The
one instructed for baptism will have comprehended the
basic “first principles” concerning the
act itself. Therefore these matters need not be raised
here. But what a mere factual presentation on baptism
may fail to make clear is the revolutionary nature of
the act of baptism. It is called in Scripture “a
new creation”, or a spiritual creation, after
the pattern of the physical creation in Genesis. Christ
is the “Creator” in that he is the beginning
and the source of this spiritual “creation”;
it is only through him that we have any new life —
that we become new men and women, with a new family
and new goals and ambitions:
What
shall we say, then? Shall we go on sinning so that
grace may increase? By no means! We died to sin; how
can we live in it any longer? Or don’t you know
that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus
were baptized into his death? We were therefore buried
with him through baptism into death in order that,
just as Christ was raised from the dead through the
glory of the Father, we too may live a new life.
If
we have been united with him in his death, we will
certainly also be united with him in his resurrection.
For we know that our old self was crucified with him
so that the body of sin might be rendered powerless,
that we should no longer be slaves to sin —
because anyone who has died has been freed from sin.
Now
if we died with Christ, we believe that we will also
live with him. For we know that since Christ was raised
from the dead, he cannot die again; death no longer
has mastery over him. The death he died, he died to
sin once for all; but the life he lives, he lives
to God.
In
the same way, count yourselves dead to sin but alive
to God in Christ Jesus. Therefore do not let sin reign
in your mor-tal body so that you obey its evil desires.
Do not offer the parts of your body to sin, as instruments
of wickedness, but rather offer yourselves to God,
as those who have been brought from death to life;
and offer the parts of your body to him as instruments
of righteousness. For sin shall not be your master,
because you are not under law, but under grace”
(Rom. 6:1-14).
As these verses so
beautifully express, baptism is an end as well as
a beginning. It is necessary to see both sides of
the picture. The whole background of baptism is death.
The act of baptism is a recognition that the end of
natural man is death — that all are under the
power of the great enemy — that death casts
a shadow over all life’s hopes and joys.
But this is only part
of the picture. This is the natural side. While baptism
is a recognition of this state, and all the vanity
and sorrow surrounding it, its principal purpose is
to manifest the great deliverance from it that the
love of God has, through Christ, provided. Baptism
is a “death” whose purpose is to make
way for a glorious new “birth”.
Romans 6 is an intense
exhortation to holiness, based on this “death-and-new-birth”
symbolism. A natural son of Adam, a creature born
under the shadow of death and bound by the dominion
of sin, reaches a stage of development where he is
drawn by the power of God voluntarily to choose the
good and holy and divine, and to reject all that is
related to the “kingdom of sin”. This
he does not from fear of consequences, nor even just
from desire for reward, but rather from pure, transforming
love for a glorious Father.
Baptism, while only
the beginning, is the great turning point in life.
The act of baptism is unquestionably the greatest
and most important single act and moment of one’s
entire lifetime. From this one act, and the repentance
and commitment that lead to it, arise all subsequent
meaningful experiences in the believer’s life.
The baptized believer
is a brother in Christ — he has a guaranteed
part in the final victory over sin and death —
as long as he truly abides in Christ. Jesus said to
his disciples, on the night before his death:
“Abide
in me, and I in you...He that abides in me, and I
in him, the same brings forth much fruit...These things
have I spoken unto you, that my joy may remain in
you, and that your joy may be full. This is my commandment:
that ye love one another, even as I have loved you”
(John 15: 4,5,11,12).
It is an essential
requirement of discipleship that we, as brethren,
love one another in the same way he loved us. Of that
love which he has given us as a pattern, he says,
as he continues:
“Greater
love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his
life for his friends” (v. 13).
This
is the love and fellowship to which baptism opens
the door. And the new brother, as he rises from the
cleansing waters, says with Paul:
“I
am crucified with Christ. Nevertheless I live; yet
not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which
I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the
Son of God,who loved me and gave himself for me”
(Gal. 2:20).
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