Wednesday, April 27, 2022

David F. Wright on Colossians 2 as a Reference to Water Baptism and it being the means of appropriating the atonement of Christ

  

There remains Colossians 2.11-12, which starts with a spiritualizing of circumcision as a way of describing the Christian experience of Christ’s redemption, and then refers to the baptismal incorporation of Christians into Christ’s spiritually circumcising atonement. The correspondence is not between two rites, of circumcision and baptism, but between the Jewish rite and the divine work of spiritual circumcision accomplished by Christ. ‘The circumcision of Christ’s is the atoning death of Christ. (David F. Wright, “The Origins of Infant Baptism—Child Believers’ Baptism?” in Infant Baptism in Historical Perspective: Collected Studies [Studies in Christian History and Thought; Milton Keynes, U.K.: Paternoster, 2007], 19)