Robert Kolb (PhD, University of Wisconsin) is mission professor of systematic theology emeritus at Concordia Seminary in St. Louis. He is the author or coauthor of numerous books and articles.
I do not really remember my baptism. I was only a couple weeks old and have not a clue as to what my reaction was when Pastor Schwidder poured water on me and gave the Lord’s promise that I belonged to him forever.
Of course, I remember my baptism. My parents asked that, because I was a sickly child, Pastor Schwidder come to the house to baptize me. He did, on a Sunday afternoon, with water from a bowl from which our family later ate fruit. My three sponsors were there, Uncle Pete, Aunt Laura, and Cousin Betty. And God was there saying, “Bobby, you are a dead sinner,” and welcoming me as a living child into his kingdom. Aunt Laura said that it was raining, and she thought of the baby Moses in the Nile; he also was rescued in the water. The story was told often enough for me to remember my baptism. Even if the story had not been told, my baptismal certificate, or the assurance of family and friends, would all be enough to remind me of my first deadly encounter with the flood, the flood of God’s grace and mercy, of the love that embraces me as a member of his family.
As a multi-media communicator, the Holy Spirit seized upon water, a basic commodity around the globe, just as are fire, earth, and air, to convey the power of his re-creative word of forgiveness and resurrection to new life in Christ. Water gives and sustains life. Water keeps the human body systems working. Water cleans from impurities of various kinds. Water destroys, washes entire communities downstream, obliterates landscapes. Water tells stories of all kinds. Water nourishes growth and sustains life.
Like Noah in the ark, the water destroyed sin and floated God’s chosen people into a new life. We live post-flood. That does not mean that we are immune from abusing our own bodies and the lives of others, as Noah did. But it does mean that he has struck a covenant with us, a promise that stands against all skepticism, that cuts through every doubt. We are over our heads in this baptismal water. It surrounds us and saturates us, drenches and dowses us, refreshes and revives us. We can breathe under this water because the Holy Spirit has joined to it his breath-giving word of new life, repeating the creative act in Eden.
We usually speak of death coming after life, but in Romans 6 and Colossians Paul speaks of death preceding life. That is the situation in which Paul found himself. He had lived life to the fullest a rabbi of his time could live it, even aiding in the execution of the heretic Stephen and winning a commission to eradicate those who betrayed the Jewish way of life in Damascus. It did not get better than that. He excelled—as a foe of God. Most of us are only banal, tawdry foes of God, but Paul was a mighty warrior—against his Lord..
And then came the voice and then the blindness. A blind enforcer is not much good. Life seemed over to the good Rabbi Saul. He must have died a thousand deaths on what was left of the journey to Damascus. There in the desert life dried up. He had no idea what kind of oasis in Damascus awaited him. His thousand deaths in the desert ushered him into true life in the overflowing waters of his baptism. They washed him into becoming a servant of the God whom he had been trying to serve on his own terms. As Luke tells the story in Acts 9, Ananias pronounced the gift of the Holy Spirit upon him, he was baptized, and that gave him new strength, in fact, a new life.
Paul undoubtedly remembered his baptism as he wrote to the Romans. He may not have been one of those who, hearing about the riches of God’s grace that he had described in previous chapters, posed the question, “can I sin the more that grace may abound?” But he undoubtedly had encountered the question, and he was quick with his answer. I still prefer the King James answer, “God forbid!”—a superb translation of the Greek for “may it not be so.” That question provided the transition from the blood of the cross to the waters of baptism that bring its benefits of wholeness and life to God’s people. In Romans 6 the apostle moves readers into daily life after three chapters of rejoicing in Christ’s atoning work and his deliverance of the world from death in sin. At this point in his letter, Paul proceeds from that historic action of God to the action of the Holy Spirit in the present, in the lives of Christ’s chosen people. Colossians 2:11-15 moves readers from the apostle’s talk about the Lord of the universe into discussing what Christ’s death and resurrection look like when the Holy Spirit fleshes out the life of being raised with Christ (3:1-15) for a way of thinking and living set upon things above, a life hidden with Christ in God. No more sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and idolatrous desire for something other than God gives.
The refreshing, revitalizing promise borne by the baptismal water scrubs us up to practice compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, patience, forgiveness—in one word, love that springs from a newborn heart that is freed and governed by Christ’s love.
Baptismal water washes us into the story of God’s deliverance of his people from the oppression of Satan and sin, of doubt and death, of anxiety and the defensive anger that springs from anxious fears. My own fear of water springs from a heart that does not rely on God. It is much better to recognize how refreshing the baptismal water really is. Paul invites us: Go with the flow of baptismal water that continues to cleanse, to kill, the old desires that turn me in on myself. For my baptism was the beginning of a life made new. That is where forever began with me. God put my old in the grave with the sin and the shame. That remains the beginning of my life made new.