ROMANS UNWRAPPED 102

" Know ye not that so many of us as were baptised into Christ Jesus were baptised into His death?"    Romans 6v3

Paul, stating that there is no need for a believer to continue in sin, now takes up Christian baptism as an illustration of our union with Christ.   In verses 3-5 he will develop the thought that we are united to Christ in His death, in His burial and in His resurrection.   To do this there is no better imagery than that of baptism.  

In the New Testament there is no concept of an unbaptised believer .   A reading of all the relevant passages would reveal that baptism was to follow conversion.   Jesus commanded it in the great commission, the apostles practised it in the early church, and the New Testament presents it as an integral part of salvation though not actually saving us.  Simply enough, baptism is a visible symbol to declare what has taken place invisibly between the person and God.     Through the years this has caused much controversy, but it should not have done because it is abundantly clear.   The illustration of Paul in 1st Corinthians 10v1 says that  " all our fathers were baptised unto Moses in the cloud and in the sea ."     There should be no controversy either as to the mode of baptism since the Greek word baptizo   means to immerse, to submerge, to dip, to overwhelm.   It was used to describe the process for dying a garment.   This was done by immersing  the material or garment for 48 hours in a bath to change the colour in such a way that every part of the material was changed.   There is no better illustration of our union with Christ than this.

However, this passage is not so much concerned with the mode of baptism as it is with the meaning: baptism did not change us but the element in which we were immersed (in this case Christ Jesus) did change us, and our visible baptism symbolised what had taken place spiritually.     It is however vital that any mode of baptism would properly convey the true meaning of what has happened.   We are in Christ, we are immersed in Him, He has changed us and we are now united to Him in His death.

I wonder sometimes if we grasp the meaning of these things?   He is talking about the believer not continuing a life of sin.   He introduces our baptism which symbolises our association with the death of Christ.   What is the link?   Your sin caused the death of Christ: because of sin it was necessary for Christ to die.   For God to display His grace to sinners He must deal with sin in Christ.   The penalty of sin was death: for Christ to take our sin He must die.   This was the cost, so do you think that we should continue in sin in the face of that?   Sin caused your death, sin caused Christ to die to save you, so it is quite unreasonable to go on living in sin the very thing that caused the problem.

In His death Christ took all our sin, and He thus separated us from sin.   There is no need for us to continue in sin because we are vitally bonded to Christ in His death and thus we have been disassociated with sin, because we are now associated with Him.  

Tomorrow d.v. united with Christ in His burial.