Note: Paul alone puts baptism, as far as I am aware, on the ground of death and resurrection with Christ. Thus it becomes the means of doctrinally bringing the Christian on to the point where, on the new ground and in a new position, he is united to Christ as Head. In Romans, he only carries it out to the individual position, but in Colossians he uses it not as union, of course, but as that which, by taking out of flesh into what is beyond it, is the inseparable introduction into holding the Head. It is only life, but life hid with Christ in God. But he introduces holding the Head as the necessary and inseparable consequence, only the Holy Ghost is not brought in in this Epistle. The connection is in chapter 1:18, not the same, but connected, so immediately in Christ. Hence it glimmers though not unfolded, as in chapter 1:24,25, and chap. 2:19.