[Marcus Rainsford was a well-known British preacher and pastor in the 1800's who partook in the Moody/Sankey evangelistic campaigns in the British Isles. He is the author of "Our Lord Prays for His Own: Thoughts on John 17," which is still published by Kregel Publications. This article is part of a series of 20 lectures given in 1870 to help believers in the Lord Jesus Christ to understand and appreciate our positional and practical relationship with our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.]
"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." (Romans 6:3-4)
In my last lecture I endeavoured
to direct your attention to the connection between this chapter,
and that immediately preceding it. In the former chapter, we have
God set forth as our Saviour in Christ from the guilt of sin,
and from all manner of condemnation following upon sin. Do we
know that this is a great fact, and that God is revealed in Christ
as saving from all sin, as to its guilt, and as to its condemnation?
Then in this chapter we have God set forth in Christ as a Saviour
from the dominion and from the practical power of sin. We are
not yet delivered from the presence of sin; we are not yet delivered
from the worry of sin; "If we say that we have no sin, we
deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us." The resurrection
alone will rid us from that body of sin and death we carry with
us, and death alone will rid us of its presence and its worry.
"But if the Spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead
dwell in you, he that raised up Christ from the dead shall also
quicken your mortal bodies by his Spirit that dwelleth in you."
In the meantime we have to learn, and it is blessed to learn,
that in the work of the Lord Jesus Christ on the cross, we have
our everlasting deliverance from its guilt, and our everlasting
security against the condemnation attaching to that guilt, and
in the person of a risen Saviour we have the well of life, the
source of power to walk with God worthy of our high and holy calling
in the Lord Jesus Christ.
Now the plausible objection which has ever been urged against
the doctrine of free grace, and it is a plausible objection, is
that this sort of teaching naturally begets in the heart carelessness
and indifference as to one's walk and conversation; and the Apostle,
in our text, puts the objection. A very important thing to remember
is that this objection was brought against the teaching of the
Apostle, and to know that therefore he taught free grace. If he
did not preach free, everlasting, unconditional salvation through
the Lord Jesus Christ, he need not have troubled himself to notice
the objection, with which the chapter begins: "Shall we continue
in sin that grace may abound?"
We dwelt, in our last lecture, upon the Apostle's complete and
triumphant answer to this objection: "How shall we that are
dead to sin live any longer therein?" He places an emphasis
on the two words dead and live. How can a dead man live? How can
a man dead to sin live in sin? You see the argument is not that
it is unlikely, not that it is unsuitable that we should continue
in sin, not that it is improbable, not that it is unreasonable,
but that it is impossible. "Shall we continue in sin that
grace may abound? God forbid. How shall we that are dead to sin
live any longer therein?"
We are, if we be believers in the Lord Jesus Christ, if, as poor,
guilty, lost sinners, we have, on the invitation of our God, come
to him by Christ, and taken his great gift, the Lord Jesus Christ,
for our life, and righteousness, our title, warrant, ground, and
standing before God, we are dead to sin in God's sight. It is
not a thing to be bye and bye, it is a present standing. We are
dead to sin. This is the Apostle's position, and this is the thesis
of which this deep, and full, and all-important chapter is the
amplification, and development.
"Know ye not?" There is a certain implication of upbraiding
in the Apostle's expression. "Know ye not?" We ought
to know a great deal more than we do about Christ, and the work
of Christ. Ignorance of God's word, and of Christ's work lies
at the root of our sinning and our misery. "Know ye not?"
What! after all God has spoken, after all Christ has done, after
all the Spirit has taught, after all the length of time you have
been listening, after all the profession of Christianity you have
made! "Know ye not?" Know ye not the power of the cross
of Christ? Know ye not the nature of the victory accomplished
by him who hung upon it? Know ye not this fact that every believer
in him is identified with him and that when Jesus died reconciliation
was made for the iniquity, and everlasting righteousness brought
in for the soul that trusts him, and that by virtue of his resurrection,
resurrection life takes possession of the soul that trusts him?
Know ye not that all who believe on the Lord Jesus are one with
him, identified with him, died when he died, rose when he rose,
and in the eye of the law, and of righteousness, and of God, stand
where he stands, beyond judgment at the right hand of the majesty
in the heaven, sitting with him in heavenly places. Know ye not?
If you do not know these things, first the true power of his cross,
you will call in question your own individual salvation, and well
you may; and if you do not know the power of his resurrection
you will be entangled in this objection with which the Apostle
is dealing, that grace cannot be so free as some would have it
to be, salvation cannot be so unconditional as some would proclaim
it to be, because the effect of such free grace would be this:
men will conclude "we may continue in sin then, we may do
as we likethe more we sin the more will grace abound, and
God be glorified in blotting out the accumulated transgressions."
The Apostle 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."
Observe the blessed teaching here. Our justification before God,
and our sanctification rest on the same ground, have the same
foundation, flow from the same source, viz: the fact that we have
union with him who is the righteousness of God, and the holiness
of God, and therefore, so far from its being probable, or likely,
or possible that the man who has union with the Lord Jesus Christ
for justification can live in sin, the contrary is demonstrated,
for if he has union with him for justification by his blood, then
he must have union with the risen Lord Jesus Christ for sanctification
of life. Christ is not divided.
If I stand accepted before
God, uncondemned, uncharged, and unchargeable with sin, if I be
dead unto sin, because through the wondrous grace of God I am
identified with Christ, incorporated into Christ, a member of
Christ, in fellowship with Christ, and in the sight of God as
it were a part of Christ, and so justified freely on account of
the precious dying Saviour with whom I am identified, I am also
united to the risen, living Lord as the ground and source of my
sanctification. Jesus is not now dead on the cross. He lives on
the throne. If I am united to him at all, I am as much united
to him on the throne, where he now is, without spot, as I was
united to Him when He hung upon the cross, when my sin was imputed
to Him. Do you not know this? It is a great thing to know it.
"Know ye not that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus
Christ were baptized into his death?" "So many of us,"
As the body is one, and hath many members, and all the members
of that one body being many, are one body, so also is Christ.
For by one Spirit are we all baptized into one body, whether we
be bond or free, and have all been made to drink into one Spirit."
You see the thought in the Apostle's mind is union between the
believer and the Lord Jesus Christ; and he calls it a baptism
into Christ, shewing how complete and universal the union is.
It is illustrated by immersion, immersion into Jesus Christ. What
a position! The soul that is immersed into Jesus Christ loses
its own identity, and becomes part of Christ, ceases to be anything
apart from Christ, and henceforth is regarded as in union with
Him, as identified with Him, as a member of Christ, a child of
God and an inheritor of the Kingdom of Heaven. Oh! what a position!
Now this act whereby the sinner is baptized into Christ is not
our own actno man can baptize himself into Christ, it is
God's act. He it is who baptizes us into Christ. And beautifully
the figure of baptism illustrates this wonderful truth! It is
an easy thing to trust in the figure, and to overlook the thing
signified. From the time of the brazen serpent, which the Israelites
worshipped, men have worshipped the emblems of the things of God,
and they do so now, even in the days in which we are living. Men
now make baptism to mean the thing signified in baptism. Baptism
is a wonderful illustration of a glorious truth. It is not the
truth, but the picture of it, the figure of it..
In old times, on a profession of faith in the Lord Jesus Christ,
men were baptized, and the descent and rising again out of the
water represented union with Christ, in his death and resurrection.
"Know ye not" that all who believe in the name of the
Lord Jesus Christ have union with Him, are baptized into His death
and life. They are henceforth never regarded by God apart from
Jesus; He is their life, their righteousness, their standing ground,
their portion. Christ is all in all to them. God never for a single
instant looks at them apart from the position in which His grace
has placed them. Oh, what a potent motive such knowledge is and
must be, and ever will be to the man who realizes such things.
And if you don't know these things, you don't know the truth as
it is in Jesus.
Water is a cleansing thing, a life-giving thing. Water represents
the Holy Spirit, the bond of union between Christ and His people,
and the word of God, the means by which he effects that union
(see Titus 3:5-6, Eph. 5:25-26).
We are not only baptized into Himself, but baptized into His death, immersed into the death of Christ, what a death was that! That death abolished death, and exhausted death, that death met the full penalty of the law, drank in the wrath of God to the very last drop, put an end to the reign of death. And now every believer in the Lord Jesus Christ being buried into the death of Christ, death has had its full sway and demand upon him. Law and justice have no more claim. The cross of Christ exhausted death and destroyed him that had the power of death, and the soul in union with Christ is thus, "dead to sin." "How shall we that are dead to sin live any longer therein?" It is impossiblewe are buried with Him by baptism into death. This is a very strong figure, a most precious and a most instructive one. The death of Christ is declared to be the grave in which we are buried. We are buried with Jesus into death, and baptism is the figure, and illustration of it. What has the law to say? I am buried with Jesus into deathI went down into the grave as a natural man and I can never appear again before God, or man, or angel. If you are not buried with Jesus into death, you will have to suffer the pains and penalties of an outraged law yourselves, you will have to render your own account at the judgment bar of God. But if by God's grace you have taken God's gift, the Lord Jesus Christ, if you have come as poor sinners to God by Him, if giving up your own merit, your own claim on God, you have taken Christ's merit, and Christ's righteousness and claim, if you have taken the cross of Christ as your warrant, the blood of Jesus as your plea, the promise of God in Christ as your security, then God is pledged to you. When Christ went down into the death of death, you were buried into His death and there was an end of you as a natural man, as a man to be judged. God himself can't find you in that character; it would be dishonour to the finished work of Christ if He were to look for you. Christ rose out of death but sin did not rise with Him, God never quickened that. Christ rose not as the representative of natural men. On the cross He was the representative of natural men, and He was buried as the representative of natural men, but there was as end of them in the tomb. He rose the representative of accepted men, and the men He represents are baptized into His life now as they were before baptized into His death. They have union with Him in resurrection power. He is their life, their strength, their fullness, their resurrection, and God never looks at His ransomed people out of Him and never will.
Know ye not this? If you don't know it, then you are but poor students of God's word, and slow to learn how to take in what He has laid down in it, line upon line, precept upon precept, from the earliest record of God's truth, to the closing record of His revelation.
In the latter part of the preceding chapter we have the statement, that as standing in Adam death passed upon all men for that all have sinned, here now as standing in Christ death passes on us all, the death of death, and there is no more figure in the one case than in the other. We know by experience that in Adam all die, that death hath passed upon all men, for that all have sinned, but we don't know by experience that the death Christ suffered passed upon all men standing in Him, yet God's word states it, and those who believe God's word live by faith and not by sight. There is our standing ground, and a glorious standing ground it is.
V.4. "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." Here we see the power for living with God is union with Christ, who was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father that we also should walk in newness of life.
The apostle Peter says in 1
Peter 3:21, speaking of Noah who was saved in the Ark: "The
like figure, whereunto even baptism doth also now save us, (not
the putting away of the filth of the flesh, but the answer of
a good conscience towards God) by the resurrection of Jesus Christ."
The Ark is Christ, and Noah entered into the Ark on earth, before
the floods came, before one single fountain of the great deep
was broken up and God shut him in, so that bye and bye when the
floods come, he is in the Ark, borne up in it and though surrounded
by great waters, shut in safely and borne on the waters to the
highest mountain tops, the dove bringing messages of peace, the
only window, a window above, shewing him the Heaven to which he
is going. Thus we have a beautiful picture of the believer in
Christ, baptized into Christ, the waters surrounding him on every
side, he rises on the very floods to Heaven, death and desolation
without, earth and earthliness beneath, he rises in that Saviour
into whom he is shut in, above the billows, above the storm, to
where God is all and in all.
"Know ye not...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." It is a fact that every believer in Jesus
Christ stands before God in newness of life, his natural man buried
into Christ's death and himself forever united to the risen Lord.
This is a fact whether we realize it or not. Every believer in
Jesus Christ, one as much as another, is complete before God;
He sees no spot or stain. If he did, he must condemn. He sees
him dead and buried in Christ, and risen in Christ. What we want
is to realize these things, that by the power of the Holy Ghost
we may be "sanctified through the truth," and that the
knowledge of what God in Christ is to us, may have influence on
our walk and conversation, as we realize these things, and live
by faith, we shall walk worthy of our high and holy calling practically
and before men. Our Gospel liberty is that we are no longer regarded
by God as natural men, and that in Christ we are complete as Christ
himself is, accepted in the beloved and that notwithstanding all
our weaknesses, infirmities, and failures which, alas, we too
sadly are conscious of. As we live upon these truths, and draw
upon them, there is a potency in them to separate practically
from anything that would grieve the Holy Spirit, who has baptized
us into Christ Jesus, identified us with his risen glory, and
sealed us unto the day of redemption.