BAPTISM -- A PICTURE OF OUR EXIT FROM ONE WORLD TO ANOTHER

Rom. 6:4

Morning Meditations 1/7/16

I want to us to examine the truth declared in Romans 6:4: “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.”

Watchman Nee said in his book The Normal Christian Life, Pages 88-89: The greatest negative in the universe is the Cross, for with it God wiped out everything that was not of Himself: the greatest positive in the universe is the resurrection, for through it God brought into being all that He will have in the new sphere.. So the resurrection stands at the threshold of the new creation. It is a blessed thing to see that the cross ends all that belongs to the first regime, and the resurrection introduces all that pertains to the second. The resurrection is God’s new starting point.”

He also said in this context, “To be saved is to make our exit from this world system into God’s. I doubt if there are many, if any, who actually understand that baptism is a testimony to this fact at the time of their baptism. But it is true. Baptism is a testimony in picture form.

We need to enter into the truth of what baptism declares. I must consent to be consigned to the tomb when I receive Jesus as my personal Saviour. Because in Him, I died to all the old creation. You notice I did not say that in the world I died. I said “in Him.” It is a truth that is true in the spiritual world to which I belong now that I am saved and I operate on the basis of faith in what God says is true. And He teaches in Romans 6 that when Jesus died, I died. He also teaches that when Jesus arose, I arose. I am taught to live now appropriating His resurrection life as mine: Verse 11 says, “Likewise reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord.”

In baptism I acknowledge the operation of God in my life by the new birth (Col 2:12). It is by faith in what God says is true. It does not seem like I am dead. But that is how the world operates. The new life in Christ is a walk of faith in what God says is true. It is foolish to the natural man. We are still in a body that operates according to the world system. Paul calls it the wretched man in Romans 7:24. It thinks like the world. So this new life that begins with resurrection operates by faith. And this presents a conflict. This conflict is the fight of faith. All of us have this fight. Are we going to believe God or are we going to succumb to the world and how it thinks.

Peter says in First Peter chapter 3 and verse 21 that baptism is the answer of a good conscience toward God. Watchman Nee brings out this truth: “Now we cannot answer without being spoken to. If God had said nothing, we should have no need to answer. But he has spoken; He has spoken to us by the Cross. He has told us of his judgment of us, of the world, and of the old creation of the old kingdom.” Then he asks this question: “What then is my answer to God’s verdict on the old creation?”

Our answer to that is Romans 6:4. We ask for baptism. Baptism is a burial. “Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death.” In this we acknowledge that God through Christ at the Cross ended my life in Adam and all that pertains to this world. So when I am baptized I am answering God in a public testimony that I believe that He at the Cross ended me and ended the world system to me. When a person dies, we must bury him. If there is any chance that life remains in the body, we will not bury that person. But it is the thing to do if we are sure he is dead.. Well, a person should not be baptized until He is sure that God ended not mended us at the cross.

But baptism is also an answer to the new life. We are not only identified with Him in His death but also in His resurrection. Therefore “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.” So I acknowledge that I have received new life in Christ. I am not the person I used to be. That ended at the Cross. I am a new person in Christ. That was begun with His resurrection.

Watchman Nee also gives a good illustration of “identification truth.” He and a friend were having tea together on an occasion. They were discussing this truth of our death with Christ and our resurrection with Him. Bro. Nee took a lump of sugar and dropped it in the tea and watched it dissolve. Then he asked the friend, “Where is the lump of sugar and where is the tea?” Of course the friend had to say that the sugar and the tea could no longer be separated. They have become one.

Isn’t that a glorious truth? We have become “One Spirit” with Christ (1Cor 6:17). Our lives have become assimilated into His life and His into ours. This is the way God sees it.

Romans 6:4 says, “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.”

The new life is a life operating according to a totally different principle. It is the principle of faith. It allows us to operate in the spiritual world of God and the same time that we live in the physical world of time and space. And the new life has a message for those living in the physical world. It is the message of the cross. We must tell people that God has ended the adamic race, world system and Satan on the Cross. All of this is on death row awaiting the execution of a sentence. But God is beginning a new race in the person of the “Second Man.” He is the “Last Adam” because God ended Adam on the Cross. He is the “Second Man” because in the resurrection, He began a new race that will never end.

May these words be a blessing to your heart.

In Christ

Earl White