Baptism: The Life of the Buried Dead

This is an exegetical sermon from Romans 6:1-4. It teaches on the doctrine of baptism and its significance in the life of a believer. This sermon was originally preached by Pastor Justin Bragg at The Resolved Church in San Diego, CA. Audio unavailable.

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:: The Resolved ::

Justin Bragg (elder)

Romans 6:1-4 “Baptism: the Life of the Buried Dead”

I listened to Nate’s sermon on verses 1&2 earlier this week online. It was really good. Incredible.
We’re dealing with some heavy stuff here. Deep. Difficult to understand. Seemingly impossible to apply. I feel like I need to hear the same sermon again.

Turns out, coming to vv 3-4, that Paul thought the same thing.
So here I am. Preaching the same sermon that Nate preached – but with a new word added to make it hopefully make some more sense to us.

Baptism is a funny thing. Let’s be honest… last week, while at cal-baptist: linda vista we got to see a couple kids get baptized.

The whole thing is a bit ridiculous really. Look at it. You put on some shorts, wade into waste deep water, where you are met by some religious official who whispers a question into your ear something along the lines of the validity of your decision to perform this ceremony. Then you’re told to plug your nose with one hand, and all at once, while the words “in the name of the father, the son, and the holy spirit” are voiced aloud, you are falling back, into the cold water, where you are trusting that the ministers will:

A) Be strong enough to bring you back up, and
B) B) not play a cruel joke on you and hold you under for too long,

And after a brief moment of immersion, you come up, gasping for a breath of air and struggling to open your eyes – all to the applause of congregants who have gathered and apparently are pleased and supportive of this ceremony they have witnessed.

You then are handed a towel, dry off, and spend the rest of the afternoon receiving big hugs from grey-haired ladies in thick-rimmed glasses who smell of cheap perfume offering congratulatory statements and “welcome to the family” sentiments. Sometimes the hassle of finding a body of water and having to launder a towel are skipped, and you can just have some water flicked at your face. Other times it’s just easier to do the whole thing while you are still in a swaddling blanket, so that you won’t have to remember the whole thing at all.

I remember my baptism, at the age of 7 just like it was yesterday. A warm September afternoon in Carlotta. Waist deep in the van duzen river wearing my bermuda shorts. I shivered as pastor David (who looking back reminds me in appearance of David Koresh or some megalomaniac cult leader) beamed a big smile and gently dunked me in the algae-infested water, followed by some stirring renditions of “this is the day,” “I’ve got a river of life,” and “hosanna in the highest” on a 12 string guitar there on the rocky shore.

Baptism. Aliens might have some trouble figuring out what exactly is happening
Even those outside the realm of religious persuasion are bound to have trouble with it

And even within the Christian church – controversy
Infant vs. Believer
Immersion vs. Sprinkle, dump
Dunk once or three times
In the name of all three trinity members, or solely Jesus
Rebaptize those who did it before they knew what was happening to them?
Necessary for salvation? Completing salvation?
Actual grace in the sacrament, or merely ceremonial?

The doctrine of baptism is full of controversy and confusion – and this morning I’m not going to tell you what you should believe. It’s just not important to our discussion

While this passage clearly contains the word baptism in it. And it should surely be included in any discussion discussing the merit of baptism – it is not a passage about baptism. There is much work that has been done and could be taught about all the ins and outs of baptism. But Paul’s point isn’t baptism here.

Baptism is an example, an illustration pointing to and clarifying a much larger point in this treatise on salvation to the roman church

Remember what Paul said in 1-2
“How can we who have died to sin still live in it? Do you hear it there? The stern warning. The unapologetic announcement: dead to sin. If you’ve been reading since verse 1 of Paul’s little letter to the Romans, and if you’ve been paying attention, then salvation has been made pretty clear.

And if you got a little mixed up – about sin and grace and the like… then Paul, without any concern for your feelings getting hurt – tells you that if you think the way of life is. More sin = more grace, so sin more to receive more grace, you are completely in error. When it comes to the believer’s relation to sin –dead as a doornail.

Useless, very distinctly dead. A doornail is the strike plate for most door knockers. To hold it in place, after it was driven through the door, the pointed end was bent over and buried in the door, to prevent movement. This nail was unrecoverable, so was considered dead to future reclamation, which was apparently common before modern times”

3-4 is just a restatement of that principle
Vs 3 begins with “do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death?”

“Do you not know?”
Isn’t it obvious? “Everybody knows” – how can Paul say this?
Why is it so obvious to Paul that his readers would understand this baptism reference?
Remember – Paul hasn’t even been to Rome. He didn’t start this church.
And so far as we know, the roman church received no apostolic teaching.
Yet there is no question in Paul’s mind that the roman church was well-acquainted with the practice of baptism.

Maybe you remember a guy named Jesus. Kind of a big deal to the early Christian church
Maybe you remember that a guy named john (last name “the baptist”) baptized Jesus in the waters of the Jordan River. And god spoke down from heaven pronouncing Jesus to be his son
People probably took notice of this.

Remember that peter preached a sermon in Jerusalem after the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ,
Calling all people to repent and be baptized in the name of Jesus for the forgiveness of sins.
And recall that on that day “those who received the word were baptized and there were added that day about three thousand souls” (acts 2:41)

Baptism
So what is baptism – what does the word mean?
It is in the process of pickle making that we can understand the definition of baptism
Allow me to explain

Two closely related words in the Greek language
Bapto – to dip or immerse
Baptizo – to immerse, but with further meaning

Baptizo is the more specialized word – taking bapto, and adding meaning, perhaps metaphorical
In the New Testament, baptizo is the word that is used. What does this word mean?

Classical literature
Greeks used word from about 400 BC and it always pointed to a change having taken place by some means
Josephus used it to describe the crowds that flooded into Jerusalem and wrecked the city
Other examples – dyeing of cloth and drinking of too much wine

There is a liquid – or something like it (the crowds were like a human wave)
The essential idea is actually of a change
Jerusalem was wrecked
Dyed cloth changes color
The drinker becomes different – he misbehaves

Greek poet nicander (200 BC)
A recipe for making pickles – useful because he uses both words
To make a pickle, the vegetable should first be “dipped” (bapto) into boiling water and then “baptized” (baptizo) in the vinegar solution.
Both verbs concern immersing the vegetable in a solution
The first is temporary, the second, the act of “baptizing” the vegetable, produces a permanent change

Let’s resist the temptation to discuss if Paul cares about the mode of baptism (immersion or not), and talk instead about what is really important – death

Baptized into Christ
First – why is this mention of baptism even here?
It’s been awhile now, but what was the main point of 5:12-31?
Remember all that talk about Adam and Christ – our representatives – Christ is better…
What you should get out of 5:12-31 is the idea of our union with Christ
Before I was in Adam. Now I am in Christ.

And if I am in Christ – should I go on sinning so that more grace is given?
Paul’s answer is a staggering “no” because we have died to sin – how can we go on living in what we have died to?
Union with Christ. Death to sin.

What do you think baptism signifies? Union with Christ. Death to sin. In that order.
Taken out of one state and put into another. Like the Jews who left Egypt – and coming out of that red sea were no longer Egyptian slaves. They were now joined with Moses. And we are joined to Christ. There is no turning back.

Gal 3:27 “for as many of you as were baptized into Christ, have put on Christ”
It’s a new wardrobe. Leave behind your filthy rags and put on the outfit of Christ.
Those old clothes are tattered, spoiled, dirty and hideous. They don’t fit you anymore.
Stop grabbing the bugle boys and bum equipment in the back of your closet – it doesn’t look good on you anymore.

Instead, put on your new threads. They’re perfect, shiny and new. Without blemish, perfect fit
We died to the old life when Christ transferred to us the new one.

And when we start to see how these ideas go together, it starts to make sense why Paul’s thoughts turned to baptism as a way of unfolding what he had in mind when he said “how can we live in sin any longer?”

I believe that the thought of being baptized into Christ carries with it this tone of totality
Being baptized into Christ is being identified with him in all respects.

But what about Christ are we particularly baptized into here in verse 3?

Baptized into his death
There are many respects in which we are united to Christ, yet there is only one respect to which Paul ties baptism here in vs. 3 – Christ’s death. And in the next phrase, the scope becomes narrower to show that Paul has Christ’s burial in the forefront of his mind.

It is quite common to speak of being crucified with Christ.
We speak freely of being raised with Christ in life
Even being made to ascend with him into heaven is a common thought

But buried with him?
Paul doesn’t make this easy for us: “we were buried therefore with him by baptism into death”
How can we be said to be buried with Christ?
What does this add that is not already covered by out death to sin?
Why include burial?
Associated and identified to Christ’s death through baptism – I get that.
Death to the old life. Death to the old self. Death to sin.
But why even mention the next step in the process and say that we are primarily identified in baptism to his death?

It is awkward – it seems backward – buried into death? Isn’t it buried because of death?

This is an important thought though in Paul’s argument
And he didn’t just mix up the order of death and burial – he has a purpose

Burial is an important step in the death of a person
It is in the burial of that the deceased is rendered out of this world permanently.
A corpse is dead to life
But there is a sense in which it can still be said to be in life, as long as it is around
But once buried, placed in the ground and covered by the earth – it is gone.

I couldn’t help but think of the funeral of my grandmother a month ago.
Upon arriving to the rosary service, with my grandfather, parents, sister, aunt and cousins, that we gathered around the dead corpse of my grandmother. She was dead.
But looking at her body. Her face. Her smile. She was still with us in a sense.
I could touch her hand. I could smile at her, half-expecting her to smile back
My papa, upon seeing his wife of nearly 60 years cried out “my sweet pea!’
She was amongst the living still, even though deceased.

And the next day, as I donned on the white gloves, and loaded her body in that casket into the back of the Hearse, I said goodbye. She was buried beneath sex feet of earth, and was gone forever. She would never be seen again. She was gone.

And over tears and jack daniels on the rocks with my grandfather, we talked about the life that she had. And the eternal life in which she now resides. How we miss her, and we will never see her again. She has no claim to this life anymore. She is not amongst us.

I believe that Paul wanted to emphasize the finality of our being removed from the rule of sin and death to the rule of Christ.
This is why he says that we are associated to the burial of Christ in baptism.
He is repeating, but also intensifying what he has already said about our death to sin
“You have not only died to it” “you have been buried to it.”
To go back to sin once you have been joined to Christ is like digging up a dead body.

Here’s what I believe Paul is saying in these verses
He is not thinking chiefly of the sacrament of baptism, but rather our having been joined to Christ by the Holy Spirit.
As I said. This is not a lecture on baptism, but a statement of our union with Jesus.

For, as vs. 5 will tell us, “If we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his.”

Baptism is the point of no return.

Why? Why take this step? And more pointedly – why do we have to die?
What is the purpose of baptism? Not just the sacrament, but the significance.
To answer these questions, and to understand why Paul is concerned with stating these things here, I believe that we have to look at an even bigger question:

Why did Christ die?
Here is another sermon all together. And I could say a lot here, but I am merely going to say what Paul says in our verses here. Christ died for one purpose.
And if this is true, then you and I die for one purpose

What does vs. 4 say: “in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the father, we too might walk in newness of life”

Don’t skip the little phrase “by the glory of the father”
Christ died, so that the glory of the father might be most stunningly and clearly displayed among his creation in his resurrection.

God killed Jesus so that he might raise him from the dead.
Why? Because the conquering of death in Jesus Christ shows that god is beyond our comprehension. Not even death stands in his way. God is god.

And it doesn’t stop there.
Christ died and was buried so that he could be raised from the dead

We die and are buried so that we can be raised from the dead as well –
To “walk in newness of life”

The act of being baptized is telling the world that you have died and been buried to sin, and that you now live in a new realm – that you now exist in life, rather than death.
This is what a baptized person is saying.

But it is not just the conquering of death that is accomplished in our baptism – in our union to Christ.
Yes, the effects of sin and death are cancelled, but there is great benefit as well: we now “walk in newness of life”

What does it mean to walk in newness of life?

Do you ever wake up and have one of those days?
The birds singing, music in the air, everything in life is going your way kind of days
The days that john denver sings about

Maybe that is what walking in newness of life is talking about
I’m not too sure
I’d like to think that is what it means
But my experience is waking up to the sound of a blaring alarm clock
Sucking down my morning coffee, and drearily stumbling through the am hours
And life doesn’t always feel too grand

But there is something here. There is something to a life of “newness” a life of peace and happiness

We’ve seen it in the past few chapters
5:1 “we have peace with god’ – peace is that skip in your step kind of living that I’m looking for
5:3 “rejoice in our suffering” – rejoicing sounds like a life I can get on board with – but in suffering?
5:17 “reign in life through Jesus Christ” – being a king or queen in this world we live in sounds like something I could get on board with

Here, in the opening verses of chapter 6 – death. Burial.
Newness of life

I don’t know how biblical this is – but I think it sounds something like “swagger”
You know – that confidence. I think many Christians today are missing swagger
I am dead to sin. It’s got nothing over me. Death has no sway over my life
What do I have to be afraid of? What is going to throw me?
Nothing is. I walk in a newness of life. I walk with Jesus Christ.
And what we see here is that in our death. In our burial. We can get rid of the chip on our shoulder, and walk in a newness of life. It sounds pretty good to me.