Does
this mean that in baptism Paul was to consider his sins as being washed away?
The text does not support this viewpoint. His baptism identifies him with the
Jesus whom he recently persecuted and whose mission was defined in terms of his
submission to the baptism of John. The washing away of sins if connected with
calling on Jesus’ name. The participle should be considered instrumental: “by
calling on his name.” This phrase duplicates Peter’s use of the same verse in
Joel in the sermon at Pentecost. Paul uses it in Romans 10:13: “Everyone who
calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.” There he shows that such calling
is the mouths’ expression of the heart’s conviction that salvation depends on
the atoning work of Christ verified as acceptable by the resurrection. At his
conversion, therefore, Paul expressed his persuasion that Jesus was Lord and
Christ and that the resurrection represented the culmination of Christ’s
atoning work. In his heart—in the seat of his moral judgment and affections—he
knew that Christ’s death was necessary for salvation. The resurrection meant
that the propitiation was accepted, and now, by the power of an incorruptible
life, the Righteous One lives and intercedes for us before the Father (cf. Rom.
4:24-25). His baptism was a public witness to his cordial union with Christ in
the entire redemptive transactions.
Because
of this strong image present in baptism, Paul used it as a teaching tool in
pressing the implications of salvation on the churches. When some inferred
falsely that since increased sin meant superabounding grace (cf. Rom. 5:20-21)
we should continue in sin, Paul reminded them of what they had confessed in
their baptism: “Don’t you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ
Jesus were baptized into this 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” (Rom. 6:3-4). Your
confession in baptism, Paul insists, contradicts the false logic of continuing
in sin.
Paul
declares that when we are baptized into Christ Jesus, we undergo a vivid reenactment
of our participation with Christ in his historical death on the cross. Faith
implies that we have come to a verdict of condemnation concerning ourselves and
a repulsion concerning our sin. We see our only hope for forgiveness and right
standing in Christ’s work. Each movement in the baptismal event bears witness
to the historically objectified spiritual status that a sinner receives
experientially by faith. The picture of being surrounded by the water and
emerging from it calls to mind the irreversible purpose assured in Christ’s
being delivered up to death for our sins and being raised again for our
justification, to save us not only from sin’s penalty but from its power.
Paul
employs the same use of baptism in Galatians 3:27: “All of you who were
baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ.” He had emphasized
that their justification and adoption came by fait: “So we, too, have put our
faith in Christ Jesus that we may be justified by faith in Christ and not by
observing the law, because by observing the law no one will be justified. . . .
You are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus” (2;16; 3:26). Paul raged
against a heresy that sought to add something of religious ceremony
(circumcision) to the completed work of Christ in order to complete salvation
(cf. 3:1-5; 5:1-6). He insisted that from the cross of Christ flow all the
blessings of eternal life and life in the Spirit (cf. 2:20; 3:13-14; 5:11; 6:14-15).
Hearing and believing the message of the cross unleashes all the blessings
stored in it.
How
strange would it be that Paul introduces a new ceremony by which Christ’s
saving work becomes effectual? Could he really be saying, “Reject the heretical
formula of hearing plus believing and plus circumcision; instead replace it
with hearing plus believing plus baptism”? That interpretation of baptism would
run counter to Paul’s purpose in Galatians. Their baptism gave a physical
presentation of the spiritual certainties involved in faith. Faith is not empty
but engages us with the resurrected Christ in his present status of living to
make intercession for us. He gained that status through his being a “merciful
and faithful high priest in service to God, and that he might make atonement
for the sins of the people” (Heb 2:17). Thus when by faith we are clothed with
Christ, baptism illustrates the transaction that actually has taken place. As a
divinely ordained manner of expressing an existing confidence, baptism is
spoken of as the thing itself. When Paul refers to the Galatians’ baptism as
being “clothed . . . with Christ,” he encourages them to remember that Christ’s
death alone, and no human ritual, bears to them spiritual life. (Thomas J.
Nettles, “Baptism as a Symbol of Christ’s Saving Work,” in Understanding
Four Views on Baptism, ed. John H. Armstrong [Grand Rapids, Mich.:
Zondervan, 2007], 31-33)