Baptism: A Meditation   14.3.21

“Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? 4 We 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. 5 For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his.” (Rom 6:3-5)

Prelude

This meditation was done in preparation for an adult baptism, but also under the conviction that baptism, as a seal for a life of Christlike discipleship, is poorly understood in the Australian Church.

Introduction

Being baptised into someone’s death sounds morbid at the least, or ridiculous. Unless of course that person is no longer dead and their own baptism into death (Mark 10:38) was a preparation for vastly greater resurrection life (Rom 6:3-5). (Union with such a death isn’t morbid, but joyful.) Baptism is all about Jesus, and it carries a clear gospel message concerning sanctified weakness. It is because the weakness symbolised in baptism is an indispensable form of the manifestation of God that the practice of baptism is so controversial amongst Christians[1].

The Haze of Weakness

In preparing this meditation I felt the Lord led me to a text not usually used for baptism. Paul says of Jesus, “he was crucified in weakness, but lives by the power of God. For we also are weak in him, but in dealing with you we will live with him by the power of God.” (2 Cor 13:4). If Christ’s weakness somehow continues in his followers, then weakness must be an essential ingredient to a healthy Christian life. The faultless leaders of triumphalist forms of Christianity deny this because they do not understand the function of weakness in God’s plan.

Where for ordinary human thinking weakness is an embarrassment, because it is a sign of lost glory and of mortality (Rom 3:23; 6:23), prophetic thinking begins with the Lamb “standing as slain….from before the foundation of the world” (Rev 5:6; 13:8). In Jesus the depths of weakness i.e. crucifixion, and the pinnacle of power, i.e. resurrection, perfectly co-exist.

Made for Weakness

Since in the wisdom of the comprehensive plan of God (Rom 11:36; Eph 1:10) “all things were created through and for” Jesus (Col 1:16), we must believe that weakness exists to display the Lordship of Christ (Col 1:16). Science can tell us that the whole cosmos is moving from order to disorder (https://courses.lumenlearning.com/introchem/chapter/the-three-laws-of-thermodynamics/), but only the scriptures can reveal that God handed a fallen world over to ever increasing weakness and decay. Not as a final action, but “in hope” of resurrection transformation (Rom 8:20-21). A world plunged by evil into the weakness of an unspiritual mind (Rom 6:19; Rom 8:26; Heb 5:2), sickness, tiredness, the tyranny of Law (Rom 8:2) and evil spirits (Luke 13:11 8:2 Acts 5:16) needs by grace to be put through a death-and-resurrection transformation in Christ. Through Jesus we should not be ashamed of our powerlessness.

Since, “while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly” (Rom 5:6), no form of weakness remains a sign of deserved condemnation unto death (Gen 2:17; Rom 3:23; John 3:16-17). Sick, confused and ageing Christians, relax. Your feelings of patheticness have nothing to do with condemnation. It was said of Christ, “he had no form or majesty that we should look at him, and no beauty that we should desire him” (Isa 53:2), but he was the beloved Son of God. The Spirit will prophesy through our powerlessness that everything is moving towards its appointed share in Jesus’ immortal life (1 Cor 15:42-49). Baptism functions to seal to our consciences this grand truth (1 Pet 3:21).

Baptismal Transformation

Baptism unites us spiritually to the two great phases of the life of Christ. In his humiliation he left his glory, took on fallen flesh descending to the extremity of human weakness in death by carrying our pains (Isa 53:4); in exaltation he was raised into immortality and returned to eternal glory as a human being (Phil 2:5-11 cf. John 12:23-28; 17:1-; Heb 2:9). This was a movement from one state of being to another. Baptism signifies nothing less than such a transformation belongs to us! Being immersed in water is a sign that we who were weak and “dead in trespasses and sins” (Eph 2:2) are fully identified with the dying of Jesus which alone can take away our guilt (John 1:29). It is a confession that we who once turned inwards to self-sufficiency to overcome every weakness in our own strength now turn to depend on God’s strength in Christ. It is a plea to die with Christ and to be infused with his supernatural resurrection power (Tit 3:5-6). This way of discipleship requires constant submission.

Submission Turns Weakness into Strength

Jesus burst the boundaries of all human understanding and experience of God through his simple unconditional submission, ““Abba, Father, all things are possible for you. Remove this cup from me. Yet not what I will, but what you will.”” (Mark 14:36). This submission birthed a whole new creation. Baptism symbolises an immersion into a total way of life as God designed it, where “the old has passed away and the new has come” (2 Cor 5:17; Rev 21:1-5). Baptism is the pledge to have a renewed mind (Rom 12:1), to turn away from self-sufficiency as a state of spiritual death and to turn to Christ-sufficiency as the glory of the Father (Rom 6:4). A believer in Christian baptism no longer sees weakness as a curse but in the wisdom of God as an opportunity to exchange the struggle to be personally strong for divine enablement. The baptised believer glories that they “were made strong out of weakness” (Heb 11:34), rejoices that God selected them in their weakness “to shame the strong” (1 Cor 1:27). The mature baptised Christian accepts that a posture of weakness is a prerequisite for the manifestation of the Spirit’s power (1 Cor 2:3-5; 2 Cor 4:10-11).

Conclusion

Those drowned in the watery grave of baptism know their weakness belongs to Christ and it now has a new resurrection-oriented destiny and identity in him. We can boast in weakness as site of divine power (2 Cor 12:9-10). Having been shifted in the Spirit from one creation to another, at the core of the weakness of a believer is divine power and glory. Following Jesus through the waters of baptism initiates a discipled form of life that faithfully cultivates weakness as the key to ongoing spiritual growth. When the trials of daily life are submitted to the Lord without reservation, he blesses us with spiritual strength without limit (2 Cor 12:5-9). “For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong.” (2 Cor 12:10 cf. Phil 3:11-13).