This week our church yet again celebrates the salvation of God in the lives of those who are now a part of God's family. The men (hopefully more ladies next time) getting baptized will declare their faith in Christ and their membership of his body. They will do that in a public setting, witnessed by the church in its local manifestation. We, the church, will see them declaring that they are one of us and we will gladly acknowledge them among our number.
This public testimony is significant in that the action of baptism has an unmistakable representation of what Christ has done for us. We will see a descent down into the water. We will see them going under the water. Then we will see them rise out of the water. Jesus died, was buried, and rose on the third day.
When we see a public action like this, it is possible for us to look at it as if it is only telling us about what Jesus did. It could simply be seen as a picture of what Jesus did on the cross. Of course, it is a picture of that and what Jesus has done is not insignificant. But it is more than a picture about Christ. It is a representation of what Christ has done in the life of the one being baptized. It is not just speaking about the objective reality of the cross in history. It is a declaration of the subjective reality of the personal experience of Christ in the believer.
Let me put it this way. Baptism is not simply telling us what the participant believes ABOUT Jesus, it is telling us that they have themselves experienced the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ in their own life. In believing that Jesus has died and risen for them, they believe that they themselves have died to the old life and risen to a new one in Christ and through his substitutionary atonement for them. The declare that they are regenerate in Christ, a new creation, and that as part of the body of Christ, they belong to Him.
For me, the ultimate verse to be used for a Baptism is Galatians 2:20.
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.
Please pray for your brothers being baptized this week. Pray that this glorious enactment of what Christ has done in them will be a profound encouragement to us all.