The kingdom of this world is not the kingdom of God. God has His heart set upon a world-system, a universe of His Creating, which should be headed up in Christ His Son (Colossians 1:16-17). But Satan, working through man’s flesh, has set up instead a rival system known in Scripture as ‘this world’ – a system in which we are involved and which he himself dominates. He has in fact become the prince of this world (John 12:31).
Thus, in Satan’s hand, the first creation has become the old creation, and God’s primary concern is now no longer with that but with a second and new creation. He is bringing in a new creation, a new kingdom, and a new world, and nothing of the old creation, the old kingdom, or the old world can be transferred to the new. It is a question now of these two rival realms, and of which realm we belong to. The apostle Paul, of course, leaves us in no doubt as to which of these two realms is now in fact ours. He tells us that God, in redemption, delivered us out of the power of darkness, and translated us into the kingdom of the son of His love (Colossians 1:12-13). Our citizenship is there.
But in order to bring us into His new kingdom, God must do something new in us. He must make of us new creatures. Unless we are created anew we can never fit into the new realm. ‘That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and, flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God; neither does corruption inherit incorruption’ (John 3:6, 1 Corinthians 15:50). However educated, however cultured, however improved it be, flesh is still flesh.
God wanted to have us for Himself, but He could not bring us as we were into that which He had purposed; so He first did away with us by the Cross of Christ, and then by resurrection provided a new life for us. ‘If any man is in Christ, he is a new creature, the old things are passed away; behold, they have become new’ (2 Corinthians 5:17). Being now new creatures with a new nature and a new set of faculties, we can enter the new kingdom and the new world.
The Cross was the means God used to bring to an end the old things by setting aside altogether our old man, and the resurrection was the means He employed to impart to us all that was necessary for our life in that new world. ‘We were buried therefore with Him through baptism unto death; that like as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we also might walk in newness of life’ (Romans 6:4).
This brings us to the subject of baptism. ‘Are you ignorant that all we who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death?’ (Romans 6:3). Baptism in Scripture is associated with salvation. ‘He that believed and is baptized shall be saved’ (Mark 16:16). We cannot speak scripturally of baptismal regeneration but we may speak of baptismal salvation. What is salvation? It relates neither to our sins nor the power of sin, but to the world-system. We are involved in Satan’s world-system. To be saved is to make our exit from his world-system into God’s.
In the Cross of our Lord Jesus Christ,’ says Paul, ‘the world has been crucified unto me, and I unto the world’ (Galatians 6:14). This is the figure developed by Peter when he writes of the eight souls who were saved through water (1 Peter 3:20). Entering into the ark, Noah and those with him stepped by faith out of that old corrupt world into a new one. It was not so much that they were personally not drowned but that they were out of that corrupt system. That is salvation.
Of the Cross which is figured in baptism, we are delivered from this present evil world, and by our baptism in water, we confirm this. It is baptism into His death, ending one creation; but it is also baptism into Christ Jesus, having in view a new one (Romans 6:3). We go down into the water and our world, in figure, goes down with us. We come up in Christ, but our world is drowned.
Baptism is no mere question of a cup of water, nor even of a baptistery of water. It is something far greater, relating as it does to both the death and the resurrection of our Lord, and having in view two worlds. In Romans 6:4, Paul explains that baptism means burial – ‘we were buried therefore with Him through baptism.’ Baptism is of course connected with both death and resurrection, though in itself it is neither death nor resurrection – it is burial. But who qualify for burial? Only the dead. So if I ask for baptism, I proclaim myself dead and fit only for the grave.
Unless our eyes have been opened by God to see that we have died in Christ and been buried with Him, we have no right to be baptized. The reason we step down into the water is that we have recognized that in God’s sight we have already died. It is to that that we testify. God’s question is clear and simple. ‘Christ has died, and I have included you there. Now, what are you going to say to that?’ What is my answer? ‘Lord, I believe you have done the crucifying. I say yes to the death and to the burial to which you have committed me.’ He has consigned me to death and the grave, by my request for baptism I give public assent to that fact. So when will I ask for baptism? When I see that God’s way is perfect and that I deserved to die, and when I truly believe that God has already crucified me. Once I am fully persuaded that, before God, I am quite dead, then I apply for baptism. I say ‘Praise God, I am dead. Lord, you have slain me; now get me buried!’
There is an old world and a new world, and between the two there is a tomb. God has already crucified me, but I must consent to be consigned to the tomb. My baptism confirms God’s sentence, passed upon me in the Cross of His Son. It affirms that I am cut off from the old world and belong now to the new. So baptism is no small thing. It means for me a definite conscious break with the old way of life. This is the meaning of Romans 6:2 – ‘we who died to sin, how we shall any longer live therein?’
Paul asks, in effect, ‘If you would continue in the world, why be baptized? You should never have been baptized if you meant to live on in the old realm.’ The real meaning behind baptism is that in the Cross we were baptized into the historic death of Christ, so that His death became ours. Our death and His became then so closely identified that it is impossible to divide between them. Our public testimony in baptism today is our admission that the death of Christ two thousand years ago was a mighty all-inclusive death, mighty enough and all-inclusive enough to carry away in it and bring to an end everything in us that is not of God.
Resurrection into Newness of Life
If we have become united with Him by the likeness of His death we shall be also in the likeness of His resurrection (Romans 6:5). Now with resurrection, the figure is different because something new is introduced. I am baptized into His death, but I do not enter in quite the same way into His resurrection, for, Praise the Lord, His resurrection enters into me, imparting to me a new life. In the death of the Lord, the emphasis is solely upon ‘I in Christ.’ With the resurrection, while the same thing is true, there is now a new emphasis upon ‘Christ in me.
We cannot tell how God has done His work in us, but it is done. We can do nothing and need do nothing to bring it about, for by the resurrection, God has already done it. God has done everything. There is only one fruitful life in the world and that has been grafted into millions of other lives.
We call this the new birth. New birth is the reception of a life which I did not possess before. It is not that my natural life has been changed at all; it is that another life, a life altogether new, altogether divine, has become my life. God has cut off the old creation by the Cross of His Son in order to bring in a new creation in Christ by resurrection. He has shut the door to that old kingdom of darkness and translated me into the kingdom of His dear Son. My glorying is in the fact that it has been done – that, through the Cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, that old world has been crucified unto me, and I unto the world (Galatians 6:14). My baptism is my public testimony to the fact. By it, as by my old witness, my confession is made unto salvation (Romans 10:10).