Although water baptism is a type of burial and resurrection of our physical bodies there is also a very real spiritual event that takes place when saints are baptised in water. The Holy Spirit explains to us in the previous passage that the reason we died with Christ and were buried with Him, was so that “our body of sin could be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves of sin”. A more accurate translation of that verse would be “that the body of sin might be rendered powerless, that we should no longer be slaves of sin”. The Holy Spirit teaches us very clearly that our bodies, which are contaminated with sin, have very real power to bring their owners into the captivity of sin (Romans 7:23). And so we see that all unbelievers are slaves of sin because their bodies wield the power of sin over them. When a person dies however their spirits are separated from their bodies to either ascend into heaven or descend into hell depending on whether they were believers or not, and thus their bodies are no longer able to exercise the power of sin over them. Once the spirit of the individual departs, the body ceases to function and the people left behind take that body and bury it. However when individuals are saved, two things happen simultaneously. The first thing that happens is that the old man dies, and so just as if they had physically died their bodies are no longer able to exercise the power of sin over them. The second thing that happens however is that, unlike when someone physically dies and departs thus leaving a vacant body behind, the person is instantly born-again and so a new spirit takes up residence inside that same body. That body is still contaminated by sin however and if nothing is done with that body it will continue to attempt to exercise its power of sin over the new spirit. And so what believers are required to do is to bury the body of the old man in water, and raise up a resurrected body out of the water that the new man can dwell in. When the body of the believer is raised up out of the water it does not at that stage transform into our future resurrected spiritual bodies that will be incorruptible, for it still remains a natural body that is still contaminated by sin. However a very real spiritual event takes place in that the “new” body has been rendered powerless to force the believer to become enslaved by sin. And so because sin still resides in the believers’ body it can still tempt the believer to walk in sin, but because it has been stripped of its power it can no longer force the believer to commit sin. And so believers that have been baptised in water can now walk free from the power of the sins of the flesh, and they can only be brought under its power once again if they willingly submit to the temptations of the flesh. That truth however is not applicable to the saints who have not yet been baptised in water, for the bodies they indwell still retain the power of sin over them and they remain slaves of sin. And so they will always struggle to overcome sin in the flesh.
Michael E.B. Maher
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