New Life in Christ Part 2

Intro

Now that Paul has established that God’s grace is not given in order to increase sinning, he gravitates to the discussion of baptism. This is his continuation on the concept of believers dying to sin. Last week we established that believers dying to sin is not mentioned in the same light as an actual physical death. Instead what Paul is communicating is that believers are united with Christ into His death to sin. Believers are not physically part of the offering for sin but they are represented by Christ. Believers do not partficipate in the actual death but reap the benefit of the act of Christ dying a substitutionary death for man on the cross. This is the picture Paul is painting in . Paul is not saying that you must physically die because Christ did that in man’s place so they would not have to die for their sin. However, through Christ’s representation for His followers they have died a similar death in a legal sense. Followers of Christ are no longer enslaved to their sin and flesh but now are freed to be bondservants of Christ!

What is Baptism?

Water, Spirit, or Fire?

The main point of the text is not baptism but instead followers of Christ being delivered from their sin. However, when one is delivered from their sin they are commanded by scripture to be baptized. This is not because of salvation being through baptism but the initial step in the new life of a believer is to be baptized. In order to understand what Paul means here in verse 3 it is crucial to comprehend baptism. Whenever baptism is mentioned in the Bible it is almost exclusively meaning water baptism. There are aguments that what Paul is mentioning here is baptism by Spirit. There are other instances where baptism is referring to baptism by fire. However, whenever scripture is referencing these two it clarifies by stating the specific type of baptism. Therefore, unless otherwise noted, whenever baptism is mentioned it is talking about water baptism. Also, Paul would not have thought to distinguish between water baptism and baptism of the spirit because he always considered them to go hand in hand.

Who is supposed to be baptised?

When Paul writes, “All of us who were baptized,” he is referring to the church. Paul is making the assumption that the church is made up of those who are baptized. Categorically, there is no place for an unbaptized Christian. This is a problem for those who baptize infants. Baptizing children is referred to as Paedobaptism. We participate in Credobaptism, meaning that we baptize only believers. The only proper baptism candidate is one that understands the gospel.

How much water is needed?

Since it has been established that the baptism menioned is water baptism the question then is how much water is needed? We have brothers and sisters in Christ who baptize through the method of sprinkling water on the head or aspersion. There are also those who pour water over the head and this is called affusion. However, what we do, and I believe to be the proper method of baptism is immersion. The Greek word baptizo is the word that we translate “baptize”. However, the translation of this word baptizo is to immerse. This is a cleaning term meaning to be fully washed. Therefore, we really should be called, Immersionists instead of Baptists. This means that baptism is not done by immersion but instead that baptism is the immersion in water of a follower of Christ. What aspersion and affusion miss is that the sinner does not need to be washed by being sprinkled with water nor having water poured over their head. What the sinner needs is to be fully washed from head to toe of their sins and iniquities. The only way this is truly represented is through the complete immersion of the body underwater. In fact, the sinner needs to be washed to the extent that they are drowned, killing the old self, leading to the resurrection of the new creation in Christ!

Public baptism has become more or less filling a baptistry and having a service to baptize the individual in front of the church body as well as friends and family. This was not the case in the early church nor in scripture. The way baptism was initially orchestrated was so that all could visibly see that someone had been born again and this was the beginning of their ministry. This would have been a big deal for a church to gather at a public body of water to baptize new believers. During times of hostility towards the church it would have been especially significant because now the enemy would be able to more easily pinpoint their targets.

Paul concludes in verse 4 that the sinners baptism into Christ’s death was in order to be raised from the dead just as Christ in order that we may walk in newness of life. Just as we have already stated, baptism into Christ’s death symbolizes that the sinner is not only in need of washing but the old self needs to die. This is not the end of the equation though, because the old self has died, now the new man or woman in Christ is raised from the grave!

Application

What should a resurrected believer look like?

The simple answer is, not like the old dead self. We will go further into detail about the resurrection next week but the new person is to look different. Like we discussed last week, this does not imply that you are now perfect, but it does mean that you are not the same. If people can look at you after your conversion and they see you act the same was as you did before your conversion it is likely that the conversion was not real. This does not mean that you are to now become a better person. This defeats the purpose of being made new in Christ. The believer is not to work towards being a better person but through the presence of the Holy Spirit and time in the Word of God they are molded into the image of Christ.