Romans – A Treatise
Chapter Six
NEWNESS OF LIFE
Scripture Reading: verses 4-6
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. FOR IF WE HAVE BEEN PLANTED TOGETHER IN THE LIKENESS OF HIS DEATH, WE SHALL BE ALSO IN THE LIKENESS OF HIS RESURRECTION: KNOWING THIS, THAT OUR OLD MAN IS CRUCIFIED WITH HIM, THAT THE BODY OF SIN MIGHT BE DESTROYED, THAT HENCEFORTH WE SHOULD NOT SERVE SIN.
We are witnessing a courtroom scene in which the criminal is being tried, not only for his offences and violation of God’s laws and regulations, but also for his inherent evil nature – his natural impulses toward sin. It is this latter element that is now before the court. As defender of the accused, under the authority of divine and matchless grace, Paul is indicating that the way out of the difficulty is by death and resurrection.
One way out would be the eternal death of the criminal, but this would defeat God’s purposes of love and grace. We must remember that the Judge on the throne is righteous and loving, and under the unction of the Holy Spirit He Himself has appointed Paul to set forth the way whereby this criminal may be justified in His presence and a means found whereby the natural impulses of the accused toward sin will be annulled. The sentence of eternal death for the criminal would be one solution; but this would not satisfy the heart of a loving God. What then shall be done?
The criminal must be brought into living association with the Lord Jesus Christ, the One who died on the Cross as his substitute, the One who is raised again in the resurrection sphere beyond the power of death. The criminal shall then be closely, livingly identified with the Lord Jesus; reckoned dead with Him; reckoned buried with Him; and reckoned raised again with Him in the power of the new life – the new birth.
Baptism is the expression of all that. In baptism, the criminal is pardoned and taken; he is reckoned dead and immersed in water – before the eye of God he has died and been buried. Before the eye of God, that is the close of his history as far as his descent from Adam is concerned. The man after the flesh, with all his evil nature and propensities toward sin, is reckoned dead, his history closed, the last chapter of his career brought to an end, and put out of sight by immersion in water. Or, as this Scripture says, like a seed put in the ground he is planted in the likeness of our Savior’s death.
A new vista of truth now opens up before us. Is the pardoned criminal left in the place of death? No. In baptism he is raised with Christ. As one comes up out of the water of baptism, he is linked by life and nature with a risen Person, the Lord Jesus Christ. In other words, in the power of His life this former criminal is literally resurrected and enabled to walk in newness of life – he has experienced the new birth. The seed that was planted has died and now springs forth in new life.
Consider the interesting expression in verse 4: “Like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also.” Notice how the word “likeness” is used again and again in this passage. It illustrates a vital truth, but it is not the vital truth and only the vital truth matters. In and of itself, baptism does not put one to death or raise one to life again. Only in Christ can such take place. In other words, only in Christ can it be appropriated through baptism.
But in verse 4, the expression to which we draw particular attention is that the Lord Jesus was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father. We do not know of a New Testament statement as exquisite as this in relation to the resurrection of Christ. What does it mean?
It is not that Jesus was raised from the dead by the power of the Father, which we would readily understand. He is raised from the dead by the Father’s glory. Let us remember that the work of the Lord Jesus on the Cross was done in obedience to His Father’s will. As He left the upper room and went out to Calvary, He said, “That the world may know that I love the Father, even so I do.” While our Lord was on the Cross, God in righteousness turned His back on Him, but in the mystery of the Godhead it is a sterling fact that the Father’s eye was on Him all the way through. Even at the time when He was going through the terror of God’s abandonment, He said: “Father into Thy hand I commend My Spirit.” If ever He brought delight to the heart of His Father, it was when He hung on the tree. Then He went into the tomb, and so supremely satisfied was His Father’s heart in regard to the work of redemption He had accomplished, that God the Father reached down, as it were, laid hold on His beloved Son, and brought Him out from among the dead. It was the outshining of the glory of the Father. When at the lowest point in the universe, the full tide of the Father’s affection reached down to lay hold on the Lord Jesus; embraced Him in the arms of eternal love of which only God the Father is capable, and brought Him up out of the region of death.
The Lord Jesus was raised from among the dead by the glory of the Father. His eternal righteousness and holy justice on the line, God trusted His beloved Son to keep His Word and be the Perfect Lamb. In turn, with eternal life on the line, Jesus trusted His Father to keep His Word and raise Him up. Resurrection was the answer of God the Father in supreme satisfaction of the work His Son had done on the Cross. The same is expressed in the Acts of the Apostles: “Whereof He hath given assurance unto all men, in that He raised Him from the dead.” The great overwhelming evidence that our sins are gone forever is that the Father raised the Lord Jesus from among the dead. It is not simply that He raised Him from the dead, but from among the dead. God reached down, and out of this earth’s vast cemetery, where the moldering bodies of many millions already lay, He selected one Person in Joseph’s new tomb, His beloved Son, and raised Him up from among the dead. It is in the likeness of all this that in baptism, we come up out of the water, to no longer live for our own satisfaction, but for the satisfaction of the Father’s heart – to walk in newness of life. In other words,
I am crucified with Christ, nevertheless I live, Yet not I, but Christ liveth in me, and the life which I now live in the flesh, I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me.
Baptism is clearly an expression of that grand truth and it comes as a great challenge to each one of us. Do we really walk in newness of life?
