Sermon Tone Analysis

“See to it that no one takes you captive by philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the world, and not according to Christ.

For in him the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily, and you have been filled in him, who is the head of all rule and authority.

In him also you were circumcised with a circumcision made without hands, by putting off the body of the flesh, by the circumcision of Christ, 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, by cancelling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands.

This he set aside, nailing it to the cross.”

[1]

Undoubtedly, during these past weeks, I have explored the issue of baptism more thoroughly than some will think wise.

Modern sensibilities argue that we should avoid addressing issues that discriminate or that may cause personal discomfort.

Insisting upon immersion as the biblical model for baptism does undoubtedly discriminate between Christians and does cause discomfort.

However, I do not seek artificial unity based upon the avoiding disagreement; rather, I seek unity growing out of the shared commitment to the Word of the Living God.

As I speak week-by-week, I do not seek the approval of man; rather, I seek the approval of Him who appointed me to this service of teaching and preaching His Word.

Whenever I address the subject of baptism, I know that I am addressing some who hold to hoary traditions held dear by their parents, and by their parents before them.

It is fair to say that much, if not most, of Canadian Christendom performs initiatory rites that are at considerable variance with Scripture.

The traditions of most communions in Canada consider baptism to be a sacrament—an act that conveys grace.

Most communions practise a rite for infants that they identify as baptism.

Most communions speak of sprinkling water, or of pouring a small amount of water onto the head, as the initiatory rite of the Christian Faith.

However, naming an act “baptism” does not legitimatise that act or transform the act into what is presented in the Word of God.

Paul penned a polemic to confront the error of false teachers (probably Gnostics) that were infiltrating the churches of the Lycus Valley at that time.

That letter, which we have received as the Letter to the Colossians, endeavours to equip Christians to stand firm in the Faith of Christ the Lord.

Especially does this letter address the error of believing that human tradition can or should supplant the will of God.

In one place in the letter, as the Apostle confronts an insidious error that attempted to substitute human tradition and philosophy for the teaching of the Spirit of God, he refers to the act of baptism.

Though he mentions the rite in passing, the manner in which he speaks makes it apparent that he expected that his readers would be in full agreement with the intent of the ordinance.

Join me in studying COLOSSIANS 2:8-14.

TRADITION CONTRA SCRIPTURE — “See to it that no one takes you captive by philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the world, and not according to Christ.

For in him the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily, and you have been filled in him, who is the head of all rule and authority.”

As members of this fallen race, we tend cling to what is familiar and comfortable, regardless of truth.

Error, once it has become entrenched, is comfortable.

Even a little bit of error can become so familiar that at last it is so thoroughly entrenched that it cannot be removed.

The Apostle was concerned lest his readers slip into error through embracing human tradition in the place of godly teaching.

The finest human philosophy cannot ascend to the heights of divine revelation.

Whenever someone speaks of matters that affect my eternal welfare, I do not want to hear their fatuous fallacies; I want to hear from one who is able to inform me of the will of God.

Christ died for our sins; He was buried and He rose from the grave for my justification.

If I listen to anyone, let it be the Risen Son of God who speaks to my heart and not human tradition.

Traditions can serve to connect us to generations that preceded us, or they can move us toward ever more serious error.

In the Word of God we see either situation on several occasions.

Jesus excoriated the Pharisees whenever He exposed their hypocrisy.

He charged, “for the sake of your tradition you have made void the word of God” [MATTHEW 15:6].

The reason for His condemnation was that they had let go “the commandment of God,” choosing rather to “hold to the tradition of men” [see MARK 7:8].

In contrast, Paul commended Christians who held to traditions they had received from him.

For instance, the Corinthians were commended for maintaining “the traditions” Paul had delivered [see 1 CORINTHIANS 11:2].

The Christians in Thessalonica were encouraged to “stand firm and hold to the traditions” that they had been “taught” by the missionaries [2 THESSALONIANS 2:15].

Later, Paul cautioned these same beleaguered Christians to avoid professed believers who walked in idleness, which was contrary to the “traditions” the Thessalonians had received from the missionaries [2 THESSALONIANS 3:6].

What is evident from this cursory review of the Word is that traditions were to arise from and to reflect apostolic teaching.

Clearly, this means that godliness, righteousness and industriousness are expected of Christians.

Order in the family and order in the church are “traditions” delivered to the churches.

Religious traditions having no basis in Scripture, however, should be questioned and decisively rejected, especially when such traditions contradict the teaching and the intent of the Word.

Our best thoughts are not worthy of consideration to supplant the revealed will of God.

Certainly, this should hold true when we consider the ordinances.

If we are told in Scripture to initiate our infants into the fellowship of the church, then we should be able to demonstrate that teaching from the Word of God.

If, on the other hand, we have embraced a human tradition that adumbrates and obscures the doctrine of grace, know that such an action is unworthy of God’s people.

If the Word of God teaches the need to sprinkle water on people wishing to identify with Christ in His death, burial and resurrection, then we should sprinkle water on people.

However, if we are to picture the Gospel of Christ, then we should be careful to fulfil the intent of the written Word.

Likewise, if we are taught in the Word of God to perform a rite to transform people into Christians, then we should perform that rite.

However, if there is no warrant for such an act in the Word of God, we should be courageous enough to reject the act as errant.

Traditions can be good, especially when they reflect the truth of the Word of God and therefore lead us to honour God through obedience to His revealed will.

However, traditions that have arisen through the specious sophistries of man have no place in the life of the child of God.

We are called to observe the ordinances delivered—baptism and the Lord’s Table—because Christ commanded them of those who follow Him.

We do not observe these ordinances in order to create Christians, as though we are able to coerce the Spirit of God to do what He alone can do.

I fear that far too many churches hold to practises that would not be recognisable to the gifted men who gave us the Scriptures.

I do not propose to recite a list of practises that may have questionable value; rather, I am focused on the baptism of those who confess Christ as Lord.

Assuredly, the Apostle spoke of that ordinance, albeit in passing, assuming that his readers would immediately recognise his reference as finding fulfilment in their own actions.

BAPTISM PORTRAYS A BURIAL — “buried with him in baptism…” The Apostle contrasts past practises once required of all wishing to enter the ranks of God’s covenant people, and that practise which has now superseded those practises.

In drawing this contrast, he speaks of the baptism of those who were reading this letter.

There is a natural ease inherent in his words that lead us to expect that had we been among those first readers, we would have no question about his meaning.

Speaking of being “buried with [Christ] in baptism,” he speaks of the act of being immersed in water.

It would not be improper to translate Paul’s thought into English in the following form, “In your baptising,” that is, when you were baptised, “you were buried with Him.” Baptism anticipates a burial.

I am only acknowledging what should be obvious—baptism pictures the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

Baptism serves as a powerful confession that the one baptised accepts that Good News as true and accurate, and that the one baptised so intimately identifies with the Saviour that he is saying that he was intimately involved in the death of the Saviour and that he was actually laid in the grave with the Lord Jesus.

The one baptised is confessing that it was her or his sin that caused the death of the Saviour, and that just as Christ was laid in the tomb, so the one baptised is confessing that the old life has been forsaken—counted as dead with Christ and now put away forever.

I am not alone in this understanding; gifted men who might otherwise dissent from the insistence that baptism is by immersion also recognised the clear implication of the apostolic practise.

Handley C. G. Moule, the evangelical Anglican Bishop of Durham, writes in his excellent commentary, “The immersion of the baptised (the primeval and ideal form of rite…) is undoubtedly here in view.

The plunge beneath the water signified identification with the buried Lord, and sealed it to faith.”

[2]

Doctor F. B. Westcott is recognised as being among the finest scholars of biblical Greek.

In his commentary on Colossians, Westcott writes, “The ‘burial’ under the water is the pledge of effective ‘death’; the ‘rising again’ is the symbol of the new ‘pneumatic’ life.”

[3] This Anglican scholar was compelled through knowledge of the language to confess that baptism spoke of burial and resurrection through immersion into water and through being raised out of the water.

Lightfoot, another Anglican scholar of the first rank writes in a treatise on the Colossian letter, “Baptism is the grave of the old man, and the birth of the new.

As he sinks beneath the baptismal waters, the believer buries there all his corrupt affections and past sins; as he emerges thence, he rises regenerate, quickened to new hopes and a new life… Thus baptism is an image of his participation both in the death and in the resurrection of Christ.”

[4]

Similar arguments can be marshalled from commentaries provided by contemporary scholars such as Peter O’Brien [5] and James Dunn [6], neither of whom is likely to profess Baptist sympathies concerning the ordinance of baptism.

What is apparent to one who is reading Paul’s words is that baptism pictures a divine transaction that has occurred in the life of the believer.

The baptised individual is openly identifying with Christ in His Passion, and that one has forever left the past in the past.

William Barclay is considered one of the premier Greek scholars today.

In his set entitled “The Daily Study Bible,” Barclay writes concerning this Pauline observation, “When we think of [Paul’s] view of baptism we must remember three things.

In the early Church, as today in the mission field and even in the Church extension areas, men were coming straight out of heathenism into Christianity.

They were knowingly and deliberately leaving one way of life for another; and making in the act of baptism a conscious decision.

This was of course, before the days of infant baptism…

“Baptism in the time of Paul was three things.

It was adult baptism; it was instructed baptism; and … it was baptism by total immersion.

Therefore the symbolism of baptism was manifest.

As the waters closed over the man’s head, it was as if he died; as he rose up again from the water, it was as if he rose to new life.

Part of him was dead and gone for ever; he was a new man risen to a new life.

“But, it must be noted, that symbolism could become a reality … only when a man believed intensely in the life and death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

It could only happen when a man believed in the effective working of God which had raised Jesus Christ from the dead and could do the same for him.

Baptism for the Christian was in truth a dying and a rising again, because he believed that Christ had died and risen again and that he was sharing the experience of his Lord.”

[7]

In baptism as practised during the days of the Apostles, an individual openly identified with Christ in His death.

Through baptism, the individual acknowledged his belief that Jesus died and was buried.

Jesus had spoken of His death as a shared baptism [see MARK 10:38, 39].

It should be no surprise, therefore, that His disciples would speak of their own baptism as sharing in His death.

Burial is understood as the conclusion of the event of dying; and so, burial in the baptismal waters speaks of the conclusion of the dying event for the child of God.

In baptism, the Christian is identifying completely with Christ in His death, and they are confessing their own death to sin.

The burial is proof that a real death has occurred, and the old life is now a thing of the past.

There is one other significant element revealed through study of the grammar of the text.