There are few religious acts about which there is more controversy than baptism. Most of the Christian world does not believe that it has anything to do with our salvation. Many say that it is only a symbolic ritual to show what has already taken place in our hearts and our lives, namely, the forgiveness of our sins. No passage speaks against this attitude more clearly than Romans 6:3-4. “Or do you know that as many of us as were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death? Therefore we were buried with Him through baptism into death, that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life.”
We need to understand that Romans 6 is not about baptism. It is about sin. The word “sin” appears 16 times in this chapter. Paul was encouraging Christians to remember what took place when they were baptized. I do not know of anyone who questions the fact that faith in the sacrifice of Christ is the basis for our forgiveness. Thus, the question is, “When are our sins washed away?”
Paul said that it occurs in baptism. Baptism is much more than a mere symbol or ritual. It is more than a physical act of obedience. In Romans 6:2, Paul taught that we died to sin when we were baptized. In 6:3, Paul declared that we are baptized into Jesus Christ as well as baptized into His death.
Most people would agree that it is the blood of Jesus that actually washes away our sins (Revelation 1:5), but how can we contact the blood of Jesus? The blood of Jesus was shed at the cross. When Jesus died, a soldier put a spear into the side of Jesus, and blood and water flowed out (John 19:34). When we are baptized, we are baptized into the death of Jesus, which is where the blood was shed. Thus, we come in contact with the blood of Jesus, which washes away our sin. No one can be saved without dying to sin. No one can be saved without being united with Christ. No one can be saved without contacting the blood of Jesus. All of these occur in baptism, according to the apostle Paul.
Paul also said that after baptism, we are raised to walk in newness of life. In Romans, Paul wrote how our baptism is, in effect, a re-creation of the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus. Jesus ended His physical life, but only to begin a new resurrected life. In like manner, we die to sin; thus, we end our previous lives of sin and begin new lives of purity. We do not just change a few things or erase a few mistakes. We start new lives. This makes baptism the physical point at which our old lives end and our new lives begin. “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation, old things have passed away, behold, all things have become new” (2 Corinthians. 5:17). Consequently, we begin a life of single-minded devotion to Jesus.
Considering what Paul penned that happens at baptism, how can anyone say that baptism is only a ritual or a symbol? While it is a symbol, what it symbolizes actually comes to pass, not by the power of any man or the water, but by the power of God.
