Tuesday, June 18, 2019

Michael Green on Water Baptism Being the Instrumental Means of One's Incorporation into Christ



ὅσοι γὰρ εἰς Χριστὸν ἐβαπτίσθητε, Χριστὸν ἐνεδύσασθε. (Gal 3:27)
For all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. (NASB)

Michael Green, while, as self-described “Evangelical Anglican” (p. ix) does not hold to baptismal regeneration, in his following comments about Gal 3:27 is very-well done vis-à-vis a believer being incorporated into Christ through the instrumentality of water baptism, as well as how water baptism is to be looked upon as an objective event in the life of a believer, as opposed to a merely subjective “conversion experience”:

Incorporation into Christ

Baptism means incorporation into Christ (Gal. 3:27). The whole New Testament unites to stress, in defiance of Greek syntax! For the phrase which constantly faces us in its pages is ‘baptism into Christ’ or ‘baptism into the name of Christ’ (the ‘name’ being, to the Hebrew mind, the ‘person’, the ‘character’, sometimes toe ‘ownership’ of the one named). So baptism is a total commitment which brings us into the most intimate union with Christ, rather as sexual intercourse does for a married couple. It is meant both to symbolise that indivisible union, and to bring it about. Christ did all that was necessary for us through his incarnation, his death, and his resurrection. As a result we can be forgiven, indeed, justified ‘or made right’ with God: but only as we are incorporated in Christ, only as we are united with the Righteous One. That is why the first half of Romans 5 can be so strong on justification: Christ for us. But the second half of that chapter is all about the new Adam, and our incorporation in him: us in Christ. The two belong together. Justification would be immoral and impossible if we were not taken up and incorporated into Christ the Righteous One. And baptism is the rite of that entry, the seal on that justification, as the beginning of Romans 6 makes so clear. We are from henceforth ‘accepted in the Beloved’ (Eph. 1:6). This is a marvellous thought. If we are incorporated by God himself into Christ, his death, his resurrection, his victory, and his endless life, then we can never be the same again. Even if our growth is stunted because of cold winds and poor soul, we remain like branches in a tree. The power and the grace are still there, waiting to be appropriated. He is faithful even though we are not

All of this underlines how important baptism is. It cannot be thought of as an optional extra, which is how some modern Christians seem to treat it; nor can it be repudiated altogether, as the Quakers and Salvation Army do. To do this is not merely to disobey Christ, but to pin all on faith, to give way to excessive subjectiveness, and to neglect entering into the solid, objective event of salvation history which baptism denotes. (Michel Green, Baptism: Its Purpose, Practice and Power [London: Paternoster, 2006], 31-32, italics in original; also note how Green refers to being made righteous, not merely declared such)