"Buried with Him by baptism into death......" Romans 6v4.
Paul is attacking the monstrous suggestion that believers can continue in sin; he does this by expounding the truth of the believer's vital union with Christ. He now focuses on the aspect of Christ's burial. Very little is ever made of this aspect yet Paul declares it as an integral part of the gospel " for I delivered unto you first of all that which I also received, how that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures; and that He was buried, and that He rose again the third day according to the scriptures." 1st Corinthians 15 v3-4 We are in association with His death, we are also in association with His burial, because the natural progression from death is burial.
What is the significance of the burial? The answer lies in the repeated mention of three days, or the third day. Matthew 12v40; Matthew 26v61; and many other scriptures make this clear. Jesus pointed out that Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the fish; so the importance of the three days is obvious. Using the law of first mention in the Bible we see in Genesis 30v26 that Laban in a bitter dispute with his son-in-law Jacob wanted to separate his flocks from his, and it says he took his animals three days journey away from him. The significance therefore of three days in the Bible is the idea of complete separation. Perhaps the best illustration of this is in the book of Exodus where Moses entered the courts of Pharaoh and demanded that the people of God, all of them, male and female, with all their children and their flocks would go three days journey into the wilderness to worship their God. In order to worship God, a redeemed people must separate themselves from the world of slavery from which they have come. This is the symbolism here, association with the death of Christ issues in a complete separation from our former way of life, so again argues Paul, we cannot continue in sin we are completely separated from it.
Continuing the imagery from the Exodus narrative in chapters 8 - 10 the tyrant Pharaoh was unwilling to let them go and came up with every ploy to prevent their escape. Under the continued threat of more plagues, Moses made his demands clear, all of them, three days journey of separation. Pharaoh came up with four separate compromises:
- "Go sacrifice to your God in the land." Exodus 8v25
- "Go sacrifice in the wilderness only don't go too far away." Exodus 8v28
- "Go now ye that are men." Exodus 10v11
- "Go serve the Lord only let your flocks remain here." Exodus 10v24
Compromise, compromise, compromise, that is the nature of a godless world, but God makes no compromise. It must be three days journey, all of them with all of their flocks, this is the symbolism of the burial. There is an interesting reference to the scapegoat in Leviticus 16v22 " and the goat shall bear upon Him all their iniquities unto a land not inhabited." The margin reference translates this as "to a land of separation." This is the idea in the burial: the old hymn says " Living He loved me, dying He saved me, buried He carried my sins far away." The scapegoat bore all the sins of the nation into a land of separation , thus in the burial of Christ, God has put a complete separation of His people from their former life. We must understand that what Paul is saying here is not what should be true of us, it is true of us; he is not referring here to what we must do, he is referring to what God has done. Later on he will deal with our practical response to it. In the burial of Christ God has separated His people forever from a world that crucified His Son.
Tomorrow d.v. in union with the resurrection of Christ.
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