Following JesusНамуна

BAPTISM

Jesus said repent and be baptized. These were the two steps in following Jesus. We looked at repentance in Day 1. Today let us understand what baptism means.

Somehow the understanding of baptism as a 'public proclamation of my faith’ has become the popular understanding of baptism. Nowhere in the Bible do you find this interpretation of the rite of baptism. In fact, the Ethiopian official was baptized by Philip with no witnesses.

John preached a baptism of repentance from sins, but Christian baptism was different, as we see in the case of the followers of Jesus who had undergone John’s baptism of repentance from sin but not Christian baptism (see Acts 19:3-5).

Acts 22:16 brings out the aspect of God washing away our sins in baptism, and this remains a popular understanding of baptism. Some see this thought in Titus 3:5, but the word used is washing of regeneration rather than cleansing. So, when I take baptism, not only does God cleanse me from my sin, but He begins a work of regeneration within me, giving me a new nature through the power of the Holy Spirit. This same idea is repeated by Peter in 1 Peter 3:21. This is the divine side of baptism; what God does. But there is a human side too, which is what we are meant to be proclaiming by taking baptism.

The meaning of baptism from the human perspective is given in Romans 6:1-6, where it is described as the identification of the individual with the death of Jesus Christ so that they can be raised out of the water as a new creation. So, the meaning of the ritual for the believer is the dying with Jesus and the surrendering of their life to Jesus, as they have died to self and developed a new orientation to life.

Just as Jesus in His baptism identifies with mankind and takes the sin of mankind on Himself, we identify ourselves with Jesus and die with Him and rise again to a new resurrected life. This is what Paul says in many places.

2 Corinthians 5:15, “And he died for all, that those who live might live no longer for themselves, but for him who for their sake died and was raised.”

Galatians 2:20, “I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me; and the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.”

Galatians 6:14, “But far be it from me to glory except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world.”

Have you died with Jesus in baptism?