Romans 6v3

Know ye not, that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into his death?

From the first few verses of the book of Romans, we can see Paul describes this book as being written “Concerning his Son Jesus Christ our Lord” (Romans 1v3). He addresses it “To all that be in Rome, beloved of God, called to be saints” (Romans 1v7). Clearly the book of Romans is aimed at further revealing and clarifying the position of Jesus in relationship with the church – those that have started on salvation’s path already.

Many books and commentaries on the book of Romans could probably be written, and indeed have been written by others. In order to put the current verse into its proper context however, I will cover just a few of the verses leading up to this one that I believe especially relate to baptism and the apostle Paul’s understanding of it.

If we firstly look at Romans 3v24-26, we see that Paul had the following to say regarding Jesus:

Redemption is found in Christ Jesus
Because of this we are justified freely through grace
Faith in the blood of Jesus is important
Through this faith of ours, Jesus can pay the price of our sin and take the penalty for it
All of this declares the righteousness of Jesus
Through this righteousness of Jesus we can receive remission of sins
(and of course, we have already seen that remission of sins and baptism are very closely dependant on each other to be effectual – see also Luke 3v3 {30 }, John 1v28 {45 }, John 1v31 {46 } and Acts 2v38 {56 })

Before I continue, turn to the next page where I will take this opportunity to explain the word redemption.

If you know how a pawn broker works, you can take something valuable to them – say some jewellery – and use it as security for a loan. Now the pawn shop has your valuable item, and you have some money. When you are ready to pay back the money, including some profit for the pawn broker, you can go back to them and buy back or “redeem” your valuable item. Until you do this, your valuable item effectively belongs to the pawn broker, and if you don’t come back within a certain time they are then free to sell the item to whoever wants to buy it. So redemption is then the buying back again of something that previously belonged to you.

This applies to every one who sins, and since “all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God” (Romans 3v23) it applies to everyone. The human race did not belong to the Devil, and were not slaves to sin, until Adam allowed the deceiver into his life. From that point on, all of humanity were and are slaves to sin – as Jesus said, “Whosoever committeth sin is the servant of sin.” (John 8v34)

So our starting position in relation to God is that we are sold into slavery to sin. Despite this, God made it possible for us to get out of this slavery – it is the blood of Jesus that buys us back from that slavery, and puts us back into a correct relationship with God. Jesus paid the price, but it is down to us to believe, and then present the cheque (in some parts of the world spelt ‘check’) that Jesus wrote out on our behalf. A cheque is an instrument of exchange – the instrument of exchange (or contract) in our case is the Word of God, and the items exchanged are the blood of Jesus for our sin.

From all of the above points found in Romans chapter 3, we can see that Jesus and what He has done on our behalf is very important in our salvation. Please note especially that we receive remission of sins through the righteousness of Jesus – remembering that we have already seen that baptism is for the remission of sins.

Let us now look at another portion of the book of Romans that I believe is very relevant in order to understand the current verse in its correct context – Romans chapter 5. Throughout the whole chapter, we find Paul telling us about the work of Jesus and the blessing that we have through him:

We have peace with God through Jesus (Romans 5v1)
We have access to God’s grace through Jesus (Romans 5v2)
Jesus died for us while we were ungodly (Romans 5v6,8)
We are justified by the blood of Jesus (Romans 5v9,18)
We are saved by Jesus from God’s wrath against sin (Romans 5v10)
We have joy in God through Jesus (Romans 5v11)
Our sins are atoned for through Jesus (Romans 5v11)
The gift of grace, available for all, was made possible by Jesus (Romans 5v15)
Through Jesus we receive the abundance of grace, the gift of righteousness, and reign as kings in this life (Romans 5v17)
We are made righteous through the obedience of the one and only Jesus (Romans 5v19)
All of these lead to eternal life, which all comes through Jesus Christ (Romans 5v21)

For an explanation of some of these words and concepts, please refer to a good Bible dictionary, as Paul’s teaching here is very rich and perhaps a whole book could be written on each of the above bullet points.

The main reason for drawing your attention to the points that Paul makes in the previous chapter is so that I can make this point – all of these are reasons behind being baptised into Jesus Christ – or in the name of Jesus Christ. The current verse clearly expects that most of the intended audience, and Paul himself, were all baptised in the name of Jesus. We saw the evidence of Paul’s baptism in Acts 9v1-18 {63 } and also Acts 22v5-16 {76 } and already know that he was baptised in the name of the Lord. We have also seen him baptising others in the name of Jesus (Especially here see the Ephesians, as found in Acts 19v1-5 {73 } {74 } {75 }), so it should be no surprise to find out that the Romans were also baptised in the name of Jesus.

The current verse clearly states another reason why the believer is baptised in the name of Jesus – to identify with his death. In fact it is by the death of Jesus that we have access too all of the blessings of God that Paul has previously mentioned in this book, and we have already looked at earlier in this section. Without the death of Jesus there would be no redemption, no justification, no blood to have faith in, nobody paying the price for sin on our behalf, and no remission of sins through the blood of the sinless Son of God. Is it then any wonder that we can and should identify with His work on our behalf through the blessing that is baptism in the name of Jesus Christ?