Q——Rom. 6:44Therefore 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. (Romans 6:4). I gather that the believer is here viewed as having died in Christ's death; that he is entitled to regard himself thus; and that his baptism is the confession of this truth. But what means “buried with Him by baptism unto death?” W.B.
A.—Is it true that we are ever said to have died in Christ? or is it a bit of Calvinistic misapprehension of the truth, making mystic what is really experimental, however truly and rightly based on faith? What the passage says is that we died with Christ; that baptized unto Christ Jesus we were baptized unto His death. “We were buried therefore with him by baptism unto death; in order that as Christ was raised out of dead [men] through the glory of the Father, so we also should walk in newness of life.” Buried with Him is a confirmatory figure drawn from having been under the water of death. Compare ver. 5. Without Christ we had lain there; but we are identified thus with His death to give us quittance from sin, and therefore to live no longer in it. The next chapter (7) shows that it was not without proving the futility of legal efforts after we received life. Thus we were brought to own what His death is, not for pardon merely but deliverance.