J. L. Terveen Colossians 2
12
Burial and Resurrection with Christ. The second in the sequence of metaphors
exploring the mystery of the redemptive work of Christ refers to burial and resurrection.
Once again, as will be seen, the key to understanding this metaphor is the christological
conception of union with Christ, a theme doubly stressed in 2:12 with both "in him"
language and the conceptually allied
-compound verbs.
The participle
may be viewed grammatically as well as
conceptually subordinate to
(2:11a),
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underscoring the full reality of the
death of Christ as completed in his burial. The believers burial with Christ as
symbolized in the baptismal acts faith witness vividly depicts the believer completely
identified with Christ and his death. This first in a series of
-compounds in 2:12-
13,
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overlapping the incorporative and participatory sense of the "in him/Christ"
terminology, emphatically continues the Pauline christological focus on the believers
sharing in Christ.
The dramatically repeated
phrase from 2:11, connected here in 2:12 to
, has caused a split in opinion concerning the referent of the relative
pronoun. A large school of thought refers it to the immediately preceding
.
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Usually those who adopt this view accent baptismal theology, drawing out the imagery of
the believer now rising up from the baptismal waters to newness of life in Christ (Ro.6:3-
4). While this view is certainly possible, the strong accent throughout this passage on
union with Christ, the repetition of the precise phrase
from 2:11 (where it must
refer to Christ), the change to a new finite verbal form, and the willingness of Paul to
combine (some would say too awkwardly) "with Christ" and "in Christ" terminology in
the same passage (as in Eph. 2:6), argues well for taking the relative pronoun as referring