Col. 2:12; Rom. 8:9-17, With Christ in Baptism (1)

Before we move on from “spiritual circumcision” I want to note something in Colossians.  This work of Christ is “putting off” the body of the flesh.  It does not say “destroying” the body.  The Greek term means just what the English says; it is like putting off clothing.  The verb form is used in v15: “having disarmed” principalities and powers.  He did not destroy them but removed their weapons and armor.  The only other use of this word is in 3:9: Do not lie to one another, since you have put off the old man with his deeds.  These other uses might help us to understand this work of Christ.  Moses had called on the people to circumcise the foreskin of your heart, and be stiff-necked no longer (Dt. 10:16), something they were unable to do and that awaited the day when this work would be done under the New Covenant.

How does this “circumcision without hands” impact our lives as Christians?  We still live in the body.  Rom. 8:10-11 tells us that our bodies are “dead because of sin.”  But “in Christ” we have been given the Holy Spirit to dwell in us, in our flesh-and-bone bodies!  While we are “dead” the Holy Spirit “is life because of righteousness.”  When we, by faith, received Christ, we received the One who became “sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him” (2 Cor. 5:21).  This is our new life, the life of Christ (Gal. 2:20), and we have this life because we have His Spirit (Rom. 8:9).  Listen to God’s amazing promise in 8:11: If the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit who dwells in you.  We who were dead in sin (Eph. 1:1) have now come to be alive in Christ by the Holy Spirit.

So we have died to sin, been buried and raised to new life.  The picture of all this is “baptism.”  Obviously this is where “immersion” or “dipping,” the literal meaning of “baptize,” needs to be visualized.  Again, remember that “circumcision” and “baptism” in Col. 2 are spiritual events.  Spiritually we have been immersed in the Christ of the gospel.  As He died, was buried, and three days later was raised from the dead, so “in Christ” we have been joined with Him.  Immersion or baptism with water depicts this death-burial-resurrection as the new believer is immersed in the water (“buried with Him”) and then brought out of the water (“raised with Him). 

Let me close this post with the clear statements of Rom. 6:1-4, and then, Lord willing, in the next post we will seek to uncover some of its spiritual treasures.

What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound? ² Certainly not! How shall we who died to sin live any longer in it? ³ Or do you not know that as many of us as were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death? ⁴ Therefore we were buried with Him through baptism into death, that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life.