“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 2:12
Sometimes people show me this verse to try and prove that Paul advocates baptism with water, too.
Do you see the water? Me neither.
This is a perfect example of reading into the text what is not there. (The smarties call it eisegesis.)
They usually first see water all over the word “buried”, because when they water baptize, they bury their subject with water and quote this verse while doing so.
This is like others who quote “This is my body” from the Bible while holding up ritz crackers and think that means it turns into Jesus. This type of Bible abuse is weak and reeks of tradition.
Meanwhile, there is not a single drop of water in Colossians 2:12. “Buried” does not describe water, because Christ did not go under water; he died on a cross and was laid in a tomb. This speaks of the death of Christ, not you taking a plunge into a public bathtub. This is proven by the next phrase, which speaks of Christ’s resurrection.
No, that is not you rising up out of the water, but, as the verse says, it is you being risen with Christ (Col 3:1-2). Christ did not rise up from a cattle drinking trough, but from the dead into new life. In Christ, you too have new life (not in water).
To make it abundantly clear, Paul says that the whole operation is “of God” (not your pastor), and that it occurs “through faith” not in waders and a wet t-shirt like John “the first” Baptist.
This leaves the only place in the whole verse for water to hide is the word “baptism” itself. If “buried” and “risen” refer to Christ’s death and resurrection, does “baptism” refer to water?
Not necessarily. Baptism is often without water at all (Mark 10:39; 1 Cor 12:13). The word itself means immersion into something. What that something is must be defined by the context. Consider Romans.
Like Colossians, baptism is associated with burial, but baptized into what?
“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…” – Romans 6:3-4
If we are baptized into Christ (by the Spirit, as in 1 Cor 12:13), then we are baptized into Christ’s death, much like he teaches in Gal 2:20 (“I am crucified with Christ”). This baptism made us who we are in Christ: dead, yet alive. No amount of water can accomplish that.
Forcing the baptism of Colossians 2:12 to be water instead of Christ and his death (as the verse says) exchanges a deep spiritual immersion into the Lord with the shallow damp experience of being immersed into a church tradition.
I choose Christ.
For Truth over tradition,
Justin “dry behind the ears” Johnson