Down With the Old, Up With the New

Baptism: It’s something the nominal Christian should do, right? All too often I can slip into the conventional opinion of contemporary Christianity that says baptism is just a simple act of obedience a Christian is expected to undergo—nothing more, nothing less. Even worse, I can be tricked into believing that my obedience in baptism will be followed by the approval of God and others. The problem with this thesis is that Christ is not normal. His way of doing things is beyond what we would expect, and it cannot be followed successfully by our finite and imperfect understanding. He finds no gratification in endorsed sacrifices, acts of physical obedience, and barren prayers.

So why did God the Father institute the holy act of obedience? Think of Christ’s baptism: it was the beginning of His three year ministry and was trailed by a season of vision, holy communion with His God, and intense spiritual warfare. Heaven opened, the Dove descended, and the Father gave His hallowed approval of His Son. Baptism, this act of obedience—the answer of a good conscience toward God—opens the human heart to the pleasure of walking in His will and tasting His goodness. Why did God design the human soul to take pleasure and find its gratification in Him? Could it be that the soul of man was fashioned to contain and display His glory and honour?

Baptism is a public declaration that I am alive to Christ and dead to the world; it embodies the freedom a believer has from the enslaving power of sin and the spiritual unleashing of the soul to walk in communion with Jesus Christ. Picture yourself standing in a coffin that is filled with water. This is what the new life in Christ is all about. Life is no longer centered on me. I’m not the point. I can’t continue living for my own purposes. Christ’s life within pushes a believer beyond the normal life of drudgery and self-condemnation into transformation, freedom, purpose, and glory.

Christ’s radical method of discipleship forces me to realize that I must be consumed and encompassed by Him at any cost. “. . . Buried with Him in baptism, in which you also were raised with Him through faith in the working of God, who raised Him from the dead.” Containing the Lord Jesus is the greatest honour we who are mere jars of clay could possibly imagine!

Witnessing someone else’s baptism is akin to attending a funeral. As the spectator, you see the old man going down and watch the new man coming up. A holy humility flooded me as I watched my brother Luke standing on the shore of the water the day of his baptism.

Luke, you’ve had to make tough choices in the last year. Christ Himself chose the less-traveled path so He could learn to desire God’s best. I see this same refining taking place in your life dear Luke, and I’m often humbled at the spiritual gait in which you are learning to live. Luke, keep making Christ your first choice; let His dreams guide your life, His Spirit fill you, and His vision consume you. Hearing the words to this song on the day you went down under the water impassioned my heart and filled my eyes with tears.

"Forgetting the things behind me;
Reaching for the high call;
Don’t care what it may cost me,
I’m ready to give my all.
There’s a passion deep inside of me
You are my one and only need.

"I really wanna know You more
My heart is hungry for You, Lord
I really wanna know You more
My prayer, O Holy Father:
Take me out to deeper water
I’m pushing now out from the shore
I really wanna know You more

"So tired of ordinary, sanctified complacency
I have this holy hunger
I wanna see Your majesty
There’s a passion deep inside of me
And that passion drives me to my knees"

Keep learning to hear His voice, Luke and He’ll be faithful to change you from glory to glory, to encompass you from before and behind, and to complete the work He started in you.

I love you.