Baptism is a sign and seal of what Jesus Christ has done once and for all on our behalf on the cross, and of his ascent and resurrection out of death into newness of life. Although baptism has one primary name—baptism—it has, as a result of its use in Scripture, many meanings. Looking at word-pictures in different verses of Scripture, we will examine baptism like a many-faceted jewel, focusing on key images that shine light on the multiplicity of meanings of baptism as a sign and seal of Jesus Christ.
1. Robe and Crown: Inauguration into the reign of God (Galatians 3:27)
2. A Rite of Passage: An entrance rite into the church and commissioning for discipleship/disciple-making (1 Corinthians. 12:13)
3. Dove: The gifting of the Holy Spirit (Titus 3:5)
4. Washing: Sanctified and justified in the name of Jesus (1 Corinthians. 6:11)
5. New Birth (John 3:5)
6. Burial: Incorporation into Christ’s death and resurrection (Colossians 2:12 & Romans 6:3-5)
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1. Robe and Crown: Inauguration into the reign of God (Galatians 3:27)
Many families purchase a baptismal gown for the baptism, much like a wedding dress for a wedding. It signifies something many couples intuit even if they do not know it explicitly. In Orthodox tradition, the white garment is a royal robe or the garment of immortality. It is these things because it symbolizes that “all who are clothed in Christ have put on Christ” (Galatians 3:27).
Read Galatians 3:27 and compare it with other Pauline texts that mention clothing. “We wish not to be unclothed but to be further clothed, so that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life” (2 Corinthians. 5:4). “You have stripped off the old self with its practices and have clothed yourselves with a new self, which is being renewed in knowledge according to the image of its creator” (Colossians 3:10). Or Revelation 3:5, “If you conquer, you will be clothed like them in white robes, and I will not blot your name out of the book of life.” All emphasize that putting on Christ means entry into a new era and kingdom, inauguration into a new life in Christ.
Baptismal garments are “traditionally white, recalling the image of being clothed with the righteousness of Christ and acknowledging that those who are baptized have joined the host of those who have‘washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb’ (Rev. 7:14).”[1] It echoes the white pall placed over a coffin or urn, or the albs worn by worship leaders and so echoing participation in the congregation’s mission.
2. Becoming a Body: An entrance rite into the church and commissioning for discipleship/disciple-making (1 Corinthians 12:13)
Read the entirety of 1 Corinthians 12. Now think about the baptismal rite itself. After reading the text, ask, “What are the spiritual gifts? Are some better than others? What gifts do the parents have? What gifts does the child have given to them at baptism?”[2] The first spiritual gift anyone has immediately upon receiving the Holy Spirit is the gift to say, “I have received the name of Jesus.”
Take Paul’s idea that each of us is a member of one body seriously. How do we understand our own incorporation into the life of the church as a gift of the Spirit? Which member of the body are we? What role in the body have you been appointed to? What role in the body is the one being baptized being appointed to through baptism? Take time to dream about this.
3. Dove: The gifting of the Holy Spirit (Titus 3:5)
We are reborn through the waters of baptism, and receive renewal by the Holy Spirit (Titus 3:5). Luther made this brief passage of Titus famous by including it in the Small Catechism. “This Spirit he poured out on us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that, having been justified by his grace, we might become heirs according to the hope of eternal life. The saying is sure” (Titus 3:6-7).
Try to list as many gifts of the Holy Spirit as you can, this time not focusing on the gifts that the Spirit works through us (like being apostles or speaking in tongues) but simply the gifts God gives us through the Spirit. Consider: Faith, hope, love, grace, peace, salvation, eternal life, life, renewal, mercy, etc.
Find a way to make a visible reminder of the gifting of the Holy Spirit through the symbol of the dove (the image of the Spirit associated with Jesus’ baptism; Matt. 3:16, Mark 1:10, Luke 3:22, and John 1:32). Do you have some artistic way to represent this and share it in congregational life?
4. Washing: Sanctified and justified in the name of Jesus (1 Corinthians 6:11)
We have a shower curtain that reads in big bold letters, “Remember you are baptized!” Washing is a feeling, a physical action with the body that also evokes a changed mental state. When we say, “I’m going to take a shower,” we as often mean something about a shift in our emotions as a chance to rinse soil from our bodies and oil from our hair.
I’ve been reading the Bhagavad Gita lately, and there’s an emphasis there that is also emphasized here, that somehow through a real focus on “the Lord,” who for us in Christian tradition is Jesus, that centered focus allows everything else to be “washed.” Similarly, when I was down working the cold weather shelter a few days ago, the men volunteering there when complimented for their roles, responded regularly, “It’s not me it’s all about Jesus.”
5. New birth (John 3:5)
In the waters of baptism, we are born of God. This is a new kind of birth, however, a birth that is participation in Christ’s birth. This idea is at the very heart of baptism. The opening prologue of the gospel of John, possibly the greatest poem on the incarnation of Christ: “He gave [us] power to become children of God, who were born, not of blood or of the will of the flesh or of the will of man, but of God” (1:13).
Later in John’s gospel in a conversation with Nicodemus, a leader of the Jews, Jesus teaches, “no one can see the kingdom of God without being born from above… no one can enter the kingdom of God without being born of water and Spirit” (3:4-5). Here, as in many other places, Jesus can best be understood as speaking of himself, and then of others inasmuch as they are in him. Jesus is born from above, born of the Virgin Mary and conceived by the Holy Spirit (as the Apostles’ Creed, the great baptismal formula, has it).
Take time to read John 1:1-14, then the story of Nicodemus, and finally look at the Apostles’ Creed itself, especially focusing on the second article. Instead of focusing on the anthropological idea of a “new birth” (fresh start, second chance, etc.), focus in this new birth section on the one into whom we are reborn. Our new birth is participation in Christ’s birth. As Thomas Torrance has it in his Incarnation: “In Christian baptism we are born from above because in baptism we are incorporated into the one who was born of the Spirit from above, whose birth was marked by miracle as the new beginning for humankind.”[3]
6. Burial: Incorporation into Christ’s death and resurrection (Colossians 2:12 & Romans 6:3-5)
The most perplexing idea in our theology of baptism, and also the most comforting, is that baptism is like burial. No parent is prepared to present their child for burial, but every parent has worries that their child may die. Even in an era when infant mortality (at least in North America) is very low, new parents are still very aware of SIDs and other conditions that may lead to the premature death of their beloved child.
Reflection on Colossians 2:12 and Romans 6:3-5 offers an opportunity to reflect on the significance of baptism as burial, and also to offer words of comfort even in the face of worries about death. Consider reading both verses of Scripture out loud as a word of comfort this week. Then ask, “Is it a new thought to you that when you are presenting your child for baptism (or yourself), you were presenting them for burial? What do you think that means?”
Burial in baptism is a certain kind of burial, it is the burial that signifies death to sin. In baptism, the baptized are freed from the life they were in, the old life of sin and death. They have died to death. Death no longer has power over them, because, as Paul claims in Romans, “If we have been united with Christ in a death like his, we will certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his” (Romans 6:5).
This meaning of baptism is counter-intuitive, and may take special attention and care, but it can be a very fruitful way for us to understand the true power of resurrection, that it is resurrection from the dead and into participation in Christ’s resurrection.
[1] The Christian Life, 71.
[2] Thomas F. Torrance, Incarnation: The Person and Life of Christ, page 91.