Buried with him in baptism: in whom also you are risen again by the faith of the operation of God who hath raised him up from the dead.
συνταφεντες αυτω εν τω βαπτισματι εν ω και συνηγερθητε δια της πιστεως της ενεργειας του θεου του εγειραντος αυτον εκ των νεκρων
13 Church Fathers comment on this verse
But baptism is not only a tomb. See, indeed, what he says: "In Him you were also raised together through faith in the power of God, Who raised Him from the dead." He spoke well, because everything is from faith. You believed that God can raise the dead, and through this you were raised. Then he adds something reliable: "He raised Him," he says, "from the dead." He already shows the resurrection.
"Having been buried with Him in Baptism." What he called circumcision, he now calls a tomb, presenting in comparison something greater than circumcision.
For what was circumcised was not simply cast aside, but perished and decayed. Therefore the baptized person is buried with Christ, depicting the Lord's three-day burial by the threefold immersion.
He dies as the old and sinful man. "In Him you also were raised together through faith in the power of God, Who raised Him from the dead."
Baptism serves not only as a tomb, but also as resurrection. How? Through faith. For, believing that God can raise the dead, we have the example of this in Christ's Resurrection from the dead.
Thus we have been raised in the Lord in two ways. We are raised by the hope of resurrection, so certain that we have already received it, though it is still to come.
We are also raised spiritually, having cast away the deadness of sin and received enlivening by the Spirit.
If such joy is brought to us by the swiftly passing days in which, with pious solemnity, we again remember the Passion and Resurrection of Christ, what blessedness will the Eternal One give us?
What will He give when we see Him and abide with Him, in Whom we now rejoice only in hope and longing?
What joy will He give to His Church, which, having regenerated her through Christ, He in a certain sense delivered from the natural uncircumcision of the flesh, that is, from inborn shame?
Therefore it is said: "And you, who were dead in sins and in the uncircumcision of your flesh, He made alive together with Him, forgiving us all debts."
And in Him you were raised with Him through faith. That is, before you fell, through your faith, when Christ rose, you were as it were raised with Him by the power of God. For God raised Him from the dead precisely to make it possible for us to acquire faith in the resurrection of the dead.
It is also known that the Son of God is crucified in the man being baptized. For our flesh could not be delivered from sin unless it had been crucified in Christ Jesus.
As it is written, "All of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death" (Rom 6:3). And further: "If we have been united with Him in the likeness of His death, we shall also be united in the likeness of His Resurrection.
We know that our old man was crucified with Him" (Rom 6:5-6). Paul also says to the Colossians, "Having been buried with Him in Baptism, in Him you also were raised together through faith."
This is written so that we may believe that Christ is crucified in us. Through Him our iniquities are cleansed, and He nails our ordinances to the Cross as the only One able to forgive sins.
Thus the Lord endured subjection to death so that guilt might be destroyed. But lest nature should come to an end in death, resurrection from the dead was granted to it.
Thus through death guilt vanished, and through resurrection nature entered into eternity. Therefore this death is the passage of all things.
You must constantly pass over. This passage is from corruption to incorruption, from mortality to immortality, and from disturbances to rest.
Therefore do not be struck by the name of death, but rejoice in the benefits of the good passage. What is death but the burial of vices and the resurrection of virtues?
Therefore Balaam also says, "Let my soul die among the souls of the righteous" (Num 23:10). That is, let it be buried with them, so that it may put away its vices.
Let it acquire the grace of the righteous, who bear the dying of Christ in their body and soul.
"Having been buried with Him in baptism." Since he called saving baptism an image of death, for in this sense he said "having been buried," he also proclaims resurrection. "In Whom you were also raised together." And since we still have a mortal nature, he added, "through faith in the working of God, Who raised Him from the dead." For, believing in God's power, we await the resurrection, having as our pledge the Resurrection of the Master Christ.
Through Baptism there takes place the stripping off and circumcision of sins. Those who are baptized confess that through Baptism they partake, by the blood of Christ, of His death.
Having partaken of death, they will therefore also enjoy the Resurrection. The meaning of resurrection is twofold. One is spiritual, and the other bodily.
For all human flesh will rise through Christ's Resurrection from the dead. Yet those who were not baptized into Christ, and died in their unbelief, will take part in the general resurrection.
However, they will not enjoy redemption and the promise. But those who were baptized into Christ have already been enriched, before the general resurrection, with the gift of another resurrection.
For they have already risen from the death of sin. Therefore the Apostle added, "in Him you were raised together," and not, "you will be raised together."
For how will those who have risen from the death of sin live, if they are again dying?
"Having been buried with Him through Baptism" (cf. Rom 6:3-4). Baptism replaces circumcision for Christians.
In the Old Testament, one who entered into covenant with God received circumcision. It served for him as a sign of spiritual circumcision (Rom 2:29), of the rejection of hardness of heart (Deut 10:16; Jer 4:4), and of sinful uncleanness.
In the New Testament, the Christian, entering into covenant with God, receives Baptism. In it he is not only washed and cleansed from sins (Acts 22:16).
He also strips off the old man, dies to fleshly and sinful life, and is born into spiritual and holy life. In other words, he dies and is buried with Christ, and then rises with Him.
For this reason Baptism is called the washing of regeneration, or spiritual rebirth (Tit 3:5; Eph 5:26). In Baptism the Christian himself becomes a new creation in Christ.
On the basis of the correspondence indicated by the Apostle between Baptism and circumcision, the Church from ancient times established the practice of baptizing infants.
This is done according to the faith of their parents and sponsors, but chiefly, of course, on the words of the Savior: "Do not hinder the children from coming to Me."
Here the discourse concerns Baptism, which, because of its likeness to Old Testament circumcision, is also called circumcision. In its meaning and action it is depicted as the stripping off of the sinful body and burial with Christ.
From the fact that it is called circumcision, we see the necessity of infant Baptism, since in the Old Testament circumcision was performed on a person on the eighth day after birth.
Then Baptism is called circumcision made without hands, not because it is not performed by the hands of the priest, as opponents of water Baptism may say.
Rather, it is because what is performed by hands in Baptism has no likeness to circumcision. Here what undergoes circumcision is not the visible, but the spiritual.
It is not the outer, but the inner being of man. Only the Holy Spirit can act upon this, although His action is inseparably joined to the external action of the priest.
Depicting this invisible action of the Spirit in Baptism, the Apostle speaks of the stripping off of the sinful body, of putting on Christ and His virtues, cf. Gal 3:27, and of burial with Christ, cf. Rom 6:4.
Of course, all this is not performed by hands, although it invariably accompanies water Baptism performed by hands.
As in the visible action of Baptism a man is immersed in water three times and then raised from the water, so also, by the mysterious action of grace that accompanies it, a man is buried with Christ and rises with Him.
All this, that is, the mortification of the very power of sin and inward regeneration in the mystery of baptism, the false philosophers, according to the Apostle's thought, can neither promise nor provide to their followers by their various mystical devices and rites. It is noteworthy that the Apostle compares baptism with burial. Here one hears an indication of the immersion, and not the pouring, mode of baptism as the customary manner of this mystery in apostolic times, a refutation of the Catholics.
In explaining what Christians have received through Jesus Christ, the Apostle first speaks of baptism. He explains that circumcision was a type of baptism in the sense of cutting away sinfulness.
This is expressed still more visibly in baptism, when one is immersed in water in the image of dying and raised from the font in the image of rising. Thus the believer baptized by the power of Christ rises from the font alive and cleansed from sin, and therefore capable of eternal life.
The circumcised had the shadow, or type, of the removal of sinfulness. The uncircumcised were in the full power of sin and of death, which follows inseparably from it as consequence and punishment. Therefore all were dead.
All who believed in Christ and were baptized Christ made alive, just as the Father made Him alive by raising Him from the dead.
Together with new life in Christ, the cleansing of all sins is also granted. In the same way, together with raising from the depth of the watery immersion, salvation from death and cleansing from the defilement of the body are given.
Thus the first gifts of Christ are deliverance from sin and eternal death. Holiness and eternal life in Christ are inseparably joined to them. This is why at baptism it is sung: "As many as have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ."
Almost all the most important interpreters, when explaining the deep meaning of the Apostle's words that define the meaning and power of baptism, dwell with special attention on the comparison of baptism with circumcision.
From this comparison the conclusion naturally follows that the Colossian Christians were being deceived by Judaizers, who praised circumcision, feasts, and their fasts (vv. 16-18).
Thus, according to Chrysostom, the Apostle speaks as though saying: "Now circumcision is not from the knife, but from Christ Himself. Not a hand, as there, performs this circumcision, but the Spirit. Not a part is circumcised, but the whole man.
"This is a body, and that is a body. But that is circumcised fleshly, while this is circumcised spiritually. It is not as with the Jews, for you put off not flesh, but sins."
"Bodily circumcision brings no benefit to those circumcised, but the removal of sinfulness through baptism grants true salvation," says blessed Theodoret.
"It must be supposed," says Bishop Theophan, "that all such expressions, such as burial together and rising together, were needed as a counterweight to the speculations of the seducing philosophers. This applies to all of them, not only to 'circumcision not made with hands.'"
"Christian circumcision is the circumcision of the heart by the Spirit, through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, in which a man casts off from himself the tyranny of sin."
"When you were baptized, you then cast off the body of sin. Then you were circumcised. The Blood of the Lord, pouring over you through the baptismal water, washed all impurity from you and opened entrance into your nature for the grace of the Holy Spirit.
"When He came, He cut away that by which sin held you in its power, and the body of sin fell away from you. They are buried together with the Lord in baptism by receiving the redeeming power of Christ's Blood and death, and at the same time by dying to sin."
"Freedom from sin is one side of baptism, so to speak, the preparatory side. Its positive side consists in rising together with Christ."
"To rise together with Christ is the same as to put on the new man (Col 3:10; Eph 4:24; Rom 6:4). The necessary condition on man's side is faith in the power, or might, of God."
"Faith in God's almighty power, manifested with extraordinary force in the resurrection of Jesus Christ, mediates in the soul of the Christian faith in his own resurrection. That is, faith in rebirth to new life" (I. Mukhin; cf. Rom 10:9), "the life of the age to come" (Theodoret).
They have nothing to seek in fleshly circumcision either, whose necessity the Judaizers continued to preach. The goal to which fleshly circumcision pointed was the mortification of the old, fleshly man.
This goal had already been attained by the Colossians through receiving Baptism, which the Apostle calls a circumcision performed by Christ Himself.
They, like all Christians, rose together with Christ to new life by the power of their faith in the almighty power of God, which was most clearly expressed in the Resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.
You were circumcised, he says, with the circumcision of Christ, "having been buried with Him in baptism." When you were baptized, you then cast off the body of sin. Then you were circumcised. All these actions were accomplished in one moment.
The Blood of the Lord, pouring over you through the baptismal water, washed away all sinful impurity from you. It opened entrance into your nature for the grace of the Holy Spirit.
When He came, He cut away that by which sin held you in its power, and the body of sin fell away from you. This is the power of baptism.
In it they are buried together with the Lord. They mystically receive the redeeming power of the Blood and death of Christ, and at the same time they die to sin.
Death to sin is the planting in the heart of hatred and aversion toward it. This comes from feeling its bitterness and destructive power, together with feeling the ineffable sweetness of life according to God.
Both of these are born again in the believer before baptism, when he inclines toward faith. Yet they are only dispositions and presentiments. In the mystery of baptism, grace descends upon them and communicates to them divine strength of constancy and power for all time, as long as the will remains on their side.
"In whom also you were raised together through faith in the working of God, who raised Him from the dead." You were raised together in the same place where you were buried together, that is, in holy baptism.
"Baptism is not only a tomb. See what he says: 'In whom also you were raised together'" (Saint Chrysostom). But as the burial together was spiritual, so also the rising together is spiritual.
The former is death to sin. The latter is enlivening for life according to God, so that we might walk in newness of life, as Saint Paul says in the Epistle to the Romans (cf. Rom 6:4).
"In whom," εν ω, may refer both to baptism and to the Lord and Savior. Whichever way it is taken, the thought does not change. Yet the flow of speech requires that it refer to the Lord, because everything is being said about Him.
Blessed Theodoret and Oecumenius refer "you were raised together" to the resurrection from the dead. Blessed Theophylact refers it to both, that is, both to rising in spirit and to the future resurrection.
The first writes: "The Apostle proclaims the resurrection, since we still have mortal nature." Oecumenius says the same: "Having believed that God is able to raise from the dead, you also have risen. For in baptism we have been raised, though only in potentiality, not yet in actuality."
These are the words of blessed Theophylact: "We have risen in the Lord in two ways. We have risen by the hope of the resurrection, so certain that it is as though we had already obtained it, although it is still to come.
"We have also risen spiritually, having cast off the deadness of sin and received enlivening by the spirit."
According to the flow of speech, it is more direct to understand here the spiritual resurrection, or the reception of power to live according to God in renewed life.
For immediately after this (Col 2:13), it is said that God made them, the Colossians, who were dead in sins, alive together with Christ. This is evidently because He made them alive for a life opposed to sin.
"Through faith in the working of God, who raised Him from the dead." If in "you were raised together" one sees the future glorious resurrection received by undoubting hope, then the sense is: by faith in the working of God, that is, in God's omnipotence, that He is able to raise.
He showed this by the example of raising the Lord and Savior. Thus blessed Theodoret says: "Believing in the power of God, we await the resurrection, having as our pledge the resurrection of the Master Christ." Blessed Theophylact repeats the same.
But if in "you were raised together" one sees resurrection in spirit, or enlivening for life according to God, then the sense is this. You rose together because of your faith, by the action of God, who raised Christ the Savior from the dead.
You rose spiritually by divine action received through faith. This action is the same in kind as that by which Christ the Lord rose from the dead.
Saint Paul also sets them side by side in the Epistle to the Romans: "We were buried with Him through baptism into death, that as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we also should begin to walk in newness of life" (cf. Rom 6:4).
Ambrosiaster partly understands this in this way. Blessed Theophylact remarks that, although Christ's resurrection is here attributed to God the Father, nevertheless it is also the action of the Lord Jesus Himself.
"Christ," says the Apostle, "having accepted bodily death, was made alive by the Father." He speaks this way not because Christ the Lord was Himself too weak to make Himself alive, but in order to refer all things to one source.
That the Lord's resurrection is also His own action, He Himself says: "In three days I will raise it up," speaking of the temple of His body (cf. Jn 2:19). In Acts it is also said that after His Passion He presented Himself alive (cf. Acts 1:3).
Our spiritual resurrection is not accomplished by the action of God the Father alone. It is accomplished according to the good pleasure of God the Father, in the sanctification of the Spirit, for obedience and sprinkling with the Blood of Jesus Christ (cf. 1 Pet 1:2).
Oecumenius, while explaining spiritual circumcision, draws an inference concerning the action of the Most Holy Trinity in it.
Passages read together with this verse.
Greek text, 21 words with lemma, transliteration and Strong’s number. Tap to expand.
THEOSIS