Romans 6 presents the Christ who died and resurrected for our experience and enjoyment. We may experience and enjoy Christ in His death and resurrection. The result of such an enjoyment is the free gift in Christ, that is, eternal life. Verse 23 thus says, “The gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Here eternal life is not merely a life we receive once and for all; it implies and involves many matters for our daily experience and enjoyment of Christ.
Romans 6:3 says, “All of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus have been baptized into His death.” The believers have been baptized into Christ, even into His death. Baptism is not a form or a ritual; it signifies our identification with Christ. Through baptism we are immersed into Christ, taking Him as our realm, that we may be united with Him as one in His death and resurrection.
Romans 6:3, which speaks of our having been baptized into Christ, is the strongest support for the thought of the organic union in Christ, the organic union we have with Christ. We can never enjoy and experience Christ without being baptized into Christ. We were born in one person, Adam, but when we believed and were baptized, we entered into another person, Christ. Whether we were good or bad, we were born in Adam. By being baptized into Christ, we entered into Christ and became a part of Him. The meaning of baptism is to put the believers into Christ. Baptism, therefore, is an extremely significant experience, for in it a transfer takes place. Baptism is an act in which we put the members of Adam into death, thereby transferring them out of Adam into Christ. This means that we have been baptized out of one realm, one sphere, into another realm, another sphere, that is, out of Adam, the first man (1 Cor. 15:45a, 47a), into Christ (1:30; Gal. 3:27), the second man (1 Cor. 15:47). Even the King James Version uses the word into in Romans 6:3. Christ is a realm, a sphere, into which we have been baptized. Now we are in Him, He is our enjoyment, and He is the very One whom we can experience.
We should praise the Lord that we have been baptized into Christ. Although we were born in Adam, by baptism we have been identified with Christ in His death and resurrection. Through death and resurrection Christ was transfigured from the flesh into the Spirit. Even Christ Himself needed death and resurrection to be transformed from the flesh to the Spirit. Likewise, through identification with Christ in His death and resurrection, we have been transferred out of Adam into Christ. When we were baptized into Christ, we were transferred from being a part of Adam into being a part of Christ. Now we are no longer in Adam—we are absolutely in Christ.
In 6:3 we see that when we were baptized into Christ Jesus, we were baptized also into the death of Christ. On the one hand, we have been baptized into Christ’s person; on the other hand, we have been baptized into His death. His death has separated us from the world and the satanic power of darkness and has terminated our natural life, our old nature, our self, our flesh, and even our entire history.
It is significant that in 6:3 Paul says that we have been baptized not into Christ’s resurrection but into His death. The resurrected Christ still bears in Himself the effectiveness of His death. Otherwise, we could not be baptized into His death by being baptized into Him. The fact that we are baptized into Christ and into His death indicates that Christ and His death are one. The resurrection of Christ carries the element of His effective death. Thus, when a believer is baptized into Christ, he is spontaneously baptized into the death of Christ. It is impossible to separate Christ’s death from Christ Himself. The being of the resurrected Christ includes the element of His effective death. The effectiveness of Christ’s death is one of the ingredients of His all-inclusive being. Therefore, to be baptized into Christ is to be baptized into His death.
There is a tremendous difference between death in Adam and the death of Christ. We loathe death in Adam, but we appreciate the sweetness of Christ’s death. Christ’s death is dear and lovable, and we may abide restfully in it. How wonderful that a believer baptized into the all-inclusive Christ is also placed into the death of Christ! In the words of a hymn written by A. B. Simpson, “It is so sweet to die with Christ” (Hymns, #482). Rest and victory are found in Christ’s death.
Every candidate for baptism is a person in the process of dying. Through baptism such a person is put to death. Having been identified with Christ and His death, he is immersed in water and is buried. Through baptism he enters into the actual experience of death with Christ.
The Christian life is a life of baptism. On the one hand, baptism has been accomplished; on the other hand, baptism continues until we are fully transformed and conformed to the image of Christ. Hence, until this goal has been attained, we continue to live a life of baptism. This means that we are daily under the application of the death of Christ as we experience the effectiveness of His death, which is now one of the ingredients, the elements, in the all-inclusive Spirit. In our daily life we may experience the putting to death of the negative elements within us. This takes place not by doctrine or by a particular practice but by the killing element in the death of Christ included in the all-inclusive Spirit.