May 22, 2025 - Romans 6:3,4 - "Baptized with Christ"

Romans 6:3,4

"Know ye not, that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into his death?

Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into 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."

Many people interpret this portion of Scripture as referring to water baptism. While it is true that water baptism is a confession of Faith and symbolizes the death, burial, and resurrection of the LORD Jesus Christ, that is not what Paul is describing here. Water baptism cannot purify or remove sin—but the baptism of Christ does. These verses do not refer to His baptism in water; rather, they point to His death. The LORD Jesus Himself referred to His death as a baptism of fire that He would endure, and the word baptism means “an immersion.”

So complete was Christ’s work in His obedience unto death, that His baptism with fire was the full endurance of the wrath of God. This fire signifies the justice of God. It is not that the Father hated His Son in any way—for He loved Him unto the end—but Christ willingly bore the wrath that was due unto the people He came to save. Thus, He was entirely immersed in that fire, consumed as The Sacrifice. Even as in the Old Testament, the burnt offering was wholly consumed upon the altar, and the smoke ascended as a sweet savour unto God, so Christ gave Himself wholly in sacrifice. It is written: "And walk in love, as Christ also hath loved us, and hath given himself for us an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet smelling savour" (Ephesians 5:2).

"Know ye not?"—This is a truth not commonly known by all, but the apostle writes to those who have been regenerated by the Spirit of God, taught of Christ, and have seen in Him their full and perfect justification before God through His death, burial, and resurrection. In Romans 4:25 and 5:1, these truths are closely connected: “Who was delivered for our offences, and was raised again for our justification. Therefore, being justified, by faith we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.” He was delivered up on account of our offenses—that is, the sins of those sinners that the Father had given Him—and was raised again because of our justification. The word “for” in that verse signifies “because of,” not “to.” Thus, His resurrection did not accomplish the act of justifying, but was the declaration that justification was already accomplished, finished, when He offered Himself once for all.

There is that knowledge that the Spirit of God gives to those for whom Christ paid the debt, and that the Father gave Him from all eternity. He says, "that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into His death?" The way that's written, it's not talking about individual water baptism, and it's also speaking in the past tense as if those who were baptized were all baptized at one time, in one place, and one Person, because it says we're "baptized into Jesus Christ." But how? We were baptized (immersed) into His death. Christ and Him crucified. When He died, they were altogether buried with Him in the waters of the death of His sacrifice.

So in Christ we live by Grace according to the work of the LORD Jesus Christ, and what He has accomplished. When it speaks there in verse 3 of having been baptized into Jesus Christ and baptized into His death, it's talking about His death; that just as when He died, He was plunged into that death. He died. That means that that judgment was rendered for everyone for whom He died. So if He died for me, when He died, I died.

"Therefore, we are buried with Him by baptism into death." That's not talking about water baptism. It's a one-time burial. It's not a continual burying, but it says here, "by baptism into death: that like as: Christ was raised up from the dead."  There's the clear connection that this baptism here is not speaking of water baptism, but the baptism of His death, "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" (Romans 6:4). To walk in newness of life does not mean that, now that Christ has paid our debt and the Spirit of God has revealed Him in us, we shall never again struggle with sin. Rather, it means walking in the power and reality of that new life which Christ has accomplished on behalf of sinners such as we are. It is not the presumption that the sinful flesh is entirely eradicated, but the recognition that we are no longer under the dominion of the old man (Adam). To walk in this newness is to never trust in the flesh, never return to the law to establish some personal righteousness of our own, but to reckon ourselves “dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord” (Romans 6:11). It means that, by the Spirit of God, our hearts and eyes are fixed only upon Christ, in Whom our life is hid and by Whom we live.