Search Highlands Reformed Church

“…that every knee shall bow and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord…”

Covenant Baptism

An Analysis of Colossians 2:11-12

Rev. Brian M. Abshire

God’s revelation of Himself in creation is a wondrous complexity of awesome mystery and intricacy. Each of us tries to fit the pieces of the puzzle together the best we can. Sometimes our picture of reality may be quite close to the mark. At other times, we may be totally wrong. Sometimes, once we get an idea in our heads, it can terribly difficult to shake out, no matter how wrong-headed it may be. Psychologists have noticed that human beings tend to see just what they expect to see. In one experiment, subjects were given random patterns of dots and told to look for hidden pictures. Even though in reality there were no pictures, most people still thought they found some. Even more surprisingly, a significant number of people continued to see the pictures, even when they were told no such picture existed! It is very difficult to shake free from preconceived ideas.

This trait of seeing only what we expect to see can be quite serious when it comes to Bible study. Some people are so convinced that they already KNOW what the Bible says on an issue that it can never tell them anything new. There is a tendency to read into passages exactly those meanings we expect to find (and being sinful human beings this usually means an interpretation that conveniently lets us off the hook). But if we want to grow in our faith and learn how to please and serve our Lord better, we must allow the Scriptures to speak for themselves. We must learn to submit even our preconceived ideas to the authority of God’s Word.

One example of how difficult this struggle can be was my own failure to adequately interpret certain passages on baptism. For years, since I already KNEW what these passages had to mean, I simply interpreted them according to my own presuppositions. I never did ask myself whether those presuppositions were correct.

I just started with my own theology and then read that theology into the passage. It was only when forced to reexamine those passages from a completely different perspective that I saw things that I had never before seen. And as a result, I had to make some very big changes in not only my understanding of baptism, but my practice as well.

Early American Baptism
Baptism of the first child born in the New World.

I was studying Colossians 2:11-12 in my personal devotions: “And in Him, you were also circumcised with a circumcision made without human hands, in the removal of the body of flesh by the circumcision of Christ; having been buried with Christ in baptism, in which you which you were also raised up with Him through faith in the working of God, Who raised Him from the dead…” Several things seem to leap out at me from the text. First, circumcision is here used as a symbol of regeneration. The “removal of the body of flesh” refers to the death of our old nature and the creation of our new one (see 2 Cor 5:17). The circumcision of Christ was His being “cut off” at His crucifixion. He died in our place. We are spiritually circumcised when the benefits of His death are applied to us through the death of our old nature (see Rms 6:1ff).

Now here is where the text begins to get interesting. If you leave out the qualifying material and connect the main thoughts from both verses, the passage seems to equate baptism with circumcision; i.e., “you were also circumcised… having been buried with Christ in baptism.” Thus, our circumcision occurred at baptism. But for a Baptist, this was a little hard to swallow. If this baptism refers to water baptism then one would only experience regeneration when one received water baptism. Thus, salvation would not be of grace, but would also require a work (i.e., baptism). In fact, this is exactly what baptismal regeneration teaches; that one is not saved unless one is baptized.