I Got Dipped

“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.” —Romans 6:1-4

In Romans 6, Paul tells us something pretty amazing: that we have actually already died in Christ. Even more mysterious— we not only died, but we rose again. All this happened when we were baptized, believe it or not. Through baptism, when Christ died, we died too. And when Christ was resurrected, we were resurrected to new life with Him.

This is why Paul could say, “I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.” (Galatians 2:20). If you have believed in the name of Jesus and been baptized into His death and resurrection, you no longer live, either. You died already, too.

Death, for a Christian, is not just something that happens after our biophysical machine stops working. Death happened when you were baptized into Christ Jesus.

You might be tempted to argue that this was just some sort of symbolic death, or some sort of metaphorical or poetic language. But remember, this is an epistle to the church in Rome. Paul’s epistles are not poetry, or narrative, or metaphor. St. Paul writes doctrinal letters to the churches over which he is an Apostle. So, Paul isn’t employing symbolic, poetic language here. He’s giving doctrinal instruction to the church of Rome which he oversees.

Although the language here isn’t metaphorical, it is deeply metaphysical. Paul is trying to teach us a new ontology, a new concept of being. We have a new nature. In baptism, we were regenerated, reborn of a new substance. The old substance, some portion of us, has actually, literally died. And some new part of us, hitherto non-existent, has been brought into being. In short, what died was our old, unregenerate spirit—enslaved to and indwelt by sin. That old spirit—that old self—was then raised from the dead in Christ.

What We Died To

Paul will later tell us what we died to. For one, we died to the Law (Romans 7). We also died to sin (Romans 6).

But we also died to something else. We died to ourselves as the point of reference for anything God does in and through us.

It has been a glorious revelation to me over the years to know that I suffered a death. Initially, when I first heard the truths of Romans 6, they made no sense to me. I thought that Paul was basically just telling us to count ourselves as dead to sin, to treat life as if sin has no rule or power or influence in my life. And Paul is saying that, too. But there is a deeper mystery here that the Holy Spirit was trying to reveal to me. It took the Spirit years, not days, to show me what actually happened in the spirit realm and how this actually works in practice.

Self Is No Longer the Point of Reference

Once I realized that I am not the point of reference or origin for anything that happens in this Christian life, I began to understand the truth of Romans 6. The way I like to put it is this: You’re a non-issue. God is not relying on you to do anything. Why would He? You can’t accomplish His purposes anyway!

Another side revelation of realizing I died to sin — it also means sin has no judgment over me. I didn’t start to experience true freedom in Christ until the “sin-consciousness” was wiped out. If I really believe I died to sin, then something else follows: It follows that I can never ever again be judged, condemned, or even blamed for sin.

Now, when I said that, probably something inside you cringed a bit. You may even be thinking, “He’s a heretic.” But this is exactly what Paul argues in chapter 7:

To the Romans

“Do you not know, brothers and sisters—for I am speaking to those who know the law—that the law has authority over someone only as long as that person lives? 2 For example, by law a married woman is bound to her husband as long as he is alive, but if her husband dies, she is released from the law that binds her to him. 3 So then, if she has sexual relations with another man while her husband is still alive, she is called an adulteress. But if her husband dies, she is released from that law and is not an adulteress if she marries another man.” (Romans 7:1-4).

Do you see the point Paul is making? He’s saying that when you die to something, that thing no longer has authority over you. In Romans 6, he already told us that we died to sin. In chapter 7, Paul tells us we died to the Law. But the point remains: we died to both sin and law. That means neither has any authority over us. We are released from both of them.

And just in case you think that we only died to the ceremonial and civil laws of Moses, think again. In Romans 7, right after Paul tells us that we have died to the law, the example he gives is: “You shall not covet.” This comes right out of the Ten Commandments—the heart of the moral law:

“…I would not have known sin except through the law. For I would not have known covetousness unless the law had said, “You shall not covet.” (Romans 7:7).

To the Colossians

Paul makes the same argument to the church at Colossae:

“Since you died with Christ to the elemental spiritual forces of this world, why, as though you still belonged to the world, do you submit to its rules: 21 “Do not handle! Do not taste! Do not touch!?”(Colossians 2:20-21).

It’s not that God set aside his moral law. It’s that He crucified us to it and freed us from its obligation and authority. The Church has struggled with this since Day One. Even in Acts Chapter 15, you see the debate. The church council at Jerusalem—the first church convention we have in recorded history—grappled with the question of how much of the Mosaic Law was to be held over in Christianity, and how much was to be let go. And the church today is still grappling with this question. But St. Paul could not have been any clearer: when we died to the law, we died to all of it. None of it is an authority over us anymore, not even the moral law.

To the Galatians

Again, Paul makes the same argument in a different way in his letter to the Galatians:

“But before faith came, we were kept under the law, shut up unto the faith which should afterwards be revealed. Wherefore the law was our schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ, that we might be justified by faith.” (Galatians 3:23-24, King James Version).

The law—including the Ten Commandments—are likened to a schoolmaster. Some translations say “guardian.” But once faith came, we no longer needed to be under a schoolmaster. We grew up. The law was just there to “keep us in line” until Christ came. Little children need guardrails and structure and boundaries, else they’ll kill themselves. And humanity needed God’s moral law in the same way. This is the picture that Paul is painting here. Paul’s entire argument of Galatians chapter 3 is that the law has served its purpose and is no longer needed or helpful in the advent of Jesus Christ.

That’s right: How radical is our God! Our Father is so extravagantly, tenaciously, radically loving, that He superseded His very own laws in order to declare us righteous, bring us to regeneration, give us His life, and bring us into His family.

…All this was confirmed when you were baptized (immersed) into Christ!

Watch two baptisms take place as Pastor Mike and Pastor Cliff teach on being hidden in God through baptism!