<p>2:12 <i>Having been buried with him in baptism, by which you were also raised with him through faith in the working of God, who raised him from the dead- </i>AV &quot;the operation of God&quot;. See on 2:11. Baptism is effective because we are to believe that God will now work in us to allow the life of the risen Lord to break forth in our mortal flesh. The faith required before baptism is therefore not merely an understanding of past events, but more importantly a belief that God's <i>energeia</i>, His energy, will operate in the transforming of our hearts and lives. The act of baptism alone doesn't save; it saves through our faith in God's operation to save us. Tit. 3:5 speaks of baptism as &quot;the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Spirit&quot;; but we have to believe in that &quot;working of God&quot; as Paul here puts it in Colossians. Baptism is paralleled with circumcision, which was a cutting off of the flesh. Our flesh, the mind of the flesh, will be cut off by God, as an ongoing process, once we make the connection with Christ in baptism. The parallel in Ephesians is Eph. 1:19,20, which speak of how the same unbounded power which raised the dead body of Jesus from the dead will likewise work in the hearts of us who believe. </p>