In Christ Humankind is Born Again

Our Lord Jesus Christ, who is Firstborn of the Dead is also Firstborn of Creation (Colossians 1:15, 18). We may say that he is Firstborn of Creation because he is Firstborn of the Dead, for the Creator of all things in heaven and on earth is Christ crucified and risen. St. Paul shows us that the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ encompasses all humankind:

Just as one trespass [Adam’s] resulted in condemnation for all people, so also one righteous act [Christ’s] resulted in justification and life for all people. (Romans 5:18)

Just as in Adam all die, so also in Christ all will be made alive. (1 Corinthians 15:22)

It is through the resurrection of Christ, St. Peter tells us, that we have been given new birth, that we have been born again, regenerated:

Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade. (1 Peter 1:3-4)

Paul understands this new birth to be related to baptism: “But when the kindness and love of God our Savior appeared, he saved us, not because of righteous things we had done, but because of his mercy. He saved us through the washing of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit” (Titus 3:4-5). How is baptism related to the new birth that has been given through the resurrection of Christ? Paul shows us in Romans 6:

Don’t you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life. For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we will certainly also be united with him in a resurrection like his. For we know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body ruled by sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin — because anyone who has died has been set free from sin. Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. (Romans 6:3-8)

Through baptism, we are immersed — plunged — into the reality of this new birth in a very tangible way. Dying with Lord Jesus, we are buried with him, so to be united with him in resurrection, and to live this new life. For as Paul says in Galatians 2:20, “I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by the faithfulness of the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.” And so, through the faithfulness of Christ, by the Cross and Resurrection, what is universally true of humankind, of human being, is personally experienced.

In the Resurrection of Jesus Christ
from the dead, all humankind is
born again, in Him who is the
Firstborn of Creation. 

Baptism is a True Participation in Salvation

Baptism is not a work by which we merit salvation. It is a work of God in us, by Water and the Holy Spirit, and manifests our salvation in a very tangible way. It is a participation in salvation, in the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

Do you not know that as many as were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? Therefore we have been buried with him through baptism into death, in order that just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we too may live a new life. For if we have become united with him in the likeness of his death, we will certainly also be united in the likeness of his resurrection. (Romans 6:3-5)

God really does something in baptism. We are really and truly baptized into the death of Christ. By baptism, we are really and truly buried with Christ. We are born again through the resurrection of Christ (1 Peter 1:3), and in baptism, we are really and truly united with Christ in his resurrection to walk in newness of life.

Baptism is symbol, but it is not empty symbol. A true symbol is a joining together; it is from the Greek symbolos, a compound of syn, together, and ballein, to cast or throw. Baptism truly casts us together with the death, burial and resurrection of Christ.

A Sacrament of Water and the Word

Baptism is not a statute to be observed but a sacrament to be received. It is not a work we perform but a work God does in us through means of Water and the Word. And by it, God accomplishes some very important things in us:

Do you not know that as many as were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? Therefore we have been buried with him through baptism into death, in order that just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we too may live a new life. For if we have become united with him in the likeness of his death, we will certainly also be united in the likeness of his resurrection. (Romans 6:3-5)

Baptized into the death of Christ, we are buried with Christ through baptism, so that we may have new life, the life of Christ, through whom we are united through baptism. As Paul says in Galatians 2:20, “I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by the faithfulness of the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.” This is what salvation looks like.

The idea suggested by some, that Paul is speaking here of a baptism of the Holy Spirit rather than a baptism of water, is of relatively recent vintage. It is absent from the early Church. We do not find it in the early Church Fathers, nor do we find it in the Reformers. It was not until the last century or so that this idea began to arise.

Certainly it is the Holy Spirit who baptizes us, and what God accomplishes in us by baptism, God does through the Holy Spirit — but also through the substance of water. Just as our Lord Jesus Christ has redeemed us through the substance of human flesh, and of wood and nails, so also God ministers grace to us through such means as water, oil, bread and wine. As someone has well said, matter matters. God works through material means as well as through spiritual.

That is the nature of sign and sacrament. The sign participates in the reality of the thing it portrays. The early Church held no Nominalist views, where the only significance of a thing or act was merely whatever name or meaning we assign to it in our own minds. Nominalism did not arise until around the Enlightenment era. Rather, the Church was Realist, understanding that a thing or act participates in the reality, the ontology, the very being of whatever it portrays and presents (or re-presents) to us.

In Ephesians 4:4-6, Paul tells us that there is but one Body and one Spirit and one Baptism. That one baptism is the baptism of the Holy Spirit, and it is through the material of water, baptizing us into the One Body. For baptism is the initiatory rite into the Church, the Body of Christ.

Baptism is not a statute to which we submit, or a work we do to earn something. It is a gift we receive, a gift of God’s grace, given to us by means of water and the Word.