Baptized
into Christ
The word "baptized" is not the translation of the
Greek work in Romans 6:3-4, but a transliteration spelling it out in English letters. The
word in the original language means to dip. The figurative use of the word means to take
on a new identification. After I dip a white shirt into red dye I no longer refer to it as
the “white shirt,” but the red shirt. It has a new identification.
The
apostle Paul wrote, "Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into
Christ Jesus have been baptized into His death?" (v. 3).
The
word Baptizo in Romans six means "the introduction or placing of a person or
thing into a new environment or into union with something else so as to alter its
condition or its relationship to its previous environment or condition."
Paul is
referring to the act of God when He introduces a believing sinner into a vital union with
Jesus Christ. In this vital relationship the power of his sinful nature is broken and the
divine nature implanted through his identification with Christ in His death, burial and
resurrection. The believer's relation to his previous state and environment is changed and
he now has a new environment which is defined as being "in Christ."
God placed us in Christ when He died so that we might share His death
and thus come into the benefits of that identification with Him. We were placed in a
new environment, Christ. We have a vital union with Christ. Paul
declares we re "in Christ." In our new environment in Christ we have righteousness and
life. Our condition is changed from that of a sinner to that of a saint.
The Holy
Spirit baptized us into Christ. He placed us in Christ in order that we might share His
death and be separated from the evil nature. He also placed us in Christ in order that we
might share His resurrection and have His divine life imparted to us. The Spirit of the
resurrected Christ imparts to us a new quality of life. It is a new source of life that
God imparts to us. It is only through this new source of life that we have the ethical and
spiritual energy to live the Christian life.
Why did
God do this for us? We share Christ's resurrection in order that we may order our
behavior in the power of this new life. With the power of this new power we
can consistently say no to sin and yes to the indwelling Christ. We do not have to
sustain the same relationship to sin that we were in the habit of before we became
Christians.
"Therefore
we have been buried with Him, through baptism into death, in order that as Christ was
raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of
life" (v. 4).
Water
baptism symbolizes the power of the sinful nature being broken, because we are dead in
Christ, and the divine power that we have in our identification with His resurrection. We
have now been permanently delivered from the power of sin. God has imparted to us a divine
nature, new life, spiritual birth and we can now respond to it rather than sin.
The
apostle Paul commands us to live "as instruments of righteousness unto God"
(Rom. 6:13). We do not do this in our strength, but in His power of the resurrection.
It is a
resurrection that restores the lost image of God, in which we were
created by making us to awake in the likeness of Christ. We are new
creatures in Christ Jesus.
One day
when Christ returns we will stand with Him with resurrected bodies in glory. Our
whole nature, body, soul and spirit" will be "made alive in Christ."
And if we are in our Lord, our physical restitution is assumed to us
with equal certainty with our spiritual.
We
enjoy the righteousness of Christ now and on the great day of the resurrection we will be
clad in the incorruptible glory of redeemed bodies (Rom. 6:9; Rev. 20:6).
We
share in the resurrection power today (Cot 3:1,3). The believer cannot deliberately live
in sin because we have this new relationship and identification with Christ. We have died
to the old life, and have been raised up to enjoy a new life in Christ. Because we are
alive in Christ we are admonished to "walk in newness of life by abiding in
Christ."
Dead in
Christ—risen from the dead—alive in Christ and free to walk in the newness of
His life.
Selah!
Message by Wil Pounds (c) 2006
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