Section LXXIX “Buried With Him in Baptism”
Col. ii, 9-13.—“In Him dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead bodily. And ye are complete in him, which is the head of all principality and power. In whom, also, ye are circumcised with the circumcision made without hands, in putting off the body of the flesh by the circumcision of Christ (suntaphentes autō en to baptismati), having been buried with him by the baptism, wherein also ye were raised up with him, through the faith of the operation of God, who raised him from the dead. And you, being dead in your sins and the uncircumcision of your flesh, did he quicken together with him, having forgiven you all trespasses.” Here, in the phrase,—“the body of the sins of the flesh,” which is the reading of the common version, the critical editors unite in rejecting (hamartiōn) “of the sins,” which was undoubtedly a gloss inserted from the margin, in careless transcription.
It is evident that the doctrine and argument of the passage just examined from the epistle to the Romans, and this to the Colossians are essentially the same. In the former, Paul shows that the child of God can not live in sin;—in the latter that he ought to walk in Christ. The controlling motive of the apostle’s argument, here, is, to free his readers from the bondage of ritual ordinances and human devices of religion. He begins with the admonition,—“Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ.”—vs. 8. To this, he again recurs as the conclusion of his argument.—“Therefore, if ye be dead with Christ, from the rudiments of the world, why as though living in the world are ye subject to ordinances,... after the commandments and doctrines of men?”—vs. 20, 21. It is with a view to these things that the exhortation is written,—“As ye have received Christ Jesus the Lord, so, walk ye in him, rooted and built up in him, and established in the faith,” as contrasted with these traditions of men. Thus, as in the parallel plea to the Romans, so here, the determining idea is union with the Lord Jesus,—that spiritual union of which the baptism of the Spirit is the efficient and only cause. The dignity and glory conferred by it are emphasized by the declaration that “in Him dwelleth all, (plērōma) the fullness of the Godhead bodily.” In the person of Jesus, the Son is incarnate; the Father’s glory and power invest him, and the Spirit is his and dwells in him. “And ye are (peplērōmenoi) made full in him.” “Made full in him” by virtue of that mutual relation which Jesus describes;—“You in me, and I in you.”—John xiv, 20. Thus, made full, with all the graces of his indwelling Spirit, and so needing no recourse to the rudiments of the world. With this fullness of grace, the apostle then contrasts the coincident emptying of the old man. “In whom ye are circumcised with the circumcision made without hands, in putting off the body of the flesh, by the circumcision of Christ.” Circumcision signified the cutting off and destruction of the corrupt nature derived by generation, the old man, through the blood and sufferings of the promised Seed of Abraham. This operation is here called “the circumcision of Christ,” as it is that spiritual reality of which ritual circumcision was the type. The apostle holds it up to view, as the substance, in contrast with the emptiness of the ritual shadow, against dependence on which he dissuades his Colossian readers. This circumcision of Christ he proceeds to explain farther. “Putting off the body of the flesh, by the circumcision of Christ, (suntaphentes autō) having been buried with him in the baptism.” In the conception and argument of the apostle, emphasis rests on the definite article, which here, and in the parallel place, already examined, is ignored in the common English version, and in the Revised version. Paul’s aim in this place is to hold up the spiritual realities of the gospel in contrast with the emptiness of ritual forms. He coordinates “the baptism” with “the circumcision of Christ,” in producing the spiritual phenomena of which he is speaking. Or, rather, he postulates the baptism as the ultimate cause of the circumcision and its results. That, by the phrase, “the baptism,” he designates the same thing as in Romans vi, 4, is evident, as it is also that as in that place, so here, the baptism is not the burial, but is related to it, as the cause to the effect.—“Buried with him by the baptism.” How the baptism effects the burial, has been shown in that place. The distinction between the two, which is there so strongly marked, is in this passage equally clear and important; and the consequences there traced are here as legitimate and pertinent. The supposition of an allusion to immersion in water, in either place, is utterly groundless, and in both alike incongruous and destructive to the apostle’s conception and argument. Certainly, this place no more than the other necessitates recourse to the supposed rite of immersion, in order to a rational interpretation. And it is equally certain that at the touch of a discriminating exegesis the supposed allusion to such a rite vanishes utterly away.