What does "baptized into his death" mean in Romans 6:3?

(V. 3). Those of us who have been baptized with Christian baptism — i.e. baptised to Jesus Christ — were baptized to His death. We were in the figure of baptism, identified with the death of Christ in order to have part down here in the position which His death sets us in relation to sin and the world. Baptism is a figure of death and burial. It is evident that a dead man has done with the life of self-will in which he once lived, and a buried man has passed out of the sight of the world in which he once lived.

The apostle replies from the starting-point of each confessor of Christ. Not merely did He die for our sins, laying us under an infinite obligation, but we died to sin:* how then shall we longer live in it? This is the meaning of our baptism. Are you ignorant of so plain a truth? It is not some special quality of blessing that is the privilege of a few Christians only; it is the common property of all the baptized. As many of us as were baptized unto Christ Jesus were baptized unto His death.

Thus is laid down clearly and beyond question the fundamental truth that not more surely did Christ die for us, than we died to sin in His death. Our baptism sets forth this as well as that. The conclusion is inevitable: "We were buried then with him by baptism unto death, that, as Christ was raised from among the dead by the glory of the Father, so we also should walk in newness of life."

Baptism means identification with Christ. As Christ died and was buried so we have been baptised (Romans 6:2.3). Baptism also speaks of other things, for instance that the person baptised becomes a disciple (Jn 4:1.2 and 1 Cor. 10:2) etc. but the point here in Romans 6 is that we are identified with Christ in His death, i.e. have died with him.

The apostle now refutes the idea that this great grace permits of continuance of sin. It is only conferred on the ground that our condemned, sinful Adam-life has been ended before God in the death of Jesus (vv. 1, 2). He who is baptized unto Christ Jesus (N.T.), and thus into the profession of Christianity, owns this by his baptism. Such is the significance of the act. We are baptized unto His death. It is not our death, but His. Our profession in baptism is that we take the position assigned to us by the death of Christ. There cannot therefore be a continuance in the life which is ended before God, and which faith owns to be judicially closed. We can now walk in newness of life, after the pattern of Christ risen. When His connection with sin (on the cross) was, closed in death, He was raised again from the dead. Sin, though once put to Him for us, has now been judged and ruled out as a mode of life by His death; and He is alive again in perfect suitability to the Father's glory. In one sense this was not newness of life to Him; He had ever been pleasing to God. But such a life is indeed newness of life to us!

Now the initial ordinance of baptism unto Jesus Christ is intended to teach the signal lesson of our identification with death: we “were baptized unto His death.” Water baptism is of course spoken of, and the teaching is not, therefore, concerning eternal life. But by baptism we are associated with the death of Christ. “Therefore we are buried with Him by baptism unto death.” The act of baptism is burial in identification with the Lord. Thus I signify having done with flesh — baptism being, not the expression or result of death, but the figure of death, which I acknowledge, publicly associating with Him who has been crucified, as taking the same sentence upon myself. The figure is of course based on the fact of the death of the Lord Jesus. But following this as an essential, logical consequence, our practical responsibility is based upon the fact of Christ being raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father. If Christ has been raised from the dead in a perfectly new condition of life, it is in this sphere of life that I am to live — certainly not in the old ungodly sphere of corrupted life which has already come under sentence of death.

Further "as many of us as were baptised to Christ Jesus were baptised to His death". To introduce the notion of regeneration into Baptism is as absurd as it is misleading and destructive. Every Scripture passage which speaks of Baptism shows death to be set forth, therein, not life. In the power of a new life received we renounce the old, and we take our place in Baptism as once and forever outside all that Christ is outside of. This separates us definitely from the whole world-system. Its aims, its pleasures, its politics, its honours and rewards, are henceforward for us reckoned amongst the "things which are behind" (Phil. 3:13). 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 of a correct mode, while in heart refusing all that Baptism stands for. This lands us in unreality scarcely to be distinguished from that which the Lord condemned so unsparingly in the Pharisees of His time.

The one baptism is necessarily Christian baptism and is our committal to all that is involved in the truth of Christ Jesus (Romans 6:3). 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 under which we are passed is an emblem of death and an understanding of our identification with Christ dead and risen again, teaches us that we are no more at liberty to be under sin's dominion, no more available for sin's control. He — Christ — lives unto God; every pulsation, every movement of His risen manhood is Godward; for the accomplishment of God's will and pleasure.

The truth is very plain—the believer has died to sin. That is a settled thing; then how shall he live in sin? The believer is not told to die to sin. We sometimes hear the remark, “You must die to sin,” but Scripture is very careful to say that the believer has died to sin (v. 2). Baptism “unto Christ Jesus” sets forth that the one so baptized is done with sin, because in being baptized to Him be is baptized unto His death. Christ has died to sin, and in baptism the believer has been buried with Him. We are not to be ignorant as to this matter. It is “with Christ” we have died. The scene of death was at the cross; not within the believer, but “with Christ.” We are dead with Him and buried with Him.

So baptism does not witness externally to an internal reality. It is not that I am baptised because I am dead, but owning the death of Christ and all that which was involved in it in the judgment of God on the flesh. I accept death with Christ by baptism, as Paul says, "Know ye not that as many as were baptised unto Christ were baptised unto His death. Therefore we are buried with Him by baptism unto death".

Such is what baptism signifies. It is not the sign of life-giving but of death-giving so to speak — that is to say, it brings the believer into this place of death with Christ. It is the outward expression that if I have got Christ at all, the Christ I have is a Christ that died and rose again; and when I am baptized, I am "baptized unto his death."

This is immense comfort. "So many of us as were baptized unto Christ Jesus were baptized unto his death. Therefore we are buried with him by baptism unto death: that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life. For if we have been planted together in the likeness of his death, we shall be also [in the likeness] of [his] resurrection."