The Pharisees had spoken of people being called to carry ‘the yoke of the Torah’, the heavy burden of the Jewish law with all its commandments. Jesus offered a different ‘yoke’, which, because it came from his mercy and love, was easy to bear.
N. T. Wright
Baptism, rather, functions as shorthand for the conversion experience as a whole.
Douglas J. Moo
Baptism is the public, physical and visible way in which someone is marked out, branded almost, with the holy ‘name’
