In Romans 6:3–4 Paul assumes that every Christian already knows that he has been baptized into Christ. His point here is to show us specifically what this means. Don’t you know, he says, “that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus have been baptized into His death”? In the context he reminds us that Jesus died for our sins not only in the sense that He paid their penalty, but also in that He died to defeat sin and destroy its power and do away with it (see 6:6–10). And every Christian has come within the scope of this sin-destroying force of the death of Christ; we have tapped into its lethal power. When did we do this? In our baptism. There is absolutely no indication that this union with Christ in His death happened as soon as we believed or repented. We did not believe into His death; we did not repent into His death. Paul explicitly says we “have been baptized into His death” (v. 3). If this is not plain enough, he repeats the idea in verse 4: “We have been buried with Him through baptism into death.” Those who say that our union with Christ in His death, and thus our own death to sin, occurred before baptism are simply not taking the text at its word. The idea that baptism as a burial implies that death has already occured is an inference that goes contrary to the text itself. Romans 6:4 does not say we are buried in baptism because we have already died; it says we are buried through baptism into death.
What is true of our union with Christ in His death is true also of our union with Him in His resurrection. This passage does not speak explicitly of our being baptized into Christ’s resurrection or being raised up with Christ in baptism, but the implication is quite clear. The logical and chronological connection between death and resurrection is such that union with Christ in resurrection could certainly not occur prior to union with Him in death. Verse 4 specifically says that we were buried with Him through baptism into death for the very purpose of experiencing resurrection with Him, too. “For if we have become united with Him in the likeness of His death, certainly we shall be also in the likeness of His resurrection” (v. 5). Colossians 2:12 does explicitly say that our resurrection with Christ occurs in baptism. (This passage will be discussed fully in a later chapter.)
Paul is telling us, then, that the historical events of the saving work of Jesus have their counterpart or fulfillment in a specific historical event in the life of every Christian, namely, our baptism. Christ’s crucifixion and resurrection are the events which save us, but the power of these saving acts is applied to us in baptism. As Oepke says, “Baptism … is for individuals the actualisation of this relation to salvation history.” Just as Christ really died and rose again, in our baptism we too really died and rose again in a spiritual sense by virtue of our being brought into a relationship with His death and resurrection at that point.
It would certainly not be out of place to comment at this point on the propriety of immersion as the only valid form of baptism. The reference to baptism as a burial with Christ (v. 4; see Col. 2:12) in itself underscores this fact. But the concept of burial should not be emphasized in isolation from the aspects of death and resurrection. In fact, the dying and rising with Christ are the main elements of baptism; burial is in a sense only incidental to these. Or rather, the main point is the full and unbroken sequence of death, burial, and resurrection, all of which are represented by the single act of baptism. It cannot be disputed that immersion is the only form of baptism that pictures this whole sequence; no other form even comes close. This connection must be intentional; God appointed immersion for this purpose because of its unique ability visually to represent death, burial and resurrection—both Christ’s and our own.
This acknowledges that baptism is a symbolic representation of a deeper reality, an “outward sign of an inward grace,” as the common description goes. This is a truth denied by practically no one. The serious error often connected with this truth, however, is that baptism symbolizes a reality that has already occurred. This would be true if we were thinking only of the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus; in this case it does symbolize a past reality. But this is not true with regard to ourselves. In our case Scripture consistently teaches that baptism as the external symbol occurs simultaneously with the spiritual reality it is symbolizing. In Romans 6 that reality is the death and burial of our old life of sin and our resurrection to new life. It is a reality that occurs because we are “baptized into Christ.”
Cottrell, Jack. 1989. Baptism: A Biblical Study. Joplin, MO: College Press Publishing Company.
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