Re: Think 10-19-08
Written on October 22, 2008 by Matt
This is our Sunday Re: Think, an opportunity for us to continue to think on the events of last Sunday.
Last Sunday at DCC we saw that sometimes hard words are needed to communicate glorious truth and Paul’s words to the Church in Colosee are no different. Using the language of circumcision and baptism Paul reminds the believers in Colossians 2:11-15 that they have been buried with Christ in death and raised through faith in Him into a new way of life. Paul uses circumcision as a gruesomely vivid illustration of what happend not only to the literal body of Christ, as it was stripped away by His death on the cross, but also to our sin nature. In this example Paul also shows how having the “tattoo” of circumcision is not what guarantees new life, because it is a circumcision “not made with hands”, but rather it is about the accomplishment of Christ on our behalf.
In a simular manner, Paul points to baptism as an incredibly beautiful picture of being buried with Christ and then raised to walk with Him.
Just as circumcision was to be an outward sign of an inward change, so it is with Baptism. When we are baptized we proclaim to the world that we belong to Christ. We proclaim we are dead to an old way of living, buried with Him in death and raised to walk in a new way of life.
Neither circumcision nor baptism are mighty to save in and of themselves, but rather only “faith in the working of God”. We noted how faith is a conscious experience of the heart yeilding to the work of God, and since this is not something infants are able to experience, they are not fit subjects of baptism. (Thanks to John Piper for this succint explanation) While some would say that Baptism in the New Testament is the equivalent of circumcision in the old, because both mark out the covenant people of God, we remembered that the New Testament equivalent of circumcsion is not Baptism, but rather again, “faith in the working of God”.
Moving from the hard words Paul, tells us of the glorious truth they communicate. First we were once dead in sin, but now we are alive in Christ.
Life without God is a living death, a zombie like existence. When you are dead in sin you are a living shell of the existence God has for you. You are spiritually dead, in a perpetual coma with no hope of recovery. Everything looks relatively normal on the outside, the skin is warm, peace looks apparent, but in reality there is no life happening on the inside. So it is with those who are outside of a relationship with God in Christ.
We are also freed from a debt that we could never repay. Not only did God cancel our debt in the death of Christ, He also destroyed the document on which our debt was recorded. Christ accomplished this removal in the most unbelievable way, through humility and weakness. Christ made a mockery of Satan on the Cross. The very element that was thought to gain victory for evil was that which God used to secure victory on our behalf.
The cross was a shame, a reproach, a sign of disgrace, yet we glory in and only in the cross. We call it wondrous, beautiful, mighty, awesome, glorious. We sing and marvel at its greatness because of what it guarantees.
As we sing in the old hymn; “Jesus paid it all, all to Him I owe, sin has left a crimson stain, He washed it white as snow”
How is the triumph of Christ evident in your life?
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