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.
For if we are become identified with [him] in the likeness of his death, so also we shall be of [his] resurrection;
Paul has just asked how people who died to sin can keep on living in it, and here is his answer: whoever shares Christ's death shares His resurrection. Older translations say "planted together in the likeness of His death," and writers ask what that joining means and when the resurrection comes.
The verse looks back to baptism. One writer asks what that ceremony means.
What then does baptism mean? It means identification with Christ in His death. It means that we are buried with Him, and that we are put under obligation to walk in newness of life, just as He was raised into a new order of things. This is its meaning and this the obligation it lays on us, and we lose much if we do not know it.
Translators have handled the word behind that older phrase in different ways.
"Identified" seems a loose translation. The word means, as a note on it says, "grown together," and the Revised Version's "united," which most commentators follow, seems better. There is no "Him" in the original, but it is clearly implied. Read that way, the passage argues this: if what baptism stands for is real in the soul, and in it — "the likeness of His death" — they were truly united with Him and not united in profession only, then the result would show in the practical "likeness of His resurrection," that "walk in newness of life" he had spoken of just before.
The logic rests on where Christ Himself stands.
Where the head of the race stands in relation to sin is where everyone under that head stands. Christ has died to sin. Christians, therefore, have died to it. So we have been planted together in the likeness of His death, and now wait for the likeness of His resurrection.
Commentators differ over the timing. Some read the second half as pointing on to the day when God raises the believer's body.
The fifth verse looks on to the future. For, as surely as Christ Himself is raised, we shall be raised in fact, and fully delivered then, even as to our bodies.
One writer uses that certainty against the idea that only some believers will share it. He sums up the verse: "so also we (not some only) shall be of His resurrection" (William Kelly).
Others read the future tense as marking result, not date. The chapter argues about how we live now.
The likeness of His death is baptism itself, and being united to Him in His death is what baptism represents. So if what baptism represents is fulfilled in us, then we shall also be in the likeness of His resurrection. This may well go on to full realization in physical resurrection, yet it is surely meant to have a present, practical application as well, in keeping with the whole drift of the thought here. "We shall be" has to be future only when we look at it from the point of union with Him in His death, and its force as an argument for the present is weakened if we limit it to the body.
Another writer puts it in one line. The "shall" of this verse "is not future but consequence" (The Bible Treasury).
One writer points out what Paul does not say here.
He does not go into the truth taught in Ephesians, but we find here what exactly fits the subject he is treating. He does not speak of being made alive together with Christ, or of being raised up and seated in Him in the heavenly places. Instead he says, "If we are planted together in the likeness of His death, we shall be also in the likeness of His resurrection."
On this reading the verse points to resurrection life at work in the believer now. The same writer puts it plainly: "if planted in the likeness of His death, we shall be of His resurrection; that is, the power of His life will show itself in us" (J. N. Darby).
- Union. "Planted together" means grown together. It is a real joining with Christ, not one in profession only.
- Death first. Baptism pictures burial with Christ. The verse starts there, and that identification brings an obligation: walk in newness of life.
- Head and members. Christ's condition as to sin settles the condition of all who stand under Him: He died to it, so they have died to it.
- Resurrection follows. The two halves hold together. Commentators differ on "we shall be": some point to the body raised at Christ's coming, some to the result seen now, and several allow both.
- Life shown. Romans holds back the language of being raised and seated with Christ. It presses instead the power of His life at work in the believer's daily walk.