² … How shall we who died to sin still live in it? ³ Or do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus have been baptized into His death?

Paul now progresses in his response to the objectors who suggest that his teachings lead to a rationale for more sinning. His longer answer now unfolds and becomes what we call the core teaching on the doctrine of sanctification. It deals with the question of how justified believers, who have been made right with God, should live, and what is our motivation for right living. Not only does this answer the objector, but it also provides a wealth of teaching for the acceptor of Paul’s teaching. How, then, shall we live?

Paul turns to “us,” which includes all those who have accepted his teaching. You see, his real audience is not the objectors, per se. He is using them as a foil for helping the Christians in Rome (and all who read this letter) to grow in their understanding of what they believe. He is speaking to baptized Christians. In the early days of the church, baptism was seen as the first step of obedience to Christ, the first public testimony of faith, even more so than a verbal testimony. It was assumed that if you were a true believer, then you would in fact be baptized. It was the unifying symbol of allegiance to Christ. Paul wrote in another place, “There is one body and one Spirit, just as also you were called in one hope of your calling; one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all who is over all and through all and in all” (Eph 4:4–6). In essence, there were no unbaptized believers (with the caveat of those analogous to the thief on the cross, who believed but was unable to be baptized). Baptism was the outward evidence or symbol of the inward belief.

The nature of baptism has been debated through the ages in Christendom, with many thinking that the physical act of baptism produces the efficacious result of making one a Christian. Indeed, a misunderstanding of Paul might lead to that conclusion, but a careful reading will dispel that notion. Paul lays out an interplay between the spiritual realities and the physical symbol. Baptism literally means “to immerse” and was taken from the Jewish tradition of ceremonial washing. It represents the new spiritual reality of life in Christ, of being washed from one’s sins, having the curse of Adam reversed. To be baptized physically represents, in the first place, that we have, through faith, entered into Christ’ death; we have died to sin.

In answering the objector’s question (we should sin that grace would abound), how can we entertain that idea when we are dead to sin? That was in part the point of the baptism symbol. We have been immersed in Christ’s death.

Lord, I don’t want to sin against You anymore because I have died in Christ.