Okay, I’d like to start by reading a scripture from Colossians 2. While we’re looking at baptism, I especially want to consider this concept of being buried with Christ in baptism. As we read this verse, and then some verses in Romans 6, look for this term: burial or buried with Christ.
Colossians 2 thoroughly goes into the concept of being buried with Christ. If you want to meditate on it and consider the passages around what I’m going to read, it is a good chapter to spend time in. But I just want to pull out one verse to get this phrase.
Colossians 2:12:
Buried with Him in baptism,
in which ye have been also raised with Him through faith of the working of God,
Who raised Him from among the dead.
So there is that phrase: buried with Him in baptism—buried with Christ.
Now, of course, with burial, whatever has to do with Christ, there is resurrection immediately afterwards. There is no burial that is permanent with Christ. If you are buried with Christ, you are also raised with Christ, because He has risen. He lives, He lives. This is how we testify: He came out of the tomb and was raised from the dead.
But we want to consider what actually happened at Christ’s burial. What things were concluded as He was buried? What was buried in that tomb? What things remained buried and did not come up with Him?
For this, I want to read in Romans 6. This passage is a little more familiar on baptism and perhaps has more emphasis on how we died with Christ and have this newness of life. But it includes this phrase of burial—how we are buried with Christ.
Romans 6 begins with a question: now that I am saved, what if I keep on sinning? I am definitely saved. God’s grace is so big. If I go on sinning, it will just show how big God’s grace is. It starts with that wrong question, but answers it with the thought of baptism. The answer to this wrong idea is that you have been baptized.
Romans 6:1-6 says:
What then shall we say?
Should we continue in sin, that grace may abound?
Far be the thought.
We who have died to sin, how shall we still live in it?
Are ye ignorant that we, as many as have been baptized unto Christ Jesus, have been baptized unto His death?
We have been buried therefore with Him by baptism unto death,
in order that, even as Christ has been raised up from among the dead by the glory of the Father,
so we also should walk in newness of life.
For if we have become identified with Him in the likeness of His death,
so also we shall be of His resurrection;
knowing this, that our old man has been crucified with Him,
that the body of sin might be annulled,
that we should no longer serve sin.
Just notice that for a moment: “We have been buried therefore with Him by baptism.” Buried with Christ is by baptism. Buried with Him by baptism unto death, in order that, even as Christ has been raised from among the dead by the glory of the Father, so we also should walk in newness of life.
Before you get buried, you first have died together with Christ. When we first believe on the Lord Jesus, we know that Christ died for us, and because of His death on the cross, our sins have been forgiven. When you believe on the Lord Jesus, you receive the benefit of the fact that He died for you, and your sins are washed clean.
But as you believe on the Lord Jesus, another aspect of the good news is that we enter into another part of His death: we died with Christ. We just read that our old man has been crucified with Him. When you believe on the Lord Jesus, He not only saves us from the penalty of the sins we have committed, but He also deals with this large problem that we have been born into.
We have been born into the race of Adam and Eve. We have inherited from our parents and grandparents, all the way back to our original forefathers, a problem of sinning. We have inherited this sinful nature.
One description of the Lord Jesus in 1 Corinthians 15 is that He is called the last Adam. He represents Adam, and He was born as a man. Of course, He did not inherit the sinful nature Himself, but when He was on the cross, as things got dark for a few hours, all of Adam was put upon Him.
Not only was He there as a human being, but He was there as the very finality of Adam’s race. He finished Adam right there. It says that He became sin for us. He became sin—not that He sinned. He is sinless; that is how He was able to die for us. But when it got dark and all sins came upon Him, all of Adam’s sinful nature, all that we have inherited, came upon Him right there: the specific sins, but also the whole nature. He took it into death.
As He came through that dark period, He cried out at the end, “It is finished.” Adam was finished right there. He took on Adam, and He became the last Adam. It is true that we are born in Adam, but spiritually speaking, Adam is finished at the death of the Lord Jesus on the cross.
When you believe on the Lord Jesus, you believe into His death. You get placed in Christ, and where He brought Adam to the finish—the death of the Adamic race, the sinful-nature part, the old man that we have inherited—we get the benefit of that, and we join with Him.
If we have been identified with Him in the likeness of His death, we are connected to Him. But we are also connected to Him in resurrection. What I want to get into is the thing in between death and resurrection, which is something that happens at baptism: burial.
The Lord Jesus literally, physically died. But He also spiritually took on a major death: the death of Adam, the old man. He spiritually and physically died at the same time. “It is finished,” and then His body stopped. He was crucified, and He died before the time people would have expected. The others crucified next to Him were not yet dead, but His body was finished, and His Adam—the last Adam—was finished.
Then His body was buried in the tomb. His body was in the tomb for a few days, and then He rose from the dead. His physical body got up from where it was laid. He actually made His bed. We were reading this last night in the youth time: He folded up the face cloth and the other things, and left the tomb, the stone having been rolled away by angels. His body rose from the dead.
But He not only died physically; He did something spiritually. Sometimes, when things are not physical, we do not see how real they are. Even with physical baptism, it is easy for us to say, “This is a nice picture, but I am not sure why I really need to do this.” Sometimes we do not get baptized because we do not understand that something very real happens spiritually.
You are buried with Christ at baptism. You are not buried with Christ at belief; you die with Christ at belief. The angels rejoice, and the believers rejoice. We get to see what is really happening when you are baptized, but also we are buried with Christ at baptism.
When the Lord Jesus died physically, spiritually He went to the place of the dead. He told the thief on the cross who believed on Him, “Today you will be with Me in paradise.” These two went that same day to this place of the dead, Hades.
There is a section sometimes called Abraham’s bosom and sometimes called paradise: a place for believers, where things are not like hell, but are like heaven—a taste of heaven before heaven actually arrives, before the New Jerusalem. The Lord Jesus went down into Hades.
Peter mentioned this in his first sermon at Pentecost. He referred to David’s prophecy:
Thou wilt not leave My soul in Hades.
Peter said that it was Christ David was talking about. He went to Hades, but He is not there anymore. He has risen from the dead.
When He rose from that place, the Bible says that He has the keys of death and Hades. In Revelation 1, He says that He is the One with the keys of death and Hades. He came out from there, and He has all authority.
At the very end, in Revelation 20, He is going to empty that place after everyone has been dealt with spiritually, and then death and Hades will be cast into the lake of fire. He has the authority; He has the keys of Hades.
But catch this: when He was buried, something was happening. He went all the way to the place of the dead. Spiritually speaking, it was literal; it was real. At burial, something was really going on. He went down there, and He came out from there. He rose.
Some had been raised from the dead before the Lord Jesus, but they were not raised the way He was raised. The way He was raised was never to die again. Everyone else before the Lord Jesus had been temporarily resuscitated. But the Lord Jesus was raised in victory, conquering death, taking away the sting of death, and removing even the ability of death from His resurrection life.
Something that stayed buried was Adam. What stays buried in Hades is the race of Adam. The old man that was crucified on the cross did not come up in resurrection. Something spiritual remained in the ground.
In His resurrection body, the Lord Jesus is no longer limited. He actually has a resurrection body. We who believe in the Lord Jesus and are baptized receive some benefit of spiritual resurrection. We do not yet have the full benefit of the resurrection body, but someday that is coming.
When He rose from the dead, He had no limit of His physical body. He appeared suddenly in the upper room when the doors were locked. He disappeared from those walking on the road to Emmaus. He is unlimited.
Spiritually speaking, He also removed all the limitation of Adam. For us, when we are buried with Christ, one thing that happens at baptism is that the limitation which comes with being born from our parents and grandparents, with being born in Adam, is buried. The limitation of the old man was crucified with Christ.
When you believed on the Lord Jesus, you were also crucified with Christ. But it seems as if the old carcass is just getting smellier and smellier. You put that in the tomb, but it never comes out of the tomb. You bring that into baptism, into burial.
What this means for us when we are baptized is that the limitation, or the power, of sin is left in the waters. Romans 6 asks, “Why would you go on sinning?” That does not make grace abound. Do you not know that you have buried the old man in the waters? Do you not know that when you were baptized, you were buried with Christ? You took the crucified old man into the waters.
The power of sin is broken at the cross. The old man has been crucified with Christ, buried with Christ, and that old man—Adam—does not come up in resurrection.
As we testify today with baptism, as everyone comes out of the water, what stays in the water is the old crucified man. What we see staying in the waters is the limitation of our own sinful nature.
I am not trying to say that there is no ability to sin. That is not true. That happens when we receive our resurrected bodies. But now, freedom from the control and slavery of sin is here. At baptism, you take your stance, uniting with Christ.
This is why it happens at baptism and not when you first believe: baptism is when you say, “Yes, I am with Christ, and here I go. I am following Christ now.” As you go into the waters, you go with Christ, and you leave the old behind. You are confessing publicly that Jesus is Lord. You are going in that direction.
The freedom from sin and salvation from it come as soon as you believe, so I do not want us to think something wrong, as though you are not free until you are baptized. But baptism is when you start to walk that way. As you walk that way, you leave the old things in the waters.
We have a couple of other baptism pictures that we often remember. One is the Israelites going through the Red Sea. That is mentioned in 1 Corinthians 10 as a picture of baptism: the Israelites were baptized unto Moses.
Something to notice is that there was a burial in the waters of the Red Sea. Pharaoh’s army was buried in the Red Sea. The Israelites were already saved before the Red Sea baptism, but as they went into the water with Moses and came out with Moses, they were followed by Pharaoh’s armies.
It is the same with us. When we are baptized, we are followed by all that would enslave us, hold on to us, keep us trapped in this world, and keep us trapped in sinning and sinning and sinning. But the waters wash over all of that. Pharaoh’s army does not come out. The chariots are broken in the water.
There is a burial at baptism. When you come out, it is not that you cannot get worldly or that you cannot sin. You have a choice, but you do not have a slavery. You are no longer bound by it. All those scary chariots are nothing anymore. They are washed away. They are buried at baptism.
Do you know what happened afterwards with those Israelites? They became their own nation, and they became their own army. If you look at the battles with Joshua, they could now stand against Egypt. If Pharaoh and his army had come charging at them again, they would have known the way the Lord fights. As the people of God, with Him as their God, there was no more strength in Pharaoh and his armies.
Even when they went into the land of Canaan, everybody knew: this is the army of God. It is real that the control and the slavery are buried right there.
There is another picture connected to that: the Israelites going through the Jordan River before entering the promised land. There is a burial there also. The waters dry up, and the ark of God goes in first. They were baptized together with the ark of God, the presence of the Lord.
They go through as the ark stands in the middle. They all come out on the other side, and the ark comes out on the other side. That is baptism. But there is burial as well.
In Joshua, they take twelve stones with them. There are twelve tribes among the Israelites. They take these stones into the water, and those stones represent all their oldness: the old man crucified with Christ, their complaining in the wilderness, all the things that should not be brought into the promised land, all of them without God being their God.
They bring those stones into the water and drop them off there. Then they bring twelve new stones out from the Jordan and set up a testimony on the other side. They can look at it and say, “Yes, our old is buried in those waters, and the new has arrived.” All that complaining and all that needed to die off in the wilderness stays behind.
Today, as we look at baptism, we want to remember not only what is happening today, but also that we who have believed and been baptized were buried with Christ. Are we ignorant that when we were baptized, we were baptized unto His death and left all that old in the waters?
Baptism is also for the church. It is not only for us to rejoice with those who have believed and are following the Lord; it is for us to reflect and look back. Too often we have become ignorant of what really happens at baptism, and we fall back into the slavery of Pharaoh and his army, or into the slavery of our own carnality and sinful nature.
We have to stand together with the Lord today and say, “Yes, I have believed in the Lord Jesus. Along with my fellow brothers and sisters, I too have believed on the Lord Jesus. Ten years ago, twenty years ago, ninety years ago—however long ago it was—I was buried with Christ. My old man, crucified with Christ, stayed in those waters.”
I thank God today that I am free from the bondage of sin. I am free from the grip of the world. I am free to live in newness of life. This is our testimony as the people of God.
This is one reason why we rejoice with brothers and sisters when people believe and testify that they have believed: we know how wonderful this life is. We want to tell each other, too, if you have forgotten how wonderful this newness of life is and start wondering, “Am I just going to keep on sinning? I know that grace keeps abounding.”
We need to drop that thought and remember, as we see these waters, that has been buried with Christ. We now walk in newness of life, and we praise the Lord together with our brothers and sisters.
Let’s pray together.
Lord, we come and worship You, and we rejoice together with You. We know that You have rejoiced at every one of our salvations, and that You also have joy when we decide to follow You. When we come to follow You, You give us joy.
We have no greater joy than to see our children walking in truth. Lord, we have no greater joy than to see each other declaring the Lord Jesus, following You, and confessing Your name.
Lord, we rejoice today. We thank You for what You have done. We thank You for this reality of baptism, this testimony of baptism, and what has really happened at baptism.
Glory, today we thank You for this burial. We stand together with those being baptized, that in newness of life they would be raised up out of the water. We entrust them into Your hands, in Jesus’ name. Amen.