background. As the dispensation drew to its close, so the earlier and richer baptism

demanded its antitype, and that we discover in Rom. 6: and Col. 2:

The baptism of all Israel "by the cloud and by the sea" (the preposition en here

referring to the instrument, for we are distinctly prevented from translating "in the sea")

was not a "washing" but a symbol of union. It was "unto Moses". The baptism of the

Epistles is "unto Christ" and whoever confuses the ceremonial cleansings with this great

initiation, does so at his own peril, and the imperiling of precious truth.

The baptism of repentance, the ceremonial cleansings of pots, cups and beds, the

baptism that was associated with the washing away of sins, the baptism that was for the

remission of sins, the baptism that led to salvation and was followed by signs and

miracles, this doctrine of baptisms, has been left behind as among the rudiments and

elements that belong to spiritual childhood, as Heb. 6: 1, 2 show. It is impossible to

"go on unto perfection" where alone the "conscience" is touched (Heb. 9: 9, 10; 10: 1, 2)

and retain these obsolete ordinances that were only imposed until the time of reformation.

With this somewhat lengthy preamble, we can now return to Rom. 6: and see that

the baptism spoken of by the apostle cannot possibly refer to ceremonial baptisms and

washings, but to the antitype of that baptism "unto Moses" that took place at the Red Sea.

The apostle assumes that his reader had been "baptized unto Jesus Christ" which no

baptism in water ever accomplished or was intended to accomplish. What his readers did

not fully appreciate was that such baptism baptized them "unto His death". Baptism

therefore of this sort, is another form of "reckoning". The apostle takes the question

further; he declares that such were "buried" with Him by baptism "unto 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. In order to enforce his teaching, the apostle uses another

figure, he speaks of being "planted together".  Alford says:  "planted together is

inadmissible, phutos being not from phuteuo but from phuo . . . . . intimately and

progressively united."

Thayer's note reads: "born together with, of joint origin, i.e. `Connate, congenital,

innate, implanted by birth or nature' and comments on Rom. 6: 5: If we have become

united with the likeness of His death (which likeness consists in the fact that in the

death of Christ our former corruption and wickedness has been slain and buried in

Christ's tomb), i.e. it is part and parcel of the very nature of a genuine Christian to be

utterly dead to sin, we shall be united also with the likeness of His resurrection, i.e. our

intimate fellowship with His return to life will show itself in a new consecration to God".

Alford further adds: "Christians, it is true, partake of the likeness not only of Christ's

death, but of His actual resurrection itself as the change of construction shows."

Passing to Col. 2:, we observe that "the rudiments of the world" are in opposition to

the completeness of the believer's standing in Christ (Col. 2: 8, 14, 16, 17, 20). To all

such the believer "died with Christ". So complete is this severance from the dominion of

the handwriting of ordinances, that the apostle uses the double figure "circumcision" and