Colossians 2:12 - Exposition

When ye were (literally, having been ) buried with him in your baptism ( Colossians 2:20 ; Colossians 3:3 ; Romans 6:1-11 ; Galatians 3:26 , Galatians 3:27 ; Ephesians 4:5 ; Ephesians 5:26 ; Titus 3:5 ; 1 Peter 3:21 ). βαπτισμός , the rarer form of the word, is preferred by Tregelles, Alford, Lightfoot (see his note), being found in Codex B, with other good authorities; it indicates the process ("in your baptizing"). βάπτισμα , the usual form of the word, is retained by Revisers, after Tischendorf, Ellicott, Westcott and Herr. Baptism stands for the entire change of the man which it symbolizes and seals ( Romans 6:3-5 ; Galatians 3:27 ). The double aspect of this change was indicated by the twofold movement taking place in immersion, the usual form of primitive baptism—first the κατάδυσις , the descent of the baptized person beneath the symbolic waters, figuring his death with Christ as a separation from sin and the evil past ( Colossians 2:20 ),—there for a moment he is buried, and burial is death made complete and final ( Romans 6:2-4 ); then the ἀνάδυσις , the emerging from the baptismal wave, which gave baptism the positive side of its significance. In which (or, whom ) also ye were raised with (him), through your faith in the working of God, who raised him from the dead ( Colossians 3:1 ; Colossians 1:18 ; Ephesians 2:6 , Ephesians 2:8 ; Romans 6:4 ; Romans 4:24 , Romans 4:25 ; 1 Peter 1:21 ). We refer the relative pronoun to the immediately antecedent "baptism," although the previous ἐν ᾧ refers to "Christ" ( Colossians 2:11 : comp. Ephesians 2:6 ) and some good interpreters follow the rendering "in whom." For the Christian's being raised with Christ is not contrasted with his circumcision ( Colossians 2:11 )—that figure has been dismissed—but with his burial in baptism ( Colossians 2:12 a); so Alford, Ellicott, Lightfoot, Revisers. "Having been buried" is replaced in the antithesis by the more assertive "ye were raised" (comp. Colossians 2:13 , Colossians 2:14 ; Colossians 1:22 , Colossians 1:26 ). "With" points to the "him" (Christ) of the previous clause (comp. Ephesians 2:6 ; Romans 6:6 ). Faith is the instrumental cause of that which baptism sets forth (comp. Galatians 3:26 , Galatians 3:27 ), and has for its object (not its cause: so Bengel) "the working" ( ἐνεργεία : see note, Colossians 1:29 ; also Ephesians 1:20 ; Ephesians 3:20 ) "of God." And the special Divine work on which it rests is "the resurrection of Christ" ( Romans 4:24 , Romans 4:25 ; Romans 10:9 ; 1 Corinthians 15:13-17 ): comp. note on "Firstborn out of the dead," Colossians 1:19 . Rising from the baptismal waters, the Christian convert declares the faith of his heart in that supreme act of God, which attests and makes sure all that he has bestowed upon us in his Son ( Colossians 1:12-14 : comp. Romans 1:4 ; also 1 Peter 1:21 ; Acts 2:36 ; Acts 13:33 , Acts 13:38 , etc.). Baptism symbolizes all that circumcision did, and more. It expresses more fully than the older sacrament our parting with the life of sin; and also that of which circumcision knew nothing—the union of the man with the dying and risen Christ, which makes him "dead unto sin, and alive unto God." How needless, then, even if it were legitimate, for a Christian to return to this superseded rite! To heighten his readers' sense of the reality and completeness of the change which as baptized ( i.e. believing ) Christians they bad undergone, he describes it now more directly as matter of personal experience.