Baptized into Christ

What did the Apostle Paul mean when he talked about being baptized into Christ?

He says it's not possible logically to receive Jesus Christ, to be united to Jesus Christ. It's illogical to think that if you've been baptized into His righteousness, you would live as though you were still dominated by the world of sinfulness. What actually happened when you were baptized? Whether you were baptized as a baby or later in life, it's about far more than getting sprinkled with or immersed in water. As we're going to learn today here on Renewing Your Mind, your baptism signifies something rich and deeply meaningful about your relationship with Jesus and how you are united to Him.

Let's join Ligonier teaching fellow, Dr. Sinclair Ferguson, to find out more. Well, we've now reached the halfway point in this series of studies on union with our Lord Jesus Christ, and perhaps this is a good place to remind ourselves what we are seeking to do in this series of studies. We saw right at the very beginning that the Apostle Paul uses this expression in Christ very frequently. Indeed, he uses that expression and in the Lord and variants of that expression somewhere over 160 times, which means somewhere on average every few verses the Apostle Paul will speak about being in Christ. And yet, I wonder if you agree with me when I say I think many Christians have read their Bible for many years and they've never noticed how important this is. But when you do notice that it's so pervasive, especially in the Apostle Paul, then once you notice it, you can't avoid noticing it every time you read one of his letters. It was so important to him. And we saw just by looking at his letter to the Ephesians that the whole of Ephesians depends in a sense on this teaching that Christian believers are united to Christ.

And then we went on to explore this a little further. How did Paul discover this? And I suggest that he actually got the first real hint of it consciously on the Damascus Road when having persecuted Stephen and persecuting other Christians, the Lord Jesus said, Why are you persecuting me? It was as though Jesus was telling him, I do not count myself to be separated from my people because my people are united to me.

And then we went on to see the dimensions of this union. It is rooted in eternity, it comes to fruition in Christ's union with us and the incarnation, and then it becomes personal when we believe into. The Apostle Paul uses this preposition not just on the Lord Jesus, although he does, but into, we believe into the Lord Jesus Christ. And the whole of history in a sense is the story of those who have been in the first Adam and those who by grace come to be in the last Adam, the Lord Jesus Christ. So that in Him, our resurrected Savior, we become part of the new creation. We are reconciled to God. We are new creatures in Christ.

But more than that, it's as though we have stepped onto a new world. We might think of Jesus coming out of the tomb on the resurrection morning and saying, That's one small step for a man, but a giant leap for those who are united to that one man, Jesus Christ. And all of this, as we saw, comes to us in a kind of nutshell verse, Galatians chapter 2 verse 20, I've been crucified with Christ, yet I live, but it's no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. But simply by the use of these several prepositions, the Apostle Paul in a nutshell is telling us how wonderful it is to be somebody who knows he or she is united to the Lord Jesus Christ. This is simply introductory, and in fact, when we come to the end of our studies, I think we will feel this is still simply introductory to a great, great topic in the New Testament. But I want in the next few sessions for us to focus down on what I think are probably the two major passages that help us in our thinking about union with Christ. The first of these is in Romans chapter 6 and verses 1 through 14, Romans chapter 6 and verses 1 through 14. This is an immensely important passage. I think all of us who are Christian believers need to have a working knowledge of Romans 6, 1 through 14 because it's of such pastoral significance to us.

That said, it's not the easiest chapter in the Bible to understand. I remember many years ago reading about a man coming into the vestry of Westminster Chapel in London where Dr. Martin Lloyd-Jones was the minister for so many years, undoubtedly the greatest preacher in the United Kingdom in my lifetime. And he said to Dr. Lloyd-Jones, when are you going to start a series on Romans? And Dr. Lloyd-Jones, who was an immensely able man, said to him, I will begin when I can understand Romans 6. I will begin when I can understand Romans 6.

And that's what we need to do. We need at least to make a beginning to understanding it because it contains a major key to Paul's teaching on union with the Lord Jesus Christ. And the first thing I want you to notice is that he introduces the topic by speaking about baptism. Chapter 6 verse 3, don't you know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death? It's almost as though he is saying, don't you understand what it means to be baptized? Or to put that in other language, don't you understand what it actually means to be a Christian? Don't you understand what it actually means to be a Christian? And the rest of the passage is an exposition of union with Christ.

It's as though he's saying to us, if you want to understand who and what you are as a Christian, you absolutely need to have some sense of the privilege of being united to the Lord Jesus Christ. Now you remember how this chapter begins. What shall we say then?

That is, what shall we say to what I've just said? Earlier on we were looking at Romans 5, 12 to 21, which finishes in this very dramatic way. Adam brings in sin, Christ brings in righteousness.

Adam brings in the fall, Christ brings in salvation. And Paul makes this daring statement. He says, sin reigned in death, now grace reigns through righteousness to eternal life. But the amazing thing is this, where sin abounded, grace has abounded all the more. Where sin abounds, grace super abounds.

And you can almost imagine a cynical man in the back row listening to Paul preach saying, I have a question. What you are saying implies if the more sin, the more grace, then the more we sin, the more God will display His grace. So why should we not keep on sinning so that grace may super abound? And this is the very question he asks in verse 1. Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? And I want us to plot our way through the manner in which the Apostle Paul answers that question.

You can see why it arises. The more sin, the more grace. Ergo, we keep on sinning because that will lead God to display more grace. In fact, Paul was accused of teaching this. He actually refers to this earlier on in chapter 3 and verse 8. He speaks about people saying that this was the kind of thing he was teaching, that we could ignore obedience and essentially live to our own pleasure. That was how people heard him preach the freeness of the grace of God to sinners. Interestingly, it's one of the accusations that was also brought against the Reformers, Martin Luther, John Calvin, the other Reformers.

This was hurled at them from across the divide. If you teach free grace in Jesus Christ, justification by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone, people will take it and then they'll go on to live any way they please. And it was really a sign to these early Reformers. Those who are accusing us of this do not really understand the gospel. This is not the first time this accusation has been leveled against gospel teaching. It was leveled against gospel teaching in the New Testament. And in a sense, therefore, it is proof positive that the gospel we preach is the gospel of the New Testament. Now, what's Paul's answer?

Paul's answer is this. Don't you understand what it means to have been baptized? Don't you understand that when our Lord Jesus was baptized in the Jordan as a symbol of His baptism on the cross of Calvary for us, He was baptized into our sins so that when we are baptized into Jesus Christ, we are baptized into His righteousness. He says it's not possible logically to receive Jesus Christ, to be united to Jesus Christ.

It's illogical to think that if you've been baptized into His righteousness, you would live as though you were still dominated by the world of sinfulness. But he reasons this out with great care. And I want us first of all to notice, because I think it may be helpful, notice the roadmap he is using as he works his way through this teaching. He begins first of all at the level of emotion, and having expressed his emotional response, he then goes on to give a theological explanation. And we'll look at these two things in this session. Then he goes on in verses 6 through 10 to provide a doctrinal exposition. And then in verse 11, he brings home to us an implication before finally in verses 12 to 14, providing us with his exhortation. So, if you like rhyming headings, they are emotion, explanation, exposition, implication, and exhortation.

First of all, the emotion. And I want us to pause on this just for a minute. What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? Now, the English Standard Version has a perfectly proper translation of Paul's response. But the old King James Version had a much more vigorous expression, didn't it, those of you who are old enough to possess a 1611 translation, God forbid.

And you can sense the strength of emotion. Now, notice Paul's response here is not what we would call a doctrinal response. At this point, he is not saying, let me give you the theological explanation why we don't do this.

This is his gut reaction. And that's a very significant thing. We are properly taught that we don't live our Christian lives on the basis of our emotions. We are properly taught that renewal comes not by a change in our emotions, but a change in our understanding. But we mustn't forget that when Paul says it's through the renewing of our minds that our lives are transformed, he's not just speaking about the transformation of our brains. He's not just speaking about the clarification of our thinking. That would be an enormous mistake to make. And it would actually, in most cases, just lead to pride.

I understand. Paul is speaking about the way in which the gospel so penetrates our lives that it begins to transform our emotions. And this is a very important thing in our day.

It's a very important thing for us if we are parents of youngsters growing up, actually. In this information age, it's very characteristic of younger people to have their knowledge base huge, but their emotional base small. And for there to be a disconnect between the extent to which they've grown in knowledge and the extent to which they've grown as people, the extent to which their emotional response to life matches, and you see the same can be true in our Christian lives. And what we have here is a man who, after these years in which the gospel has penetrated his life, it's actually affected his emotions. You know, we always urge Christians to think, don't we?

But Paul isn't needing to think here. The thinking of the truth of the gospel has so affected every fiber of his being that he instinctively recoils from this. I wonder if any of you remember the wonderful thing that C. H. Spurgeon said about John Bunyan, that if you pricked him anywhere, he would flow bibbeline.

If you pricked him anywhere, he would flow bibbeline. And this is what the gospel does to us. It not only clarifies our thinking, it touches us very deeply into our emotions.

And this is the explanation for the way in which this expostulation might be the right one, but let me just call it emotion. Paul's emotional life has been cleansed and transformed by the power of the gospel because he has a renewed mind. And that's why he gives this explanation in verses 3 to 5. Of course, we don't go on sinning that grace may abound.

Don't you know, you see, there is the emotional response, but the emotional response has been created by his understanding of the gospel. And he appeals to the Romans several times in this passage, doesn't he? In verse 3, don't you know? Later on in verse 6, we know.

Later on in verse 16, don't you know? Again, it's because of our understanding of the gospel that our emotional life is transformed. And Paul is using the illustration of baptism. He's saying, Christians in Rome, don't you even understand your baptism? Now, that actually is a very good question because I think if you ask many people, what was the meaning of your baptism? Either they would say, well, it was done to me when I was a baby, or they would say things like, well, I followed Jesus into the waters of baptism. I professed my faith at such and such a service.

And what is missing in both cases is we're talking about what we did or what our parents did. We're not talking at all about what baptism did, what baptism said. And Paul is saying, don't you…have you never heard what your baptism said about you?

Baptism in the New Testament according to Jesus in Matthew 28, baptism is a naming ceremony. We're baptized into the name. We're taken out of the name we had, and we're now placed into the family of God. We're given this name.

This is who you are. Baptism is telling us that what we receive in Jesus Christ is not only the forgiveness of our sins, but union with Him. So, he says, don't you understand that all of us who were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into His death, and we were buried with Christ by baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised by the glory of the Father, so too we might walk in newness of life. So, we look at baptism.

We see the baptism of others, and we're encouraged by certainly the catechisms of our church as we watch the baptism of others to hear the gospel being preached in visible signs to us, reminding us who we are. We are those who have died in the death of Christ to the dominion of sin and been raised in the resurrection of Christ by the power of God to walk in newness of life. That's who you are. And everything that Paul goes on to say, although he puts all of this under the microscope, everything that he goes on to say can essentially be summed up like this. If that's who you are, then live like that. If that's who you are, you need to know who you are. Isn't it interesting how there are some emphases in the gospel that just seem especially appropriate at certain times of history?

They're always relevant, but sometimes they seem to be especially relevant. And here we're living in a day, think of a teenager who has come to faith in Jesus Christ in the midst of all the pressures and all the voices that are surrounding them and calling them in the midst of all the moral and intellectual confusion of our times when young people, as we noted the other day, are being encouraged to decide who they are, to be able to say, I know who I am. Because how do you know who you are? Well, the external expression of it is, I was baptized into union and communion with the Lord Jesus Christ. Now, Paul uses a very striking expression in this context, and perhaps this is something that you know.

What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound by no means? How can we who died to sin? Now, just that phrase, we who, we who. The relative pronoun Paul uses here is not the ordinary relative pronoun.

It's a special form of it. We might kind of better translate it just for our own understanding. How can we who are the kind of people? How can we who belong to the category of people who are defined as those who died to sin go on living in sin?

He's not just thinking about you as an individual. How can I, how can I who died to sin go on living in sin? But how can I who belongs to a category of people who died to sin go on living in it any longer?

We try and illustrate this from personal experience. Many years ago, the president of the seminary in which I taught, this is many years ago, passed me on the seminary campus and very casually said to me, have you become an American citizen yet? Now, let me be absolutely clear, it is not an offense for a Scottish person to become an American citizen. It is not an offense for a Welsh person. I have a very close friend who is Welsh who is now an American citizen.

It is not a sinful act. Have you not become an American citizen? I said, no, I said, he said, why not?

And my instinctive response was, you can guess what it was. Well, I'm Scottish. I mean, no offense to those of you who are Americans. But if somebody said to you, have you become an Italian citizen yet, if you lived in Italy for a wee while, you would have the same.

Become an Italian citizen? No, I'm an American. That's the language Paul is using here. It's what I am. In Jesus Christ, I'm someone who has died to sin. So how could I possibly contemplate going on to live in sin?

You see how deep an instinct that was in me actually? I didn't need to think about that. It just came out.

Probably it shouldn't have come out. Why would I, a Scot, become an Italian citizen? So why would you who have died to sin ever think of going on to live in sin? Because you're united to the Lord Jesus Christ. That's a helpful illustration of our union with Christ.

It means having a new identity with new loves, new desires, and it reorients our entire worldview in a heavenward direction. That's one of the vital lessons we've learned today from Ligonier teaching fellow Dr. Sinclair Ferguson. There is so much to appreciate about this doctrine. One thing that stands out for me is that if we are in Christ, we are secure.

God's not going to let us go. Dr. Ferguson explains all of this in his 12-part DVD series, Union with Christ, and we'd be glad to send it to you for your donation of any amount to Ligonier Ministries. There are a couple of ways you can reach us.

One is online at renewingyourmind.org, or you can simply call us with your gift at 800-435-4343. Are you having a difficult time finding trustworthy Bible teaching? We invite you to listen to RefNet, that's Ligonier Ministries' 24-hour online radio station. Renewing Your Mind is featured several times during the day, but you'll also hear from John MacArthur, Alistair Begg, and other trusted pastors and teachers.

You can listen when you go to refnet.fm or when you download the free RefNet app to your phone or tablet. Well, over the past couple of days, we have learned so much about what our union with Christ means and why it matters. We hope you'll join us again tomorrow as Dr. Ferguson points out yet another staggering implication of this doctrine. Our old self was crucified with Christ in order that the body under the dominion of sin might be released from that dominion. It might no longer be fruitful soil for the reign of sin, and the result is that I'm no longer enslaved to sin. That's tomorrow, here on Renewing Your Mind. .