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St. Paul has been speaking in the previous paragraph of "grace abounding," and a very natural insinuation might be made that continuance, permanent abiding, in sin would be the condition of the most abounding grace. If, therefore, our pardon and acceptance are secured through Christ's obedience unto death, what motive can the justified have in warring with sin? Why not sin up to our bent, that grace may abound? It is this immoral insinuation that the apostle combats, and combats successfully, in the present section. He does so by bringing out the full significance of Christ's death to the believer. Now, the peculiar beauty of our Lord's history lies in this, that, as Pascal long ago pointed out, it may have, and is intended to have, its reproduction in the experience of the soul. The salient facts of Christ's history - for example, his death, burial, and resurrection - get copied into the experience of the regenerated soul. The apostle had experienced this himself. At Damascus he had experienced

(1) a burial of the past;

(2) a resurrection into a new life;

(3) a walking in newness of life.

This he believes to be the normal experience of the believer in Jesus. Let us see how these facts of Christ's history, death, burial, and resurrection, get duplicated in our experience.

I. OUR BAPTISM INTO CHRIST IMPLIES A BAPTISM INTO HIS DEATH. The apostle speaks to the baptized Roman Christians in these terms: "Are ye ignorant that all we who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried therefore with him through baptism into death" (Revised Version). What we have got first to determine here is the exact meaning of being baptized in or into the name of a Person. In a remarkable essay on ' Baptism and the Third Commandment,' a thoughtful writer says, "There is an evident connection between these two. We are baptized in the Name of the Lord our God. And that is the Name which we are commanded not to take in vain It is to tell that we are the Lord's, claimed by him for his service, called to be followers of him 'as dear children' (Ephesians 5:1). This is the real meaning of a phrase, much used but little reflected on - a Christian name. Such are the names, John, James, Thomas, among men; Jane, Mary, Elizabeth, among women. They tell that the bearers belong to Christ. We have two names. The latter of these, our surname, distinguishes us as the children of our earthly father; the former avouches us as the children of a Father in heaven. And let us mark well what comes out of this solemn verity. If we have upon us the name of the God of gentleness while we ourselves are men of strife, or the name of the God of purity while our own lives are impure, or the name of the God of truth while we are given to lying, we are taking that name in vain." Following out this clue, let us notice that baptism into Christ implies a baptism into his death. For Jesus "died unto sin once;" "he died for the ungodly;" "he died for us;" that is, he passed through the experience of crucifixion to save the lost. Now, the counterpart of this death for sin is found in us if we believe upon him. We realize that we have died in him unto or for sin. "If One died for all, then all died" (2 Corinthians 5:14). Accordingly, we are to "reckon ourselves to be dead" in Jesus Christ "unto sin." Coleridge has rightly remarked, in his 'Literary Remains,' that "in the imagination of man exist the seeds of all moral and scientific improvement;" and it is by placing ourselves imaginatively on the cross with Christ, and realizing in his atoning sacrifice our death for sin, that we come to appreciate our individual justification before God. We are thus baptized into his death.

II. OUR BAPTISM INTO DEATH IMPLIES A BURIAL WITH JESUS. For our blessed Lord not only died upon the cross; he was also buried in the tomb. Friends begged the body, took it down tenderly from the accursed tree, wrapped it in spices, and laid it in Joseph's well-known sepulchre. Now, in burial one thought overpowers all others; it is the putting of the dead out of sight, out of all relation to the struggling world around. As long as a man's body remains in the tomb

"He has no share in all that's done
Beneath the circuit of the sun." Such a separation took place through burial between the once-living Christ and the bustling world. The throngs might seethe around the temple court and settle down to selfishness again, but the Master-spirit who had been among them is now withdrawn, and sleeping for a season in his tomb. Now, the apostle implies in this passage that a similar sharp separation is experienced by the truly Christian soul from the world. In casting in his lot with Christ, he is buried out of sight, so to speak, and becomes a stranger in the world. His reception by baptism into the Christian community implies his withdrawal from the previous worldly relations in which he stood to other men. And here it is only right to guard against the superficial use made of the burial reference, as if it implied a mode in baptism. "This word (συνετάφημεν), 'we were entombed,' contrary to the opinion of many commentators," says Dr. Shedd, "has no reference to the rite of baptism, because the burial spoken of is not in water, but in a sepulchre Burial and baptism are totally diverse ideas, and have nothing in common. In order to baptism, the element of water must come into contact with the body baptized; but in a burial, the surrounding element of earth comes into no contact at all with the body buried. The corpse is carefully protected from the earth in which it is laid. Entombment, consequently, is not the emblem of baptism, but of death." Consequently, the idea of the apostle is that we are spiritually separated from the world by our reception into the Christian community by baptism, just as Jesus was physically separated through his burial in the tomb. Godet, in a note to his comment upon this passage, gives a beautiful illustration of the truth from what a Bechuana convert said to the missionary Casalis some years ago. The convert was a shepherd, and thus expressed himself: "Very soon I shall be dead, and they will bury me in my field. My sheep will come and pasture above me. But I shall no more attend to them, nor go out of my tomb to seize them and carry them back with me into the sepulchre. They will be strange to me and I to them. Behold the image of my life in the midst of the world, from the time that I have believed in Christ." The idea, therefore, is that by our baptism, i.e. by our union with the Christian Church, we are buried out of the world. The Church proves, so to speak, the cemetery where, in holy peace and blissful fellowship, God's people rest. And so, as we manfully throw in our lot with Christ, we pass into the grave-like peace of the Christian Church, and enjoy therein fellowship with Christ and his peaceful people. It is to this burial out of the world and into the kingdom of God we are called.

III. ALONG WITH THIS DEATH AND BURIAL WITH CHRIST THERE IS EXPERIENCED A CRUCIFIXION OF OUR OLD NATURE. Historically the crucifixion precedes the death, but experimentally we shall find that, as the apostle here puts it, it succeeds it (ver. 6). It is when we have realized our death in Jesus for sin, and our burial with Jesus out of the world, that the crucifixion and mortification of our old nature begin. A counterpart of the crucifixion is realized within us. The "body of sin," elsewhere called "the flesh" (σάρξ), must be destroyed, and we nail it to the cross, so to speak, with as much alacrity as the Roman soldiers crucified Christ. We "crucify the flesh with the affections and lusts;" we "mortify our members which are upon the earth" (Galatians 5:24; Colossians 3:5). We feel that "our old man" is incapable of amendment; that the only way in which to improve him is to improve him off the face of the earth and out of existence. This is, consequently, the steady effort of the regenerate soul to kill, by patient crucifixion, the old nature within. As the Saviour was several hours on the cross, as crucifixion, though in his case comparatively speedy, is yet a tardy ordeal, not a momentary execution; so the death of our old nature takes time for its accomplishment, and must be patiently passed through. We must be crucified with Christ, as well as feel that we have died in Christ for sin (Galatians 2:20).

IV. OUR BURIAL WITH JESUS IS WITH A VIEW TO OUR RESURRECTION WITH HIM INTO NEWNESS OF LIFE. After death and burial there came to Jesus, as the Father's glorious gift, resurrection to a new life. Let us consider what resurrection as an experience brought to Jesus. From the cradle to the cross Christ had been the "Man of sorrows." The weary weight of all this sinful, sorrow-stricken world lay on him; the Father had laid on his strong and willing shoulders the iniquity of us all. It was not wonderful, then, that his life was one long burden, taking end only on the cross. But the first glimpse we get of the risen Saviour conveys the notion of sturdy, stalwart strength, for the Magdalene mistakes him for the gardener. And all that we can gather from subsequent interviews with his disciples goes to show that life has ceased to be the burden it was once, and is now free, joyous, triumphant. All sense of sin-bearing is gone like a dream of the night; he is out in the glad morning of the resurrection with everlasting joy upon his head. Now, such a joyful experience should be the possession of every regenerate soul. We should feel not only that guilt is cancelled through the death of Jesus for us, and that we are "accepted in the Beloved," but also that a new life is ours - a life of fellowship with God. For just as Jesus during "the great forty days" was more in the unseen with the Father than in the seen with the disciples, so in our new life we shall largely cultivate fellowship with the Father.

V. THE NEW LIFE WE LEAD WILL BE LIKE OUR LORD'S, ONE OF ENTIRE CONSECRATION TO GOD. Now, of the risen Saviour it may well be said that he lived unto God. All his faculties and powers were instruments of righteousness unto God. So it is in the Christian life. It is one of entire consecration. In this way it will be seen that justification leads necessarily to sanctification. The leading facts of our Lord's history get duplicated in our experience, and death, burial, resurrection, and consecration become ours. - R.M.E.

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Parallel Verses

KJV: What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound?

WEB: What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound?