Titus 3:5-7 - He saved us, not on the basis of deeds which we have done in righteousness, but according to His mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewing by the Holy Spirit, whom He poured out upon us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that being justified by His grace we would be made heirs according to the hope of eternal life.
If baptism is a seal, then it is also a sign. As such, it is rich in symbolism, and just as we saw that the Lord's Supper preaches a sermon to all who have ears to hear, it is the same in the case of baptism. We don't want to miss the important elements of this message, so we will spell many of them out briefly here and then delve into them in more detail in future meditations. Among other things, baptism shows us:
- That sin is a serious problem, making us filthy in God's sight.
- That man needs cleansing from sin in order to be fit for God.
- That God has provided the only way that sin can be cleansed - our efforts cannot do it.
- That cleansing from sin is made possible by Jesus' life and death.
- That this cleansing is affected by the Holy Spirit.
- That the nature of this cleansing is spiritual, of the heart and the conscience.
- That this cleansing brings as an added benefit the indwelling of the Spirit.
- That having the indwelling of the Spirit, we are being transformed into His image.
- That this cleansing unites us with Christ in His death, burial and resurrection (and we will want to dwell on this point to try to unpack as much of its meaning as we can).
- That being united with Christ, we also receive His righteousness and become the heirs of His kingdom.
- That being united with Christ, we have, in fact, died with Him - to ourselves, to our old way of living - have been raised as new creatures in Him, and will live godly lives.
- That we are called upon in Christ to die to our old way of life and to rise to a new life in Him.
We will almost certainly uncover additional points that we will want to explore, but even this list is enough to show us how much baptism proclaims to us if we have ears to hear, and it already provides a useful starting point for our reflection. There is sure to be even greater benefit from a deeper and more detailed consideration!