What Baptism Confesses

The Christian life can be summed up by the word confession. The word for confession in the Greek literally means to say the same thing. The Christian is one who says the same thing that God says. Thus, our life should be summed up in confessing two things. We confess our sinfulness, and we confess our righteousness. These two confessions seem at odds, but baptism into Christ enables us to say both things truly.

Apart from Christ we are dirty and stained by sin, and thus we rest under the just wrath of God. But in your baptism, God says that you are clean and you are righteous. The Christian life is confessing these two things: I’m a sinner made righteous by my union with Jesus. You must learn to say what God says about you. As we learn to confess that, we can’t help but declare, “How great our debt, but greater far is the price He paid.”