Chapter LXXX: Section LXXVIII: “Buried with him by Baptism into Death.”

The principal remaining Baptist argument is derived from two expressions of the apostle Paul which are supposed to show by implication that baptism was administered by immersion. These are;—Rom. vi, 4,—“Buried with him by baptism into death;” and Col. ii, 12,—“Buried with him in baptism.” In our common English version as here quoted, there is a repeated neglect of the definite article, where it occurs in the original, which obscures the meaning. This defect being rectified, the first passage reads thus:—Rom. vi, 1-11. “What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound? God forbid. How shall we that are dead _by_ sin live any longer therein? Know ye not that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into his death? Therefore, we are buried with him by the baptism into the 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. For, if we have been planted together in the likeness of his death, we shall be also in the likeness of his resurrection: knowing this, that our old man (_sunestaurōthē_) _was_ crucified with him, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin. For (_ho apōthanōn_) _he that died_ is freed (_dedikoiatai_, _is justified_) from sin. Now, if we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him.... For in that he died (_tē hamartia_) _by_ sin he died once: but in that he liveth he liveth (_tō theō_) by God” (that is, “by the power of God.”—2 Cor. xiii, 4.) “Likewise reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed by sin, but alive by the power of God, through Jesus Christ our Lord.”

In the present state of our argument, it might seem almost needless to discuss this passage. But this and the parallel text sustain relations to the subject, which clothe them with an importance in the discussion, such as attaches to no other Scriptures whatever. In them is contained and exhausted the entire evidence in behalf of the assumption that the form of baptism represents the burial of the Lord Jesus. Confessedly, that supposition, if not established by these two phrases of Paul, is without warrant anywhere in the Bible. But to prove the _interpretation_ of the rite, they must of necessity, first, establish its very existence, which as yet is more than problematical. That they are not likely to prove adequate to the task thus laid upon them, will be apparent to the reader upon a moment’s consideration. It is evident, and admitted by all, that the immediate subject of discussion in them is the baptism of the Spirit, and not ritual baptism, in any form. If the latter is referred to, at all, it is by mere allusion. That, this is true, as to the text to the Romans, is indicated alike by the form of expression, “baptized into Jesus Christ,” and by the phenomena and results which are attributed to that baptism. It will hereafter appear that the two phrases, “baptized into Jesus Christ,” and “baptized into the name of Christ,” are those by which, in the Scriptures, the real baptism, and the ritual, are discriminated from each other. The one unites to the very body of Christ, the true, invisible church. The other unites to the _name_ of Christ, and to that visible body which is named with his name. That it is of spiritual phenomena, and not of ritual forms, that Paul speaks, is moreover evident, from the purpose and tenor of his argument. His object is to repel the suggestion that free grace gives liberty to sin. His fundamental point in reply to this is, that God’s people “are dead _by_ sin,” in such a sense that it is impossible they should “live any longer therein.” To prove this, is the whole intent of his argument. First, in designating the subjects of his statements, he uses phraseology which emphasizes the difference between a mere outward relation to Christ and the church, and that which is established by the baptism of the spirit. “Know ye not that _so many_ of us as were baptized _into Jesus Christ_.” It is those who are truly one with Christ by a real spiritual union, and only those, whom he describes, and of whom he predicates what follows.

“Baptized into Jesus Christ.” This is the one only baptism of the passage, the effects and consequences of which the apostle proceeds to set forth. Or, are we here to recognize three baptisms,—into Jesus Christ,—into his death,—and into his burial? The first effect of the baptism into Christ Paul indicates by the phrase, “baptized into his death.” In the baptism into Christ, “by one Spirit are we all baptized into one body,” the body of Christ, “and are all made to drink one Spirit.” But it was by that Spirit that he offered himself without spot to God, and “died by sin,” it being the meritorious cause of his death; and that Spirit being in us by virtue of the baptism, will cause the same hatred of sin, and induce in us a sense of its demerit and condemnation, so that we can no longer live in it. Such is the meaning of the apostle’s expression, “baptized into his death,”—so united by the baptism into Christ, that as he died for sin to destroy it in us, so we will be dead to it in the same hatred and zeal for its destruction, inspired by the same Spirit. To intensify this conception, the apostle pursues the figure yet farther.—“Therefore, we are buried with him.”—How? By immersion in water? or, By any thing of which such immersion is a symbol? No. But (_dia_) through, or, by means of the baptism just spoken of; “the baptism into the death” of Christ. That the expression can not possibly mean any ritual form of baptism is certain every way. The illative, “Therefore,” forbids it. It shows the burial to be, not a physical phenomenon, real or ritual, but a consequence which, by virtue of the relation of cause and effect, logically results from something which either precedes or follows. But the boundaries in both directions are the same.—“_Baptized into his death._ Therefore buried with him, by the _baptism into the death_.” The baptism into Christ, by which we are baptized into his death, is thus the instrumental cause of the burial; a fact which utterly excludes any form of ritual baptism from the purview of the passage. But what is here meant by being buried with him? In order to an answer, it will be necessary to ascertain precisely who it is that dies and is buried with Christ. The answer comes promptly. “_We_ are buried.” True; but the words are to be taken in the light of the apostle’s own interpretation. It is not we, in the entirety of our persons, but our old man, of which this is said. “Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with him, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin.”—Vs. 6. It is, to signify the utterness of this death and destruction of the old man,—its obliteration out of our lives, so that we can not “live any longer therein,” nor “serve sin,” that the apostle represents it as buried, and hidden away in a resurrectionless grave. The old man buried, so that the new man may unimpeded “walk in newness of life.” In this doctrine and these words of the apostle, we have the very baptism which Dr. Conant admits to be expressed, “by analogy,” by the word _baptizo_;—“_the coming into a new state of life or experience_.” Into the conception of the passage, when critically appreciated, it is impossible to introduce the idea of immersion, in any congruous or intelligible relation.

The apostle illustrates his subject with another figure, which has been sometimes pressed into the service of immersion. “For if we have been planted together in the likeness of his death, we shall be also in the likeness of his resurrection.” It has been assumed that the planting of a tree is here associated with immersion in water (“buried by baptism”), as representing the burial of the dead. Thus, “the likeness of his _death_,” which was by crucifixion, is confounded with the form of _burial_ of the dead. This is recognized by Dr. Carson, whose exposition of the figure is essentially correct. Of _sumphutoi_ (“planted together”) he says,—“It might, I think, be applied to express the growing together of the graft and the tree; but this would be the effect or consequence of grafting, and not the operation itself. It denotes, in short, the closest union, with respect to things indiscriminately. There is no need, then, to bring either planting or grafting into the passage; and as neither of them resembles a resurrection, they should be rejected. When we translate the passage,—‘For, if we have become one with him,’ or, ‘have been joined with him, in the likeness of his death,’—we not only suit the connexion, to both death and resurrection, but we take the word _sumphutoi_, in its most common acceptation.”[107] This witness is true. The phrase has no reference to the form of ritual baptism, but to the intimacy of the union which that of the Spirit establishes. The two expressions,—“Baptized into his death,” and “Coplanted with him in the likeness of his death,” are coincident, meaning essentially the same thing. It is, however, a fundamental defect in Carson’s conception, that while he earnestly insists on the closeness of the union, by which Christ and his people are one, he fails to recognize the essential fact that it is effected by the baptism of the Spirit. In his conception and vocabulary, it is a “_constituted_ union.” A ray of light entering his mind on this point would have transfigured his whole system.

Footnote 107:

Carson on Baptism, p. 251.

But what means our being joined with Christ in the likeness of his death? Here and elsewhere, Paul explains abundantly. “He died by sin,” our sin, as being the meritorious cause of his death. “He was crucified through weakness,”—the weakness of his humiliation, under the law and the curse. (2 Cor. xiii, 4.) He died by the cross, the agonies of which he voluntarily assumed. And he lives again, by the power of God who raised him from the dead. So we also, if truly baptized into him, “are weak (_en autō_) in him, but we shall live with him by the power of God toward us.”—2 Cor. xiii, 4. We are weak in him, in a realizing sense imparted by his Spirit in us, of the desert and condemnation of sin, and of its prevailing power, which renders our emancipation from it a crucifixion of the flesh, the agonies of which we voluntarily incur. And we live with him, in the present life of the new man after his image, created by the baptism of his Spirit in us, as we shall finally live with him in the life of glory. Thus we are joined with him in the likeness of his death, and also of his resurrection.

From this analysis, it is evident that the assumption of allusion to a supposed ritual burial is wholly unnecessary to the exegesis of the passage. In fact, the supposition of such allusion is altogether incongruous and confusing to the argument of the place. (1.) The real baptism and its effects are the alone subjects of the discussion; and any exegesis which ignores this must lead to error. (2.) The burial of which the apostle speaks is spiritual, as well as is the baptism. The two are in no sense identical; but the one is, by the apostle distinctly and sharply discriminated from the other. The baptism is the primary cause, of which the burial is _one_, and but one, of the results. The baptism is the shedding upon us of the Holy Spirit of life in Christ Jesus. The burial is the putting away, and obliterating of the old man out of our lives. It follows, that in any parallel figurative or ritual system, each one of these spiritual realities must have its own analogue, as distinctly defined and discriminated, each from the other, as are the realities which they are designed to represent. And, in fact, such is the figurative system of the Scriptures, which represent the one by the figure of the outpouring of water, and the other by the burial of the dead. To interpret, therefore, a ritual _baptism_ as symbolic of the spiritual _burial_, is as incongruous to the Scriptural conception, as would be the employment of the burial of the dead to represent the outpouring upon us of the Spirit of life. And to understand the apostle, by the expression, “buried by the baptism” to mean directly the spiritual phenomenon which the phrase designates, and at the same time to convey an allusion to a ritual _baptism_ as being a symbol of the _burial_, is an absurdity which does violence to the whole conception, to the destruction of its propriety and significance. For, not only are the two thus sharply discriminated by Paul, but he attributes to each its own relations and predicates, and assigns to each its own place in the scheme of grace and in the argument which he states. To neglect, therefore, the distinction, and confound them together, as is done by the Baptist interpretation, destroys the whole logical force and sequence of the argument, and dissolves the connection between the premises and the conclusions.

Moreover, were it even allowable, as it is not, thus to confound things that differ, there still remains a point of difficulty in the way of the immersion exegesis which, for its removal, demands something more than the mere assumption which has heretofore been put in the place of proof. The apostle speaks, not of immersion, but of burial. “Buried with him.” That the two ideas are not identical does not need to be proved. Nor is the difference so slight that the one would readily suggest itself as a figure of the other. But in order to sustain the Baptist conclusions which depend on this language, it would be necessary to demonstrate that the rites of sepulture with which the writers of the Scriptures were familiar, and in conformity to which the body of Jesus was entombed, bore a resemblance to immersion in water, so close and manifest, that the one was a recognized symbol of the other. But there is certainly no such resemblance as to justify the gratuitous assumption that such a figure was employed; and of its actual use, the Scriptures contain not a trace.

Is it still insisted that, nevertheless, there is an allusion to the rite of immersion? Such an allusion must be supposed to shed light or beauty upon the presentation of the spiritual theme of the passage; or, it is an arbitrary impertinence. Let us then view the suggestion squarely, in the light of the realized observance, thus forced into critical notice. The theme of the apostle is the calm majesty and power of the Savior’s three days’ rest in the sepulcher, and of the silent and unseen mystery of his rising on the third day; and the tranquil energy of the same mighty power in the believer (Eph. i, 19, 20; ii, 1), by which he is quickened and raised up to the life of holiness. The figure which is intruded, to illuminate and adorn this conception, calls up before us the apprehension and haste of the ritual observance, and the agitation, the gasping and sputter of the dripping subjects of the rite, as they struggle up out of the “watery grave.” Is it possible to conceive that master of rhetoric, the apostle Paul, to have called up these, the essential and inseparable features of the rite of immersion, as a means of shedding light or beauty on his exalted theme?