What does baptism do? (Rom. 6:3-4)

 

Last time, we established the fact that the overarching purpose of the apostle in this chapter is to demonstrate the fact that every Christian is dead to sin, or, more accurately, has definitively and irreversibly died to sin.  This is something that has happened at the beginning of the Christian life, in the new birth, when God gives us a new heart, new affections, a new will, so that there is a fundamentally new relationship to sin.  In particular, as Paul emphasizes here, we are no longer under its power and dominion.  It’s not that we no longer sin at all, but that we can now say no to sin in a way that we could not before.  We are no longer taken captive by the devil at his will.  We can resist the devil, and he will flee from us.  And it is on the basis of this categorical death to sin that we can put particular sins to death.

What I tried to do was to show you what it meant to die to sin in verse 2 from the overall context of the first 14 verses.  But now, I think it is worthwhile to look more carefully at some of the details of the text.  Today, I want us to look at verses 3-4 and to consider the question, “What does baptism do?”  We ask that because it is in these two verses that Paul, for the first and only time in the book of Romans, actually talks about baptism.  Here’s what he says:

“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 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.”

Now to answer this question (what does baptism do?), we need to consider the following points.  First, is Paul talking about the ordinance of water baptism, or is he talking about something else?  I’m going to argue that he is talking about water baptism. Second, I think it is necessary to say what baptism does not do, and then we will look more positively what it does do.  So, we will first define the meaning of baptism here as used by the apostle Paul.  Second, we will defend against misinterpretations of its utility.  Third, we will demonstrate its Biblical purpose in light of Romans 6:3-4.

But why is all this necessary?  It is necessary not only because people get the mode (immersion in water) and subjects (disciples only) wrong, but also because they get the very purpose and meaning of baptism wrong.  There are folks who believe that baptism causes one to be born again and causes one to be justified.  They believe that the washing of water itself washes away sins.  There are those who believe this happens even if there is no faith in the one being baptized (as in the case of infant baptism). And it is not an insignificant portion of the professing Christian world which believes this, for in this category go the Roman Catholic and the various Orthodox churches in the world.  And some Protestant bodies go here as well, both high and low church.  For example, on the high church side go many Anglicans and Lutherans.  On the low church side go the Churches of Christ, the theological descendants of Alexander Campbell (although they would insist upon the necessity of faith for baptism).

The problem with this is that it is not only very unbiblical, but it is very dangerous in that it can cause people who believe it to trust in something they have done (baptism) rather than in Christ.  If it doesn’t obliterate the gospel, it greatly obscures it.  What’s worse is that when you argue that salvation can only come to those who are baptized, and moreover that baptism can come only through a particular church and a particular priesthood, what you are essentially saying is that a person can’t have a true relationship with God, but only that which is mediated by the church.  The church is put between the believer and Christ as the mediator of all his grace.  And this is tyranny.  It was one of the greatest blessings of the Protestant Reformation that it was able to rediscover the truth of the universal priesthood of believers, the belief that every believer has direct access to Christ by faith in the power of the Holy Spirit, and thus break the tyranny of Rome over the consciences of God’s people.

However, Rome in the West and its Orthodox equivalent in the East, will argue that they have history on their side.  That shouldn’t bother us, of course, if we have the Bible on ours.  I am happy to be considered a Biblicist, though that word has become a pejorative one even in evangelical circles in our day.  J. I. Packer used this word to describe the Puritans, and so if the Puritans were Biblicists, then sign me up!  We stand under the authority of no pope or council, but under the authority of Scripture (and isn’t this what Martin Luther said in 1521 at Worms?).  But the reality is that even history is not quite as plain as the Sacramentarians want us to believe.  It is true that eventually both the western and eastern branches of the church came to embrace the view that baptism causes salvation.  But it wasn’t always the universal view, nor was it the view from the beginning.  We Baptists need fear neither the Bible nor history and I want to demonstrate that to you this morning.

And that brings us to our first point.

Definition: what kind of baptism is Paul talking about here?

It is a baptism in water.

I hate to differ with giants of the faith like Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, but I must at this point!  He argues that Paul is not talking about water baptism here at all, but is talking only about baptism in the Holy Spirit and that baptism is only referred to here in a metaphorical sense.  He references 1 Cor. 12:13 to make his point: “For by one Spirit are we all baptized into one body, whether we be Jews or Gentiles, whether we be bond or free; and have been all made to drink into one Spirit.”  It should probably read, “in [not by] one Spirit we are all baptized into one body,” but regardless, the point is made that this is Spirit baptism, not water baptism, and that this is what Paul is talking about in Romans 6.  

But I think Dr. Tom Schreiner is right when he observes that Paul would probably have been confused if he had been asked whether he were talking about Spirit or water baptism in either passage, because in the life of the NT church they both happened together in the complex of events that we call conversion to Christ.  Not that they happen at exactly the same time, mind you, but that they happened together.  Those who are born again by the Spirit, go on to believe and repent and are baptized.  This is a package deal.  Thus, those who are baptized in the ordinance of water baptism are already in the Spirit and so when they are baptized, they are baptized in the Spirit and into one body, the church.  The same thing is true of Romans 6.  Now I am not arguing that water baptism causes one to be born again, and I am going to argue against this very strongly in a moment.  But the point is that we need not wonder if this is talking about water baptism here; it most certainly is.  Especially when a word like baptism had a fixed connotation to it – and at this point and time it would have ordinarily meant to all Christians everywhere to refer to the ordinance of water baptism – you need to have to have overwhelming evidence in the text that it’s not that, and we just don’t have that evidence here.

It is a baptism by immersion in water.

So this is baptism in water.  And it is baptism in water by immersion in water.  The word baptize means to dip or to immerse. It does not mean to sprinkle.  And it was the ordinary means of the church in the centuries following the age of the apostles to baptize by immersion.  You see this not only in the baptismal pools that were used by the ancient church, but in the very language that the early church used to describe it.

Look at Paul’s language here.  The language of death, burial, and resurrection that he uses here with regard to baptism is most clearly symbolized in baptism by immersion, and you lose that when you just pour or sprinkle water over the head.  In the Baptist way of observing the ordinance, there really are three different events: immersion, when one goes into the water, signifying death; submersion, when one is under the water, signifying burial; and emersion, when one comes out of the water, signifying resurrection.  

Some will argue that since most folks in Israel in the time of Paul were buried in caves, that the mode of baptism by immersion in water just doesn’t work as a symbol for burial at all.  Moreover, they point out that in the next verse (5) you have an agricultural metaphor that is not symbolized in the mode of baptism either.  So, they say, we are missing the point when we say that the mode of immersion in water is meant itself to symbolize the spiritual reality of union with Christ in his death, burial, and resurrection.

But this argument is surely off the mark.  For one thing, some burials in first century Palestine were effected by surrounding a body with stones and then being covered by earth.   Though this was not common, people would surely have known about it.[1]  But even if someone were buried in a cave, and especially in a sepulcher, this is in a very real sense underground, and a baptism by immersion does indeed still work as a symbol for it.  As far as the next verse goes, it isn’t a reference to baptism at all, and so the point falls to the ground.  

Now I am going to argue in a minute that the mode of baptism, immersion in water, acts as a symbol.  But let’s assume that for the moment.  What is it a symbol of?  Our death to sin, burial, and resurrection to newness of life, or Christ’s death, burial, and resurrection?  And the answer is, both.  We are symbolically showing in baptism that we have died with Christ.  Baptism is a baptism into the death of Christ.  It is how we show that we have been united to Christ in all the benefits of his death for us.  And when we are under we water, “we are buried with him [with Christ] by baptism into death.”  And when we come up out of the water, we are showing that we have risen with him to walk in newness of life.  Baptism is a visual symbol of our union with Christ in his death, burial, and resurrection for us.

It is a baptism of believers, or disciples.

Paul assumes that those who are baptized have died to sin.  He assumes that they are walking in newness of life.  In other words, he assumes they are believers.  Paul’s argument simply doesn’t work if some who are baptized have not been born again!  But this isn’t the case with infant baptism.  Look at Paul’s words here: “Know ye not, that as many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into his death?”  “As many of us” means “all who were baptized.”  Paul is not saying that baptism is a sign that we’re hoping for the best that the one who is baptized will eventually die to sin and live for Christ.  He is saying, that all who are baptized are professing to have died to sin and risen to a new life.  He is saying that they are no longer under the dominion of sin.  This kind of language is only consistent with a believer’s baptism view.  (By the way, this not only undermines the pedo-Baptist position, but also the no-lordship position as well!)

Now some will rebut by saying that Baptist churches contain baptized non-believers too.  We admit that.  But this difference is this: we don’t do it on purpose, and they do!  In other words, we admit that this shouldn’t happen, and that this is part of the enemy sowing tares among the wheat.  But the fact of the matter is that pedobaptist churches sow the tares themselves on purpose by baptizing those who are obviously cannot be shown to be born again.

I won’t spend too much more time on this, as I preached a whole sermon defending believer’s baptism in light of the New Covenant when we were going through the book of Hebrews, and I refer you to that sermon for a more detailed argument.  That brings me now to my second point.

Defense: baptism does not cause salvation.

What I am going to call the sacramental view of baptism does teach this.  They teach that baptism is not just a symbol for the washing of sins, but that it actually does wash away sins.  But this is a grave misunderstanding of the meaning and purpose of baptism.

Now they will refer to passages like Romans 6 to make their point.  They will say that Paul literally says that baptism unites us to Christ, that it puts us into Jesus Christ.  It is by baptism that we are buried with Christ, and it is by baptism that we rise to walk in newness of life.  And then there are passages like the one in 1 Peter where the apostle Peter says that baptism saves us (1 Pet. 3:21).  Or when Peter tells the crowds on the day of Pentecost: “Then Peter said unto them, Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost” (Acts 2:38).  Or when Ananias told Paul, “And now why tarriest thou? arise, and be baptized, and wash away thy sins, calling on the name of the Lord” (22:16).

What are we to say to this?  Well, first of all, let’s start here in Romans 6.  It should not be lost on us that we are in Romans 6, not in Romans 3 or 4 or 5.  Why is this important?  It is important because Paul has spent those chapters explicitly teaching us about how sinners become righteous before God, or how we are justified.  And Paul is very, very clear on this.  He says that we are justified by faith, and by faith alone.  And in particular, there is not a word about baptism when Paul explicitly expounds the doctrine of justification by faith in the first four chapters and begins to bring out its implications in chapter 5.  Why is this?  If baptism actually causes justification, it doesn’t make sense that Paul doesn’t even mention it when he is explaining it.  

But there is another reason to think that baptism doesn’t justify.  It is this: faith is a prerequisite for baptism.  If, as Paul clearly teaches in Romans and elsewhere, we are justified at the moment of faith when our sins are forgiven and we are declared righteous before God on the basis of Christ’s righteousness imputed to us, then baptism cannot justify us.  It cannot do what has already been done.  And justification is not one of those things you grow in; you don’t become more and more justified, which means that baptism can’t improve on it.  Faith and justification go together, and faith is a prerequisite for baptism, which means that those who are baptized are already justified.  Baptism cannot then wash away sins in a literally sense.

This sheds light, by the way, as to why Paul tells the Corinthians that he did not come to baptize but to preach the gospel (1 Cor. 1:17).  He tells us why: “For the preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness; but unto us which are saved it is the power of God” (18).  It is the preaching of the gospel which brings salvation to those who believe it (21), not baptism.  If baptism were inextricably tied to salvation, as some want us to think, it is inexplicable why Paul would swear off baptizing people.

What about regeneration?  Does baptism regenerate?  No, for if faith is necessary for baptism, then the person has already been born again since faith is the necessary fruit and evidence of regeneration.  “Whosoever believeth that Jesus is the Christ is born of God” (1 Jn. 5:1).  “But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name: which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God” (Jn. 1:12-13).  

What then do we do with Acts 2:38 and 22:16 and 1 Pet. 3:21?  Let’s take Acts 2:38 where Peter said that baptism is for the remission of sins.  I want to compare that with something John the Baptist says in Matthew 3:11, when he says: “I indeed baptize you with water unto repentance.”  Now the word “for” in Acts 2:38 and “unto” in Mt. 3:11 are the same Greek preposition (eis).  John’s baptism is a baptism unto or for repentance, and Peter’s baptism is a baptism unto or for remission of sins.  

The point I want to make is this.  There is no way to take John the Baptist’s expression to mean that his baptism caused people to repent.  His baptism didn’t create repentance in those who were baptized by him.  How do we know that?  Because John himself explicitly makes repentance a prerequisite for baptism.  Do you remember what he said to the scribes and Pharisees who came out to his baptism?   “But when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees come to his baptism, he said unto them, O generation of vipers, who hath warned you to flee from the wrath to come? Bring forth therefore fruits meet for repentance: And think not to say within yourselves, We have Abraham to our father: for I say unto you, that God is able of these stones to raise up children unto Abraham” (Mt. 3:7-9).  The pattern John demanded was not baptism and then repentance, but the other way round: repentance and then baptism. 

And that helps us to understand how this preposition functions with respect to baptism.  For a baptism to be “unto” or “for” something doesn’t necessarily mean it causes it.  It means that it symbolizes it, seals it so to speak, and is an outward sign of an already existing spiritual reality.  What Peter means is not that people are baptized in order to obtain the forgiveness of sins, but that they are to embrace baptism as the outward sign that they have received forgiveness by faith in Christ.  It is in this sense, I believe, that we should understand these other passages as well.  The First Peter passage is interesting in this respect, because there the apostle makes it explicit that it is not the outward act of baptism itself that saves, but the appeal to God for a good conscience, which really is just another way of talking about faith in Christ.

So baptism doesn’t regenerate us or justify us.  Regeneration produces faith and faith is the prerequisite for baptism.  This is the pattern that we also see in the books of Acts.  It’s not baptism, then the reception of the Holy Spirit, but the other way around.  For example, consider the baptism of Cornelius and his friends, of which we are told:

While Peter yet spake these words, the Holy Ghost fell on all them which heard the word. And they of the circumcision which believed were astonished, as many as came with Peter, because that on the Gentiles also was poured out the gift of the Holy Ghost. For they heard them speak with tongues, and magnify God. Then answered Peter, Can any man forbid water, that these should not be baptized, which have received the Holy Ghost as well as we? And he commanded them to be baptized in the name of the Lord. Then prayed they him to tarry certain days.  (Acts 10:44-48)

It is interesting to see how Peter reasons.  He sees faith; he sees the evidence of the Holy Spirit falling on these Gentiles.  It is on this basis that he says, “Can any man forbid water, that these should not be baptized?”  

Now someone will say, “But what about John 3?”  What about when Jesus tells Nicodemus, “Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit” (Jn. 3:5-6).  Now I will admit that many of the early church fathers took our Lord’s words to refer to baptism.  However, I doubt they caught the meaning right.  This is a case where though we want to give due respect to the theologians of the ancient church, we can’t hold them to be infallibly authoritative.  If we do, we have surrendered the Biblical standard of sola Scriptura.  

We aren’t left wondering what our Lord means by this.  The real background to our Lord’s words and reference to water here is not baptism but the prophet Ezekiel’s words in his prophecy: 

“Then will I sprinkle clean water upon you, and ye shall be clean: from all your filthiness, and from all your idols, will I cleanse you. A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you: and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you an heart of flesh. And I will put my spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes, and ye shall keep my judgments, and do them” (Ezek. 36:25-27).

Ezekiel was not or course referring to baptism here, which hadn’t been established.  It was purely a metaphor for cleansing, the cleansing which is accomplished by the Holy Spirit in the new birth.  This is what our Lord is talking about.  It is not a counterexample to the teaching of the rest of Scripture.  

Now what about church history?  Well, it is true that many of the early church fathers spoke of baptism as a washing of sins.  But we have seen that the NT speaks at times in this way, but doesn’t mean that baptism itself confers the forgiveness of sins, so I don’t see why we can’t read the early church fathers this way.  We do know that the sacramental view did over a period of time come to predominate in the church.  But that in itself doesn’t mean that this view was held from the beginning.  The fact that believer’s baptism was practiced widely in the early church militates against this.  And as one historian of the early church, Steven McKinion, has pointed out, the second/third century theologian “Tertullian claimed that ‘sound faith is secure of salvation.’”  As McKinion goes on to argue, “No stronger statement could be made to divorce the rite of baptism in itself from saving faith. Salvation was not procured by baptism, but faith was the sure indicator of salvation. In other words, for Tertullian salvation was by faith alone, even when the believer lacked baptism.”[2]  

Clement of Rome, writing at the end of the first century, says this about justification – note the complete absence of any mention of baptism: “And we, too, being called by His will in Christ Jesus, are not justified by ourselves, nor by our own wisdom, or understanding, or godliness, or works which we have wrought in holiness of heart; but by that faith through which, from the beginning, Almighty God has justified all men; to whom be glory for ever and ever. Amen” (from 1 Clement, chapter 32).  According to Clement, we are justified by faith, not by any work that we have wrought, including submitting to baptism.

But what then does baptism do?  How does it function?

Demonstration: a positive case for the meaning and use of baptism

Not just a sign . . . but it is a sign!  

Sometimes people will complain that calling baptism “just a symbol” is to denigrate and despise it.  But we do not despise what God has given when we use it in the way he has given it to us.  And God has given baptism to us as a sign and symbol of spiritual realities.  That it is a sign of salvation rather than the cause of salvation follows from the fact that baptism happens after faith, by which point we are already born again and justified.  However, that doesn’t mean that it is “only a symbol.”  As our Lord said, “If ye know these things, happy are ye if ye do them” (Jn. 13:17).  Whenever we obey the Lord, and part of our obedience is baptism (cf. Mt 28:18-20), then we can expect his blessing upon us.  We can expect to experience the joy of the Lord.  

Nor do I think it is wrong to say that baptism is a means of grace.  Of course it is.  We cannot think that Christ has given his church ordinances and then that he will withhold his grace from us when we keep them.  And as a means of grace through Christ, it is a part of the salvation that he purchased for us on the cross.  But saying that baptism is a means of grace is not the same thing as saying that baptism causes us to be justified or that baptism causes us to be born again.  This is something the Bible does not teach, and we must not waver on that for a moment.

How then should it function in our lives?  Let me suggest the following things.

First, as the outward and visible evidence and sign of our union with Christ in his death, burial, and resurrection for us, it should function as a reminder to us of Christ’s commitment to us.  Believer, remember your baptism.  When our Lord tells the church at Ephesus to repent, he tells them to remember from where they had fallen and to do the first works (Rev. 2:5).  Surely baptism is one of the first works, and we are to remember that not only when we have fallen in sin, but also to keep us from falling into it.  Baptism can help us as we look back on that time when we were saved, and to remind us of what that means.

Fundamentally, it doesn’t refer to us to our commitment, but to Christ’s.  In baptism, we are visibly and symbolically showing that we have been united to Christ in all the benefits of his death and resurrection.  And we are reminded that we are united to Christ, not because of the baptism itself, but because of the effectual call of God to embrace Jesus Christ freely offered to us in the gospel.  We are in Christ because the Father has drawn us to him (Jn. 6:44).  And those who he draws to himself, those who come to him, he will never cast out (Jn. 6:37).  He is absolutely committed to the salvation of his people, able to save “to the uttermost them that come unto God by him” (Heb. 7:25).  He is the Good Shepherd who will never lose a single one of his sheep (Jn. 10:25-27).

As we said last time, union with Christ is union with him who created and sustains all things.  He is sovereign over everything.  His kingdom rules over all.  We’re not left flailing about in our own strength and left to our own devices.  Paul repeatedly focuses our attention to the reality of our union with the Lord and its implications in his letter to the Colossians.  He writes, “For in him [Christ] dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily. And ye are complete in him, which is the head of all principality and power” (Col. 2:9-10).  Baptism reminds us of this.  And as it reminds us of this, our faith is strengthened and our hope deepened.

Actually, one of the disadvantages of looking at baptism as if it did cause salvation is to truncate its effectiveness in the life of the Christian.  According to many who think that baptism literally washes away our sins, the sins that are washed away are only past sins.  Or just original sin.  Baptism in a way, according to this view, puts you in the way of grace, but now it’s up to you to keep yourself there.  Baptism recedes in the distance as you now have to focus on keeping your head above the water by doing things like attending mass and doing penance and staying in good graces with the church.  Brethren, that’s bondage, not freedom.  Rather, baptism is a reminder that you are united to Christ who will never leave you or forsake you, and that you are baptized, not in order to obtain grace, but because you already have it, and will never lose it.

Believer, you are united to him who is in heaven, who rules over all, and who will bring you to himself before the throne of his glory with exceeding joy.  Let your baptism remind you of that!

Second, as the outward and visible evidence and sign of our union with Christ in his death, burial, and resurrection for us, it should function as a reminder of what union with Christ does, namely, cause us to die to sin and to walk in newness of life.  Brothers and sisters, something real happens when a person is united to Christ in the new birth.  There is a great change that happens.  There is a fundamental difference in our relationship to sin.  It is spelled out in the terms of the New Covenant, which promises that all who are in the covenant, which is established in the blood of Christ , applied by the Holy Spirit, and received by faith, that they will have God’s law put in their hearts, that God will be their God, that they will know the Lord personally and truly, and that all their sins will be forgiven (Heb. 8:10-12).  

Now this is a reminder then of the commitment we should have toward the Lord.  Yes, baptism is fundamentally about Christ’s commitment to us, but his commitment to us creates our commitment to him.  It means that all who are united to Christ repent of their sins and trust in him.  They turn to God and live their lives in accordance with his word.  They no longer find God’s commandments to be a burden but a delight.  I will never forget the story a widow in a church I was a member of as a young man back in Texas told me.  She told me that one of her nephews complained to her that the Ten Commandments were just so hard!  You should have heard the disbelief in her voice as she related this to me.  She couldn’t understand his attitude at all.  For her, the commandments were a delight as much as they were a duty.  Of course, the difference was that she had been changed by the grace of God.  Christ had united her to himself and given her new affections.  Her attitude was the attitude of the apostle who said, “For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments: and his commandments are not grievous” (1 Jn. 5:3).  

The reminder in baptism that our Lord Jesus is committed to us ought to inspire great hope and courage.  And the reminder in baptism that we are risen with Christ to a life of commitment to him ought to inspire in us great devotion and faithfulness.  This is how baptism is meant to function.   Believer, let it function this way in your life.  Don’t forget it; remember it.  Live in a way that is consonant with the doctrine of union with Christ. 

What about those who you who have not yet been baptized?  Well, if you are a believer, the NT commands you to be baptized.  And of course, you don’t stop there but you go on to be discipled in all that Jesus commands and teaches us.  If you are not a believer, I would ask you to consider the significance of baptism.  The fact to so many millions of people have been baptized in the last 2000 years of Christ’s power means that those millions of people are living witnesses to the reality of what we are talking about here.  Christ has met them and has changed them.  They know what it means to have access to God and fellowship with him.  They know his power and his grace.  My friend, that is possible for all who come to God by Jesus Christ.  He commands you to repent and believe for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.  All who do so are united to Christ in all the fulness of his redemptive power and grace.  May the Holy Spirit draw you even today to embrace Jesus Christ, and in embracing him, to find that he has already embraced you to himself.

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[1] Ralph Gower, The New Manners and Customs of Bible Times (Chicago: Moody, 1987), p. 72-74.

[2] Thomas R. Schreiner and Shawn D. Wright, eds., Believer’s Baptism: Sign of the New Covenant in Christ (Nashville, B&H Academic, 2006 [Kindle Version]), p. 174.