith.

I want to take this break between Joshua and Judges to talk to you about Baptism for two reasons: 1) Baptism has been diminished in the eyes of many. 2) I have the sense that there are many among us who have faith in Jesus and have not been baptized since that faith was awakened.

Three Portraits of Baptism (headline) (A little different this morning, as we’re going to jump around a lot more than we typically do.)

First Portrait: A New “Covenant”

Colossians 2:11-12 In him also you were circumcised with a circumcision made without hands, by putting off the body of the flesh, by the circumcision of Christ, having been buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with him through faith in the powerful working of God, who raised him from the dead.

What is the significance of circumcision?

God promises Abe that his descendants will be more numerous than the stars —> Abe believed and his faith is credited to him as righteousness —> God promises that He will covenant to bless Abe’s offspring so that they are able to bless all other nations —> God then tells to Abe to be circumcised and to circumcise every male child after him as a sign and mark of this promise that He had made.

Circumcision is the sign and mark of the eternal promise of God. It is a physical marker you can see that tells of an eternal promise you can’t.

AND, circumcision is the initiatory rite of entrance into family that God is blessing. Circumcision marks you as the offspring of Abraham so that you might receive your rightful inheritance as his sons. That is, circumcision identifies who is and who isn’t a child of the promise.

Such became Law for Israel in the Old Covenant so much as to say to not be circumcised was to be accursed and cut off from the rest of God’s people. (Gen 17:14, Lev 12).

How does that relate to baptism?

This is where it gets good. Paul is showing us that the Old Covenant circumcision of the flesh was looking forward to a future circumcision of the heart (“made without hands” Deut 10 - Always Israel’s prob) that was accomplished by an ultimate circumcision of the flesh!

“The circumcision of Christ” refers to Jesus’ death in the flesh, in his body. Circumcision was always pointing forward to the disfiguring and death of Jesus’ body. So, when Jesus is raised, we see now the fulfillment of the promise to Abraham and the circumcision of Abraham in that now all people can become the ‘offspring of Abraham’. So, we don’t need to be circumcised in order to be marked as the children of the promise/blessing. We just need to be identified with Jesus’ circumcision on the cross.

So, baptism is our outward identification that we inwardly place our hope in Christ’s circumcision, Christ’s works of the flesh, Christ’s fulfillment of the Law, and not our own.

Initiatory rite into the New Covenant Kingdom.

Further, just as circumcision served as the initiatory rite into the Old Covenant community, now baptism serves as the initiatory rite in the NC. Beginning with Jesus, all members of the new covenant are baptized into this new Kingdom.

Used to be marked by ethnicity, by gender, and by human hands. Now, it’s available to all people, both genders, and is accomplished in the heart by God’s Spirit, not human hands.

Galatians 3:27–29 (ESV) 27For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. 28There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. 29And if you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to promise.

NC Portrait: Baptism marks you as a child of the promise and as a member of his church.

Why be baptized? Can you imagine a Jewish family choosing not circumcise, choosing not to associate themselves with the promise? Can you imagine a bride refusing to wear the ring of her husband? Can you imagine a beloved son not wanting to carry his father’s last name?

Second Portrait: A New “Life”

Romans 6:4–6 (ESV) 4We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life. 5For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his. 6We know that our old self was crucified with him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing, so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin.

Baptism illustrates our union with Christ.

(show pic of cross shaped baptistry) Many churches for antiquity have been found to have churches with cross or coffin shaped baptistries. It’s because of what we read in Romans 6. Baptism is meant to illustrate the gospel by giving a visible portrait of our union with Christ when we are saved.

“We are buried” The death of the old person who suppressed the truth about. Death to the person who was dead. Identifying with the death that Jesus died, we put to death everything that separated from us. The old me will never rise again.

“we too might walk in newness of life” But, nobody gets held under a baptism. The old us is put to death that a new creation might emerge. We are united with Christ in his death that we might also be united with Christ in his resurrection.

Clarity: Baptism doesn’t form our union with Christ; baptism illustrates our union with Christ. But, don’t diminish by saying it’s ‘just a picture’. It’s not just a cross; it’s Jesus’ cross. It’s not just a death; it’s your death. It’s not just a life; it’s your life. It’s not just a day; it’s your birthday in Christ. It’s the corporate declaration and celebration of what Christ has done for and in you.

The How Matters — immersion is required to see the picture of burial and resurrection

Baptizo = “to dip or immerse” — translators of english Bible didn’t translate because it would conflict with the practice of Catholic and Anglican churches

You have to go under that you might be raised.

The Who (order) Matters: Baptism only makes sense for believers, not babies.

Only believers have seen the old person put death. Only believers have identified with Christ on his cross. Only believers know the sweetness of the freedom of emerging from those waters, that is, emerging from death.

The Declaration Matters: Baptism is the gateway to a new life. It’s the first step of obedience in a life laid down for obedience (Matthew 28:18-20). Baptism is embracing Jesus’ cross because you are certain of Jesus’ resurrection. It’s embracing suffering because you are certain of glory. It’s the public practice of your faith aware of the costs. It’s a new way of living. It’s embracing Jesus’ last-first, turn the other cheek, give away what you have ethics because you know what is yet to come. When someone tells me they’re nervous to be baptized, I’m thankful. It’s in many ways humiliating to be baptized — to publicly say you’re weak, impotent, unable, and wicked. Nerves mean that you understand. The idea is to join Jesus in the humiliation of his cross that you might join him in the glory of his resurrection.

Portrait 3: A New “Righteousness”

God promised that He would wash his people clean with a new covenant.

Ezekiel 36:25–27 (ESV) 25I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean from all your uncleannesses, and from all your idols I will cleanse you. 26And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. 27And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules.

Jesus picks up on these words and says that if God doesn’t wash you clean, if He doesn’t scrub you from all of your filth, you have no entry into the Kingdom. John 3:5 (ESV) 5Jesus answered, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God.”

We can’t wash ourselves.

(Transitition by telling about me dumping BBQ sauce down shirt and into shoes) We are marked by the stain of sin. We may scrub and scrub and scrub, but we can’t get it out. It can seem so hopeless.

You are corrupt from the top to the bottom from the inside to the outside. Imagine if God told you that all you had to do to enter his kingdom was to not think a negative thought toward anyone for 7 days. You wouldn’t be able to do that if you were transported to Antarctica the whole time.

The water shows what the Spirit does

1 Corinthians 6:9–11 (ESV)9Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality,10nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God.11And such were some of you.

Feel the hoplessness here.

11b But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.

Washed = made clean

Sanctified = made like Jesus (new righteousness)

You weren’t just given a fresh start; you were given a new righteousness.

You’d mess up a fresh start, but you can’t get rid of your new righteousness.

Don’t you want the world to know that the Spirit has washed you clean?

ILL: Getting to Florida by driving and by flying

Some of you may know the exact moment you crossed the line.

Others of you may just realize “I’ve been washed clean. I love Jesus.”

Be baptized.