(3 )Placed into the Body of Christ

A word of caution

Something ought to be said here, because it comes up. There are those who will take a ritual performed on your body and turn it into an acomplishment of yours, and theirs ,Paul named it plainly. "As many as desire to make a fair shew in the flesh, they constrain you to be circumcised… that they may glory in your flesh." (Galatians 6:12-13)

Read who gets the credit. They want the glory. They count it as the credit. It ran the same way at Corinth. "I am of Paul; and I of Apollos." (1 Corinthians 1:12) Camps forming over who had done the baptizing. The water had become a badge. So the caution runs two directions. Watch for the man who needs your submission to a ritual in order to have something to point at.

And watch your own heart when you begin to reach for a ceremony as evidence. Because the moment a thing becomes evidence, it has become flesh. Paul settled it three chapters later in Philippians: "We are the un circumcision, which worship God in the spirit, and rejoice in Christ Jesus, and have no confidence in the flesh." (Philippians 3:3) None. Not a little. None. If a believer wants to be baptized in water as a testimony, that is between him and the Lord, and no one should trouble him over it. The trouble starts when it becomes a measurement. For salvation Water can testify. Water cannot certify.

Why this is good news

Here is where it lands, and this is the part worth carrying with you. A baptism performed with hands can be questioned. Was the wording right? Was the man qualified? Was I old enough, sincere enough, sure enough? Every hand-administered ritual carries a receipt somebody can dispute. The circumcision made without hands has no such weakness. God did it. God finished it. And what God did without your hands cannot be undone by your hands.

You are not near the Body. You are not associated with the Body. You were placed in the body

Water gets you wet. The Spirit places you in.

Stay Berean

The Bereans Blade~