This is a baptismal we saw at a Protestant church we discovered while in Jerusalem three years ago (we were in the Christian section of the city). In seeing this picture again, I was reminded of something I read from a book by Jason Meyer, "Don't Lose Heart." It read: Christianity is not about bad people becoming better; it's about dead people becoming alive.
This is the truth Paul writes about in his letter to the Colossians: When you were dead in your trespasses and in the uncircumcision of your sinful nature, God made you alive with Christ. (2:13)
How did this becoming alive take place? Therefore we have been buried with Him through baptism into death, in order than as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life. (Romans 6:4 - NASB). Then Paul wraps up this teaching in verse 11: Even so consider yourselves to be dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus.
In reading the first 11 verses of chapter six of Romans, Paul drives home one point he wants his readers to get - all of this has been done for you and through you in Christ. There is nothing we can do to bring ourselves back to live; we are dead in our sins. God uses the waters of baptism to give us the new life Jesus told Nicodemus about. We are born again. We are alive to God in Christ Jesus.
How will you live out your new life in Christ today?
