Water baptism is your confession to God, His Church, and the world that you believe He’s united you with Christ. When God chose His elect from before the foundation of the world, He chose us in Christ. We were not chosen because of any goodness He ever saw within us. God, in love, predestinated us unto glory in Christ, according as He united us with the Son in His eternal purpose (Eph 1:3-6). “To the praise of the glory of his grace, wherein he hath made us accepted in the Beloved.”
Therefore, everything the Lord Jesus Christ did in His life of perfection, we actually did in Him. God wasn’t looking upon One Man only. From the cradle to His death on the Cross, everything Christ accomplished in victory over temptation, the devil, and death was accomplished by us who were in Him. They tell expecting mothers not to drink too much alcohol or take harmful pollutants into their bodies because it will affect the unborn child. The child is subject and totally dependent upon the mother for all things. Likewise, the elect of God were put in Christ and made subject to His obedience. Had Christ failed, there would be no salvation. Yet, God cannot fail… even when He is manifested in the flesh and subject to His own Law. Jesus Christ magnified and exalted the Law of God, and everyone created in Him is blessed by His deeds. When the Father testified of His Son, He also spoke concerning us saying, “This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased… (Matt 17:5)”
Water baptism most specifically testifies of identification with Christ on the Cross. The act of baptism, going down into the water and rising again is a clear picture of the death and resurrection of the Son of God. By faith, you confess that when Christ suffered, you were in Him suffering. Similarly, when the flood of God beat upon Noah’s ark, Noah endured the flood. The blessing of Grace is that the ark received the fury while Noah rested safely inside. Our most precious Ark, the Lord Jesus Christ, endured the eternal wrath owed to us for our sins, and we endured in Him. Although you and I were not born, and many were already in glory, God’s elect were all IN Christ according to the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God. “And a man shall be as a hiding place from the wind, and a covert from the tempest… (Is 32:2).”
The Father raised Christ from the dead as a clear testimony to the world that He was indeed the Righteous Man. When a criminal goes to prison, he is kept bound until his sentence is paid. After paying the penalty for his crimes, justice demands the captive go free. The resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead is Justice testifying that Jesus Christ paid the full penalty of our sins, and now He must go free. The Law of God can only punish until death, “For He having died is justified from sin (Rom 6:7).” Jesus Christ was sentenced to death for the crimes of His people, and after enduring the full extent of the consequence, God’s Justice cannot lay any charge against Him. There is nothing left for Him to pay. Therefore, He must be raised again, and it is not possible that death should hold Him (Acts 2:22-27). Your baptism says that you stand as justified in the sight of the Father as His Only Begotten Son. You were in Christ dying under the curse and fury of Holy God. You paid the full extent of your penalty, and were raised in testimony of your justification.
Secondly, your water baptism testifies that Christ is in you. No one has a right to profess life in Christ Jesus who has not laid down his or her life to follow Him. Going down into the water for baptism is a public declaration that you consider every aspect of your old ways and your old will as worthy of nothing but death (not any kind of death, but crucifixion as a criminal before God). Going down into the water is your way of saying that the person who you were is buried. He is the old man now, and you regard him as refuse.
Yet, baptism isn’t only going into the water, it is also coming up OUT of the water. Would you allow someone to baptize you who said they were just going to hold you under? No, you would drown, and you could not trust your life into that person’s hands. Likewise, if Christ is not raised then we are still in our sins, and we cannot trust our eternal souls into His hands (I Cor 15:16-17). But God has given you irrefutable evidence that He lives; His power and life is in you. You didn’t receive the doctrine of union with Christ or the doctrine of justification; No, no, you received the Person to whom you have been eternally united and in Whom you are justified from all things. And you received Him the only way that is possible… you bowed. He revealed Himself to you as absolute Lord, you bowed, and in Him you found every aspect of Salvation. Before sin had dominion over you and you were subject to its lust. Now Christ has dominion over you, and you follow Him. Clearly, the most important thing in your life is the will of God, and He’s given you power to forsake all to follow Him. By the grace of God, you yield your body as an instrument unto righteousness (Rom 6:16-22).
Formally, you were under the Law striving to please God by your works and barred from HIS promises and power. You sought good standing before God by something you did, and all you really did was aggravate your sinfulness. Void of faith in Christ, you looked to yourself to produce goodness and exchanged outward sins for inward self-righteousness. But now you are no longer under the law but under Grace (Rom 6:14). Christ has delivered you from the law entirely, imputed His righteousness unto you by faith, and He has justified you to receive God’s Grace. Now, rather than looking to yourself for strength to obey or looking to others to judge your spirituality, God has given you a new heart and a new mind that looks to Him by faith. You know that He will not allow you to drown in the waters of Baptism. “Therefore having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ: By whom also we have access by faith into this grace wherein we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God (Rom 5:1-2).”
Now, by God’s grace, you look to Him and He fulfills His promises in you. He promised you power over the flesh, the world, and the devil… and in His power you trust Christ and love people. God has sent the Spirit into your heart, and He keeps you in remembrance of His covenant. The Spirit shows you that what Christ has commanded in one place, He promises to perform in another. Now, in patience you bring for fruit unto God. (Rom 8:10) “And if Christ be in you, the body is dead because of sin; but the Spirit is life because of righteousness.”
Reader, do you see ALL of your salvation in the Risen Christ? Then your two-fold testimony in baptism is, “I was in Christ, and Christ is in me”. Your confidence is based ENTIRELY upon the written Word. You don’t trust dreams, tongues, or any so-called revelation other than the completed testimony of Holy Scripture (Rev 22:18-19). Bless God, and with a clear conscience testify of your union with Him in the waters of baptism. His resurrection is God’s testimony of our salvation. “…baptism doth also now save us (not the putting away of the filth of the flesh, but the answer of a good conscience toward God,) by the resurrection of Jesus Christ (I Pet 3:21).”