Are you ignorant that we, as many as have been baptised unto Christ Jesus, have been baptised unto his death?
Paul has just said that grace overflows where sin abounded. Someone is bound to twist that into a licence to keep sinning. His reply is not a warning but a reminder. He points the Roman Christians back to their own baptism, and to what that act said about them.
The question in verse 3 is not new information. It points to something every believer has had since the day they confessed Christ.
The apostle answers from the starting point of every person who confesses Christ. Not only did He die for our sins, laying us under an infinite obligation, but we died to sin: how then shall we go on living in it? This is the meaning of our baptism. Are you ignorant of so plain a truth? It is not a special blessing that only a few Christians enjoy; it is the common property of all the baptized.
Here the commentators part company with many modern versions. Several argue the Greek preposition should read "to" or "unto" rather than "into." The difference matters, because it guards against the idea that the act itself does the work.
The Greek preposition means "to" or "unto" as often as "into." Which one it is depends on the context, or on the nature of the case. It is impossible to think that the Israelites in 1 Corinthians 10:2 were baptized into Moses; there the word must be "unto."… Baptism is the symbol of profession. Reality depends on faith, and faith might or might not be true of the person baptized… To say "into" therefore goes beyond God's word. It claims for the act a life-giving power that Scripture does not grant and does not allow… Not everyone has faith, and baptism will no more save an unbeliever than a dead faith will.
Baptism pictures a funeral, and a funeral has two obvious effects on the person concerned.
In the figure of baptism we were identified with the death of Christ. This was so that we might share, here and now, in the position His death gives us in relation to sin and the world. Baptism is a figure of death and burial. It is clear that a dead man has finished with the life of self-will he once lived. And a buried man has passed out of the sight of the world he once lived in.
Baptism points to a particular Christ, and that is why it carries this meaning at all.
They were baptized to a Christ who had died to sin, and we are buried with Him by baptism to death. John baptized to a living Messiah on earth; Christian baptism is to a Christ who has died and risen again. This is why the disciples of John in Acts 19 had to be baptized again in the name of the Lord Jesus. He had died and risen, and God had made Him Lord and Christ.
If the meaning is burial, then the effect is a clean break with everything on this side of the grave.
Now baptism is, in one word, dissociation. It is only an outward ordinance, yet it has a meaning, and that is its meaning. It is based on the death and resurrection of Christ, for we are baptized to His death, and so we are "buried with Him." Nothing cuts our links with the world, and separates us from the present order of things, more effectively than death and burial.
That break is easy to admire and hard to accept, which is why the argument turns into a searching question for anyone who has been baptized.
Every passage of Scripture that speaks of baptism sets out death, not life. Baptism marks a definite separation from the whole world-system. From now on we count its aims, its pleasures, its politics, its honours and rewards among the "things that lie behind." But are we really prepared for such a clean sweep as this? This is what our baptism means — but do we mean it? It is easy to boast about a correct mode, while in the heart refusing all that baptism stands for.
Death is not the end of the argument. Baptism commits a Christian to a Christ who is alive, and that life has one direction.
The one baptism is Christian baptism. It commits us to all that is bound up in the truth of Christ Jesus. It announces our identification with the death of our Lord Jesus Christ in all its bearings, and implies our obligation to walk in newness of life. The water we pass under is a picture of death. Understanding our identification with Christ dead and risen again teaches us that we are no longer free to be under sin's dominion, no longer available for sin's control. He — Christ — lives to God. Every pulse, every movement of His risen manhood is Godward, to accomplish God's will and pleasure.
- Death answers the question. Grace does more than give a Christian better motives against sin. It ends the old life, and no one lives in what he has died to.
- Death is what baptism pictures. Not new life, but burial — burial with Christ, the One who died and rose.
- Death separates. A buried man is out of the world's sight, so baptism cuts the links with its aims, pleasures and rewards.
- Death professed must be death meant. Baptism goes no further than profession. Reality rests on faith, and the right form without the heart is empty.
- Death opens onto life. Christ raised lives wholly to God, and baptism commits us to walk in newness of life.
We have been buried therefore with him by baptism unto death, in order that, even as Christ has been raised up from among [the] dead by the glory of the Father, so *we* also should walk in newness of life.
Romans 6 opens with a question: does grace leave us free to keep sinning? Paul answers with a fact, not a rule. The believer has died with Christ, and baptism pictures that burial. This verse then looks past the grave, to a resurrection by the Father's glory and a new way of living that matches it.
The verse answers an objection raised at the start of the chapter.
Is this the conclusion to draw from the gospel of God? May we continue in sin, so that His grace may be displayed more richly? Away with such a thought. The apostle answers this wicked inference, not by showing how evil it is in itself, but by showing that it flatly contradicts Christianity in its first principles. He replies from the starting point of every believer in Christ. Christ did not merely die for our sins, laying us under an infinite obligation; we died to sin. How then shall we go on living in it? This is the meaning of our baptism. It is not some special blessing that only a few Christians have. It is the common property of all the baptized.
Notice how the apostle frames his answer.
He rejects the thought outright and puts it away with another question: "How can we who died to sin still live in it?" Asking it as a question shows how unanswerable he thinks it is. And unanswerable it is, if the premise is taken rightly. If we are dead to sin, then we cannot live in it. That consequence cannot be denied.
One writer stresses what baptism points to, and what it does not do.
Notice, then, that deliverance from sin is not the improvement of self, or of an evil nature — the flesh. Instead, "We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death." We are not baptised to the work of the Spirit in us. We are baptised to His death, who died for us and rose again. So the death that delivers from sin is not a death to sin that we reach by ourselves. It is the death of Christ on the cross, and our identification with it — "buried with him." And notice, there is no thought that baptism gives life. Baptism is to death, and life in the risen Christ is beyond it.
The meaning of this burial is for daily life.
A buried man has died to the scene where he once lived. Now suppose a man goes to his own funeral by his own choice. This is exactly what happens to the believer, and he surely believes he will gain by it. What a loss the believer suffers when he leaves the inner meaning of his baptism out of his daily life!
The verse traces the resurrection to the Father's glory. One writer explains why glory is named.
In relation to God, every attribute of His has been perfectly glorified by the atoning death of our blessed Lord. So the resurrection is said to be "by the glory of the Father." It is as though that glory, which the Son had vindicated and displayed so perfectly, waited for the very first moment at the tomb on the first day of the week. It waited to call the perfect obedient One out from death.
The verse ends by describing how the Christian now lives.
Let us notice the closing words of verse 4, "newness of life," for they give a brief answer to the question the chapter opened with. Instead of continuing in sin, which is in effect continuing to live the old life, we are to walk in a life which is new.
One writer draws out what this new walk aims at.
This suggests to me that there is a realm where everything matches the glory of the Father. That is the realm Christ is in. He has been raised from among the dead by the glory of the Father... It suggests to me that if I am walking in newness of life, the goal before me is the glory of the Father.
Romans speaks of burial with Christ, but not of rising with Him. One writer marks the difference.
He does not say we are risen with Him. That would in itself assume full redemption, with life, and a place and condition before God. Here it is practical — a new character of life. We are to walk in newness of life.
- Died — A fact answers the objection, not a warning: those who died to sin cannot go on living in it.
- Buried — Baptism points to Christ's death. It does not point to self-improvement, and it does not give life. Life lies beyond it, in the risen Christ.
- Raised — Christ came out of the tomb by the Father's glory, because His atoning death had glorified every attribute of God.
- Walking — The new life is practical and present. The glory that raised Christ is now the goal the believer walks towards.
- Not yet risen — Romans stays with burial and a new walk. To say we are risen with Christ would assume more: full redemption and a settled place before God.