Rom 6:3 Or are you ignorant that whoever are baptized into Christ Jesus, are baptized into His death?
Rom 6:4 We, then, were entombed together with Him through baptism into death, that, even as Christ was roused from among the dead through the glory of the Father, thus we also should be walking in newness of life."
Rom 6:5 For if we have become planted together in the likeness of His death, nevertheless we shall be of the resurrection also,
There are a few things which clearly makes the Christian faith distinct from every other religion in the world.
Who is a Christian? I tremble when I hear people claim to be Christians, even “by choice”, as they say, and yet live with no Christ resemblance in their lives. If you are a Christian, you become transformed, better said, metamorphosized, to be “Christ like.” There is continual process of repentance and transformation. The fruit that you bear, the deeds that you produce, are the same ones which Christ produces. Of course, it’s a progression.
I shudder at those who call themselves Christians and still support wholesale abortion. Christ, who is the author of life, is in dichotomy with death. There is something tragically wrong with this type of so called Christianity.
Accepting Christ is not a state of mind. Believing is not a mental ascent. You don’t say I believe in Christ, and then have little or nothing to do with Him. That is just hypocrisy. Christ is not about merely going to church on Sunday, and calling yourself a Christian, because you do so.
To accept Christ is a point of surrender and encounter. There is an acknowledgment that you need God in your life, or that you do want to live the way that you were living. You invite Jesus into your life, to take over and to guide you. This is called surrender. He will come into your being, your heart, via the Holy Spirit, and will live inside of you forever more.
Rom 6:3 Or are you ignorant that whoever are baptized into Christ Jesus, are baptized into His death?
John 3:5 Jesus answered, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God.
The process of inviting Jesus to come into our lives is called becoming “born again.’ I think that that a lot more precise though, is to use the word baptism.
Rom 6:3 Or are you ignorant that whoever are baptized into Christ Jesus, are baptized into His death?
Biblical baptism is much different to our Western act of dunking someone or sprinkling him with water. The process of turning a cucumber into a pickle was called baptism. A cucumber was “baptized” INTO a vinegar solution. The vinegar then worked back THROUGH the cucumber to pickle it or change it into a pickle. The cucumber was transformed into something that it was not. This is the meaning of what it means to be a Christian.
When an person receives Jesus Christ, he becomes baptized into Christ. The incoming Holy Spirit plunges the person INTO everything that Christ is and all that He went through. When Christ died, you died, when He resurrected you resurrected, by virtue that you are submerged or baptized INTO Him. Because you are immersed INTO Him, Christ then works back THROUGH you, for you to experience all that He experienced. To be a Christian is to be “pickled” INTO Christ and to experience the transformation to “Christ likeness” by being pickled.
Rom 6:3 Or are you ignorant that whoever are baptized into Christ Jesus, are baptized into His death?
Rom 6:4 We, then, were entombed together with Him through baptism into death, that, even as Christ was roused from among the dead through the glory of the Father, thus we also should be walking in newness of life."
The beauty of being pickled into Christ’s death is that you became a corpse just like He did, before He was resurrected by the glory of the Father. Now likewise you have been pickled into His resurrection.
Let’s think about a corpse. Physically, a corpse is the most liberated of all human beings. He has no sin. He does not curse, he is not hooked on drugs, nor is he embittered with anger. A corpse has no disease.
Soulishly and spiritually, a corpse has no vestige of life in him. Every last ounce of life left him, at the moment that he expired. You, dear Christian, have been baptized or submerged INTO the corpse of Christ, as well as the whole death process that brought him to the point of decease.
You became freed from sin, because you are a corpse. Because you have been baptized INTO Christ, Christ pickles you by working back THROUGH you, gradually revealing the process of death and by it, the total freedom which a corpse enjoys.
Rom 6:5 For if we have become planted together in the likeness of His death, nevertheless we shall be of the resurrection also,
Being a corpse is not the final stage for a believer. For those who experience the death of Christ they will also experience His powerful resurrection life. They have being pickled into His resurrection.
Let’s get back to our model corpse and all the wonderful thing which Jesus Christ did for us by dying and becoming this cadaver. As I said, when a corpse dies, every vestige of life leaves his body. Your old life; your life of brokenness, rejection, disease, and pain, every hurt, and every aching memory is no more. It has left your body!
Rom 6:4 We, then, were entombed together with Him through baptism into death, that, even as Christ was roused from among the dead through the glory of the Father, thus we also should be walking in newness of life."
Then we were entombed or co buried with Christ. We were baptized and pickled into His burial. What is so important about that? When our corpse is buried he is no longer seen or remembered and simply rots away.
By being pickled into Christ’s death and burial we have lost both our sin filled broken life as well as our broken identity. In reality we are now something that we were never before.
This old life left our body, and the eternal life of Christ Himself entered our body.
Do you understand, dear brethren, that there is nothing in you of what you used to be? When a cadaver gets taken to morgue, he has his blood drained out and gets filled with formaldehyde. This is what happened to you. Your life and blood and everything that embodied who you were, is GONE GONE GONE!
You are now filled with the formaldehyde of a powerful eternal, incorruptible and glorious resurrection life. We have a life that we never had. We have an identity that we never were. Truly we have become a new creation in Christ. This is called metamorphosis, which is the crux of the Christian faith. What other so called faith or religion can claim this?
Thank God for our being baptized INTO Christ in all things, so that He now works back THROUGH us and pickles us INTO all things which He is.
