[Narration spoken only male voice, no singing, narrator is the main song]
"Water never claimed to do more."
There is a question hiding underneath every argument about baptism, and almost nobody asks it.Not what words do you say.
Not how much water.
Not who is qualified to do it.
The question is into what?
The word itself demands it. Baptizo means to immerse, to place into. A baptism is not finished until you name the thing you ended up in. once you start asking that question of the text, the arguments settle down and the answer comes clear.
What water did
Israel's program was full of washings, and they were real. Priests washed before service Lepers washed before returning to the camp. Proselytes washed on entering the nation. John came baptizing unto repentance, preparing a people for their King. Every one of those was commanded by God, and every one of them meant something.
But notice what they all had in common. They dealt with standing before God under a covenant. Ceremonial position. Ritual cleanness. Access to a temple, a camp, a nation.
They dealt with the outside.
Water has never yet reached the inside of a man. It cleans what it touches, and it touches skin. That is not a criticism of water That is simply the limit of what water is.
What Paul says happened to us
"For by one Spirit are we all baptized into one body, whether we be Jews or Gentiles, whether we be bond or free; and have been all made to drink into one Spirit." 1 Corinthians 12:13
Read the reach of that.
All.
Not the mature ones. Not the ones who found the right formula. Not the ones who got to the river.
All.
And read where it put them. Into one body. A body that did not exist in Joel, did not exist in the Gospels and was not on the calendar of any prophet, because it was hid in God until Paul was sent to make it known.
That is the baptism that matters for you today. Not because water is beneath you. Because water cannot do this.
Buried with Him
"Know ye not, that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into his death? Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life." Romans 6:3-4
Look at the direction of every verb.
You were baptized. You were buried. You were raised.
Nothing there is asking you to accomplish something. Paul is not handing you a project. He is reading you a report of something already done done to you, without your help, at a cross you were not present for.
And then Colossians says it in a way that closes the door for good
"In whom also ye are circumcised with the circumcision made without hands, Buried with him in baptism, wherein also ye are risen with him through the faith of the operation of God, who hath raised him from the dead." Colossians 2:11-12
Made without hands.
No administrator. No officiant. No congregation standing by. Nobody's hands were on you, because there was nothing for hands to do
Gracecountrymusic
