IDENTIFICATION

I have been crucified with Christ, and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself up for me.

-Galatians 2:20

The doctrine of baptism has long been misunderstood, misrepresented, and, in many cases, trivialized within modern Christianity. Often reduced to a ceremonial ritual or a public rite of passage, baptism has been stripped of its theological gravity and spiritual potency. For some, it becomes a spectacle of self-expression; for others, a mystical moment of automatic absolution. But Scripture reveals something deeper, weightier, and with everlasting significance. Baptism is not about ceremony. It is not about spectacle. It is about IDENTIFICATION.

When Jesus approached John the Baptist to be baptized, John was understandably bewildered. "I need to be baptized by You, and do You come to me?" (Matthew 3:14). John's objection was not rooted in rebellion, but in reverence. He understood Jesus' sinlessness and supremacy. Yet Jesus insisted: "Let it be so now; for thus it is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness" (Matthew 3:15).

Christ's baptism was not a mere example for us to follow. It was a profound act of IDENTIFICATION. Though the eternal Son of God had already taken on flesh in the incarnation, it was in His baptism that He publicly and powerfully identified Himself with fallen humanity. Here, the spotless Lamb aligned Himself with sinners not to confess sin, but to carry it. It was at this moment that His earthly ministry began, marked by the visible descent of the Holy Spirit and the affirming voice of the Father: "This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased."

For the believer, baptism is no mere ritual. It is not a magical bath for the washing away of original sin. Rather, it is a sacred act of perfect union and IDENTIFICATION with Christ Jesus in His death, burial, and resurrection. As Paul writes:

"Or do you not know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death? Therefore we were buried with Him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we too may walk in newness of life. For if we have been united with Him in the likeness of His death, we will certainly also be in the likeness of His resurrection." -Romans 6:3-5

Baptism signifies more than a moment. It marks a lifetime and lifestyle of IDENTIFICATION with Christ Jesus. It is the external proclamation of an internal transformation: "I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me" (Galatians 2:20). To be baptized into Christ is to say, with every fiber of our being, "Not my will, but Yours be done." It is to herald in the way we live in Gospel Community, "He must increase; I must diminish."

Today, many people are quick to elevate other aspects of their lives as their primary identity. Ethnicity, color, political affiliation, sexual orientation, nationalism, or social movements—whether it's BLM, LGBTQ+, MAGA, cultural societies, or ethnic pride—other things often take precedence over the one IDENTITY that truly matters as the only one that endures: being a new creation in Christ. It exposes that we have abandoned Christ as our FIRST LOVE (Rev 2:4). When our identity is found in anything other than Jesus, it reveals a heart that has not been fully surrendered to Him. Christ calls us not to attach ourselves to transient, temporal, fleeting, worldly categories, but to die to self and find our entire IDENTITY in Him.

When Jesus gave the Great Commission, He commanded His disciples to go and disciple all nations, "baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit" (Matthew 28:19). The Greek participle used here is present active: "baptizing" — ongoing, continual. While the act of Believer's Baptism by immersion needs only to occur once, the ONGOING ministry of baptism never ceases. It is a lifelong immersion into the life of the Triune God through the community of Christ's Body & Bride, the Church.

Acts 2:42-46 describes this ongoing baptismal identity: "They devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer... Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts." This is not religious activity; it is the lived reality of being in Christ, with His people, under His Word, by His Spirit. Baptism is the entrance into this reality. But to remain in it is the test of true IDENTIFICATION.

To treat baptism as a "one and done" experience is to expose a shallow (mis)understanding of union with Christ. If we are truly buried with Him, then we no longer live for ourselves. If Christ truly lives in us, then we live through Him, by Him, and for Him. Baptism that fails to lead to transformation within Gospel Community, i.e., SANCTIFICATION, is not biblical baptism at all. It is counterfeit.

As Paul warns in 2 Corinthians 13:5, "Examine yourselves, to see whether you are in the faith. Test yourselves. Do you not realize this about yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you?—unless indeed you fail to meet the test!" Biblical baptism is not the end of a journey. It is the beginning of total surrender. It is a public declaration of one's commitment to lifelong IDENTIFICATION with Jesus Christ as Savior, Lord, and Life. It is the public declaration that we are not our own, but bought with a price. And it is in and through our daily dying to self that we reveal we truly are living for God.

IDENTIFICATION with Christ isn't optional. It's essential. It begins—but does not end—in the waters of baptism, where the fullness of our IDENTITY is found in Christ.

Blessings & love,

Kevin M. Kelley

Pastor

BigIslandChristianChurch.com