Tuesday, April 26, 2022

John Mark Hicks on Baptism as Eschatological Initiation in Ephesians 2 and Colossians 2

  

Baptism as Eschatological Initiation

 

First, through baptism God makes us alive with, raises us up with, and seats us with Christ in the heavenlies (Eph. 2:4-7; Col. 2:11-13). Paul stresses the effect of God’s gracious love and mercy with three verbs in Ephesians 2:5-6: made alive together, raised together, and seated together. This movement—coming to life, rising, and being seated—is shared with Christ. God is the subject of these verbs; they are divine acts. The movement from death to exaltation in the experience of Jesus the Messiah because our experience as well. Just as Jesus was raised from the dead and enthroned at the right hand of God, so we are made alive, raised, and seated with him.

 

We are seated with Jesus “in the heavenly places.” In other words, we are present in the heavenly throne room with Christ. Just as Jesus began the new creation through resurrection and enthronement, so we are initiated into a new creation by being raised and seated with Christ in the heavenlies. We are new creatures—“created in Christ Jesus” (Eph. 2:10)—seated in the new creation, inhabiting the heavenlies. It is little wonder, then, that Paul thinks that our “citizenship is in heaven” (Phil 3:21) because this is where we are already enthroned with Christ. Dead in our sins, we “followed the ruler of the power of the air” and “lived in the passions of our flesh” (Eph. 2:2-3), but now raised and seated with Christ, we live by a different power and in different passions.

 

But where is baptism in this text? Though Ephesians 2 does not specially mention baptism, “made alive” and “raised up” are baptismal phrases. Paul only uses this language in Ephesians 2:5-6 and Colossians 2:12-13 and 3:1.

 

Ephesians 2:5-6

Colossians 2:12-13

even when we were dead through our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved—and raised us up with him, and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus.

having been buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with him through faith in the powerful working of God, who raised him from the dead. And you, who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses . . .

 

Colossians 3:1 calls those who “have been raised with Christ” to “seek” what is “above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God.” The movement of Christ from resurrection to exaltation in Colossians 2-3 is the same as Ephesians 2, and Colossians 2 locates this movement “in baptism.” Those who “have been raised with Christ” should embrace the life from “above” rather than from the “earth.” In other words, we live in the heavenlies with Christ. Consequently, baptized people—those who have been made alive and raised with Christ=-live as though heaven has come to earth.

 

Baptized people—those united with Christ in his death, resurrection and exaltation—live by the values that permeate the heavenlies, the new creation. Baptized people are new creation people. Enthroned with Christ, we are co-rulers of the new creation just as humanity was created to co-rule the original creation in Genesis 1. (John Mark Hicks, Enter the Water Come to the Table: Baptism and the Lord’s Supper in Scripture’s Story of New Creation [Abilene, Tex.: Abilene Christian University, 2014], 107-9)