Romans 6:5

 

We are in a series we are calling “Getting It Together.”  I have isolated 13 “together” statements in the Bible we are considers.  Today is Romans 6:5.  “For if we have been planted together in the likeness of His death, we shall be also in the likeness of His resurrection.”  The planting in this verse is not in a field or a garden, but in baptism.

 

One man said he had a horse that could smell “water” like no other he had ever known.  And then he said some people  smell water when they see the word “baptism,” declaring Romans 6 is a dry passage speaking about “Spirit baptism.”  The fact are, also, some people could not find “water” in certain Bible passages if they were dying of thirst.

 

There are many Protestants who teach this Romans 6 says this passage is not about “water” baptism, but “Spirit” baptism.  The reason for it seems to be pretty simple: most Protestants do not practice strict immersion for baptism, so they want to take as much out of this as they can in order to keep their infant sprinkling, which was a practice Protestants kept when they left the Catholic church in the 1500s.  It surprises many people to discover that the prominent leaders of the Protestant Reformation, men like Martin Luther and John Calvin, while admitting New Testament baptism was by immersion, were themselves never immersed.

 

1.  The PRINCIPLE of Baptism.

 

The apostle Paul who wrote Romans 6, also said in Ephesians 4:5 that at that time there was “one baptism.”  If the conclusion is that the “one baptism” of the New Testament is Spirit baptism, then there could be no need to ever baptize in water anyone, anywhere, anytime.

 

But what did Jesus command in what has been called “the Great Commission”?  Look at it in Matthew 28:19-20.  “Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost: Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world.”

· Are Jesus’ commands important?

· Do these verses command believers to be baptized?

· How long were churches to keep the commandment of baptism?  “Unto the end of the world” or age.

 

2.  The PROFESSION of Baptism.

 

In most New Testament churches today a person confesses their faith in Jesus Christ in some public move at the conclusion of a church services at what we call the invitation.  People walk down the aisle of a church, give some information to a stranger, and then stand before the church requesting to be baptized.  But in Paul’s day there were no church buildings.  Instead, men and women made public their belief in Jesus Christ by submitting to baptism.  Baptism is the outward expression of an inward experience.  Baptism was their profession.

 

Have you ever thought of this?  In the New Testament you never read of a person professing Christ as Lord and Savior on one hand and refusing to be baptized on the other hand.  And you never read of a church baptizing a single person who did not publicly confess their faith in Jesus Christ.  The only possible exception with the thief on the cross, and he had a legitimate hang-up.  What is your hang-up on that keeps you from being baptized and seeking membership in one of the Lord’s churches?

 

So, what is the profession one makes by baptism?

 

The Breaking of Sin’s dominion, vs. 1-2a.  “Continue in sin..?”  “God forbid!”  Paul used this 10 times in Romans, the first time here.  My Greek professor drilled this phrase into our minds...me genoito… the strongest Greek idiom for repudiating a statement.  Outrageous!  Unthinkable!  Blasphemous!  

 

The Blessing of the Savior’s death, vs. 2b-3.  Christ died for us on the cross.  But that is not all that took place on the cross.  Since we are “in Christ” and He died in our place, we are now counted dead with Him.

 

One Greek scholar said that baptism is like “a badge or uniform of service like that of a soldier” and that the verb is common “in the sense of putting on garments,” see Galatians 3:27.

 

How many of you have ever worn a uniform or a company shirt?  What did that uniform tell people who saw you?

 

The day I married by sweetheart almost 44 years ago I put on a wedding ring. I have proudly, publicly wore a ring for all those year, to let anyone and everyone know there is someone very special in my life.  Obviously, not everyone who wears a wedding ring is married, no more than is everyone saved who is baptized.  A wedding ring doesn’t make you married and baptism doesn’t make you a Christian.  But for those of us who are married and those of us who have been baptized, our ring and our baptism separates us.

 

3.  The PICTURE of Baptism.

 

Think about it:  In water baptism the believer is united with Christ in  His death, burial and resurrection.  And this can only be pictured through immersion.  

1. “In baptism the believer takes his stand in water—an element foreign to his nature and which spells death to him as a natural man.”

2. Then he is totally immersed in this element of death, put out of sight—buried!

3. Finally, he is brought up from this watery grave by the power of another’

4. Then, he lives on, publicly identified with Christ through this initial act of obedience which is followed by a life-time of obedience.

 

How many ordinances are there spelled out in the New Testament that are to be conducted by a church?

· Baptism….setting forth the believer’s death with Christ.

· The Lord’s Supper...setting forth Christ’s death for the believer.

 

4.  The POWER of Baptism.

 

Romans 6:4  “Therefore we are buried with Him by baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life.”

 

Under this heading I am not saying that there is some kind of magical “power” in the water when a person is baptized.  Baptismal water cannot wash away our sins.

 

What I am saying is that when we see what baptism pictures we will understand the great power that has been conducted by God to those who believe.  Look at it in verses 1-5, and notice how many times “dead” and “death” is mentioned.

· vs. 2 “How shall we, that are dead to sin…”

· vs. 3 “His death”

· vs. 4  “Into death”

· vs. 5  “Planted together in the likeness of His death…”

 

When reference is made to Christ’s death it is pointing back to the cross.  Now, just think about this.  It is utterly amazing.  The cross is seen as a timeless event.  The Spirit of God takes the believing sinners back across 2,000 years and we participate in Christ’s death, burial and resurrection.  God doesn’t just do some spiritual paperwork when we are saved.  He takes us back to the cross and in Christ we die, are buried and raised to life again!

 

You ask, “Is such a thing possible?’

 

In Romans 5 God takes all sinners back 6,000 years to Adam and in Adam we all sinned and in Adam we all died spiritually.  Romans 5:12 says, “Wherefore, as by one man sin entered the world (that’s Adam), and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned.”  1 Corinthians 15:22 says, “For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive.” 

 

And what is the “power” conveyed in the gospel message through baptism? Its in the last phrase of verse 4.  “Even so we also should walk in newness of life.” Believers have a “new life” in Christ.  Sin describes the “old life,” a life dead and buried.  Righteousness describes our “new life.”  We are now alive and resurrected in Christ.

 

So great is the power of the cross as pictured in baptism that everything in our former life is to be regarded as irrelevant, dead, if you will.  It was the termination of the old life and the declared initiation of the new life.

 

Romans 6:6 says the “old man is crucified with him, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin.”  But, who should we serve?  Jesus Christ.

 

When were we crucified with Christ—in the baptistery or at the cross?  He took our place and we took our place with Him, at the cross.  And the only part of that is not redeemed is our “body.”  Paul calls it “the body of sin” because it is the body that is marked by sin.

 

5.  The PROSPECT of Baptism.

 

Romans 6:5  “Planted together…”  One theologian says this word could be used of Siamese twins (Kenneth S. Wuest).  Another says, “The word exactly expressed the process by which a graft becomes united with the life of a tree.  So the Christian becomes ‘grafted into’ Christ.” (W. Sanday).

 

“For if we have been planted together in the likeness of His death, we shall be also in the likeness of His resurrection.”

 

Baptism confesses a conviction that one day…..

· We will leave this world for glory.

· We will return to participate in a gigantic resurrection of all the saved. We are not looking for the “undertaker,” but the “uppertaker.”

 

2 Corinthians 5:1-9

 

Now, follow what baptism is saying.

· As we step into the water, we are declaring we are in Christ who died for us.

· As we go under the water, we are saying the old life is “buried with Him.”

· As we emerge from the water, we are “raised with Him” through the miraculous power of the Almighty God.

· As we step out of the water, we are understanding we are no longer living for sin,   v. 7, but living “for Christ,” awaiting the day when we will “with Christ,” v. 8.

 

 

Have you been forgiven of your sins?

 

Have you been scripturally baptized?

 

Are you living “the baptized life”?  A.T. Robertson made that great suggestion.  “This is a plea to live up to the ideal of the baptized life.”