Colossians 2:12

buried with him Cp. Romans 6:4; the only parallel. Union with Christ is primarily union with Him as the Dead and Buried, because His Death (consummated as it were and sealed in His Burial) is the procuring cause of all our blessings in Him, as it is our Propitiation and Peace. The Christian, joined to Him, shares as it were the atoning Death and the covering, swallowing, Grave of his blessed Representative; he goes to the depths of that awful process with and in his Lord.

in baptism The form of the Greek word (baptismosnot baptismain the best reading) perhaps emphasizes the action rather than the abstract institution; it recalls the decisive "Rubicon" which his sacramental Washing was to the convert. See Lightfoot here.

The immersion of the baptized (the primeval and ideal form of rite, but not invariable as a literal action; see Teaching of the Apostles(cent. 1), ch. 7) is undoubtedly here in view. The plunge beneath the water signified identification with the buried Lord, and sealed it to faith. Lightfoot quotes from the Apostolic Constitutions(a book heretical in doctrine but valuable as a witness to usages; cent. 3) the words (Colossians 3:17), "the plunge is our dying with Him, the coming up, our rising with Him."

It must be said again (see above on Colossians 2:11) that, in the ultimate reality, not the Sacrament but faith in God's promises joins us to the Lord in His death. But the Sacrament so seals the faith that the terms appropriate to faith attach to the Sacrament, naturally though secondarily. Cp. Galatians 3:26-27, in the significant connexion of the verses. And see Beveridge on Artt. xxv., xxvii.; and Lombard, quoted in Appendix K.

ye are risen withhim] Better, ye rose with Him. The state to which baptism was your sacramental admittance is a state of union with Christ as the Risen One; fellowship in His supreme Acceptance and in His possession of the full wealth of the Spirit as our Mediator and Surety. Baptism seals to faith all our possessions in the now glorified Redeemer.

through the faith of&c. Better, through your faith in the working (energeia) of God. Observe the reference to faith in connexion with the Sacrament; and see next note.

who hath raised him Better, who raised Him. Cp. 1 Peter 1:18-21 (especially 21) for a close and instructive parallel. Faith rests upon God as He is viewed specially as the Raiser of the Lord from the dead, because in that character we see Him as reconciled and as actively gracious to us. See further Hebrews 13:20-21.

K. PETER LOMBARD ON BAPTISM. (Colossians 2:12.)

Peter Lombard (ob. a.d. 1160), known among medieval theologians as "the Master of the Sentences" (Magister Sententiarum), or simply, "the Master," writes as follows in his Treatise on Theology called Sententiœ(Lib. iv., Distinctioiv., §§ 3 7):

It is asked, how is that text to be received, As many of you as have been baptized in Christ have put on Christ.… In two manners are we said to put on Christ; by the taking of the Sacrament, or by the reception of the Thing (Res). So Augustine: -Men put on Christ sometimes so far as the reception of the Sacrament, sometimes so far as the sanctification of the life; and the first may be common to the good and the evil; the latter is peculiar to the good and pious." So all who are baptized in Christ's name put on Christ either in the sense of (secundum) the reception of the Sacrament, or in that of sanctification of the life.

"Others there are … who receive the Thing and not the Sacrament … Not only does martyrdom (passio) do the work of baptism but also faith and contrition, where necessity excludes the Sacrament …

"Whether is greater, faith or water? Without doubt I answer, faith. Now if the lesser can sanctify, cannot the greater, even faith? of which Christ said, -He that believeth in me, even if he were dead, he shall live" … [Augustine says,] -If any man having faith and love desires to be baptized, and cannot so be, because necessity intervenes, the kindness of the Almighty supplies what was lacking to the Sacrament … The duty which could not be done is not reckoned against him by God, who hath not tied (alligavit) His power to the Sacraments …"

"The question is often asked, regarding those who, already sanctified by the Spirit, come with faith and love to baptism, what benefit baptism confers upon them? For it seems to give them nothing, since through faith and contrition their sins are already forgiven and they are justified. To which it may be truly replied that they are indeed … justified, i.e. purged from the stain (macula) of sin, and absolved from the debt of the eternal punishment, but that they are still held by the bond of the temporal satisfaction by which penitents are bound in the Church. Now when they receive Baptism they are both cleansed of any sins they have contracted since conversion, and are absolved from the external satisfaction; and assisting grace and all virtues are increased in them; so that the man may then truly be called new … Baptism confers much benefit even on the man already justified by faith; for, coming to it, he is now carried, like the branch by the dove, into the ark. He was within the ark already in the judgment of God; he is now within it in that of the Church also …

"Marvel not that the Thing sometimes goes before the Sacrament, since sometimes it follows even long after; as in those who come insincerely (ficté). Baptism will begin to profit them (only) when they afterwards repent."

These remarks of a great representative of Scholastic Theology are interesting in themselves, and are instructive also as a caution, from the history of doctrine, against overstrained inferences from the mere wording of, e.g. Colossians 2:12, as if it were unfaithful to history to interpret such language in the light of facts and experience. The great risk of such overstrained exposition is that it tends to exalt the Sacrament at the expense of adequate views of the Grace, and so to invert the scale and relation of Scripture.