A person told me that baptism was not necessary in order to be saved, because he knew people who were baptized who did not live the Christian life. His assessment did not prove his point that baptism is not necessary, for people who do not live a new life after baptism may not understand Bible teaching concerning baptism.

       Is being “buried...through baptism” (Rom. 6:4) “...in which you were also raised” (Col. 2:12) all that is required in baptism?  Romans 4-6

        In Romans chapter six, Paul addressed a possible misunderstanding of what he had written in chapters four and five. He stated that Jesus' righteousness “shall be imputed to us who believe in Him who raised up Jesus our Lord from the dead, who was delivered up because of our offenses, and was raised for our justification” (Rom. 4:24, 25).

        Paul's thought does not end at the end of chapter four. He continued, “We have access by faith into this grace” (Rom. 5:1). “But where sin abounded, grace abounded much more” (Rom. 5:20). Paul's point was that by being buried and raised up, Jesus made possible grace that would cover all our sins.

        Paul then addresses a possible wrong conclusion. If grace is sufficient to cover all our sins, we can sin all the more so that more grace will be given. Paul rebuts this by stating that the purpose of grace is not to give us a license to sin, for we became dead to sin (Rom. 6:1, 2) when we are buried with Jesus by baptism into death to sin and raised with Him, “so we also should walk in newness of life” (Rom. 6:3, 4).

      Properly understood, baptism is the turning point in our lives when we die to our past life in order to live a new life for and with Jesus.

        Being buried under water and being brought out of the water is not all that is involved in baptism. It includes not only the outward act but also an inward response, an obeying “from the heart that form of doctrine to which you were delivered” (Rom. 6:17, 18). The result of our obedience from the heart in baptism should be freedom from a sinful life (Rom. Rom. 6:17, 18), after which we are to consider ourselves dead to sin (Rom. 6:11).

        If we understand our spiritual involvement in baptism, we will realize that it is a new birth (John 3:5), after which we are a new person, not the old person we were. Before baptism we were dead in sin, but through faith in the working of God, when we are raised with Christ in baptism, we are made alive and all our transgressions are forgiven (Col. 2:12,13).  In the next chapter Paul returned to this thought, and wrote, “If then you were raised with Christ, seek those things which are above” (Col. 3:1). “You have put off the old man with his deeds, and have put on the new man” (Col. 3:9).

       Our old life ends when we are baptized and a new life begins. If we do not understand this, we miss the teaching that in baptism we share with Jesus His death and resurrection. We enter a new life even as He entered life anew when He was raised. So also we put off our sinful past and become a new person.

        If the person being baptized does not realize he is dying to the person he has been and is becoming a new person, he is not becoming new, but only getting wet. Baptism is more than the physical act alone for it must bring about the rebirth of the spirit of the one being baptized (John 3:6).
 
 

©Copyright Owen D.Olbricht 2014. All rights reserved. May be reprinted if credit is given to the author.