We have been Buried with Christ to Live a Life of Baptism and Walk in Newness of Life

We believers in Christ have been buried with Christ through baptism into His death, and we now live a life of baptism and walk in newness of life, being a new creation in resurrection as we walk in and according to the Spirit! Amen!

In Romans 5, we see the matter of being baptised with Christ, even being baptised into Christ and into His death. Baptism is not a ritual or a form; we all need to be baptised, but there’s a spiritual reality of baptism.

Why do we need to be baptised and what is the significance of baptism? Through the physical baptism in water, we are immersed in water, and we come out of water as a new person.

The spiritual reality of baptism, however, is very deep and rich, and we need to know what happens in the spiritual realm when we are being baptised or when we baptise someone.

Through baptism, we are immersed into Christ, taking Christ as our realm; through baptism, we are united with Him organically. Hallelujah!

Through baptism, we are transferred out of the sphere and realm of Adam, the first man, and into the sphere of Christ, the second man.

We are all born in Adam, and by default, we are born in sin. We live our human life from the time of our birth from our parents in sin.

But praise the Lord, one day the light of the gospel shone on us and the Lord had mercy on us, so we heard the gospel and believed into the Lord Jesus!

Oh, what a wonderful day it is when we repent and call on the name of the Lord! We call on Him from deep within and we receive Him into our spirit as our life. This is such a personal experience, something very enjoyable and life-changing.

By our repentance and faith in Christ, we receive the life of God in our spirit, and now we are children of God! Wow, what an amazing fact it is for sinners to be begotten of God to be sons of God!

However, there is another step related to our full salvation: we need to be saved and be baptised.

Being saved takes care of our inward problem with God; being baptised is a declaration to the whole universe that we take the way of the Lord, we renounce and repudiate our past, and we now live and walk in newness of life!

To be baptised is to be baptised into the death of Christ; His death separates us from the world and the satanic power of darkness!

Through entering into the spiritual reality of baptism, our natural life and nature, our self and our flesh, and even our entire history, have all been terminated! Praise the Lord!

We have been Buried with Christ through Baptism into His Death and now Live a Life of Baptism

The first part of Romans 6:4 says that we have been buried with Christ through baptism into His death. This means that our old man has been crucified with Christ (v. 6) and has been buried with Him through baptism into His death.

On the one hand, we have been baptised into Christ, and on the other hand, we have been baptised into his death.

Verse 3 clearly says that we have been baptised into Christ Jesus; only those who have been baptised into Christ can be baptised into His death.

To be baptised into Christ is to be immersed into Him; we are in Christ, we are identified with Him, and when Christ died, we also die. Amen!

The old man has been crucified with Christ and buried with Him. The old man is the fallen man without God, without God’s element; it is our independent soul, the old man who rules and makes decisions. But praise the Lord, through baptism we have been buried with Christ into His death!

On the one hand, our old man has been buried with Christ; on the other hand, we experience walking together with Christ in His resurrection. The old man does not bother us anymore, for he is buried with Christ.

In the natural realm, a person first dies and then is buried; however, Paul’s word in Romans 6 indicates that in the spiritual realm, we are first buried and then die. Very interesting.

We are first baptised with Christ and baptised into His death, and then we die. We don’t die directly; we enter into Christ’s death through baptism, for Christ and His death are one.

Apart from Christ, we could never be baptised into His death, for the element of Christ’s effective death is only in Him, the resurrected, all-inclusive One (see John 5:29; 11:24-25; Acts 1:22; 2:31).

This is what happened at the time of our baptism, and today we live in this reality. We have been buried with Christ through baptism into His death, and now we live a life of baptism. Wow, our Christian life is a life of baptism!

Yes, we were baptised into Christ and into His death, and baptism is an accomplished fact; however, day by day, we need to live a life of baptism.

Day by day, we need to live a life of baptism. Baptism continues until we are fully transformed and conformed to the image of Christ. Until this goal has been attained, we continue to live a life of baptism.

This is what the Lord Jesus did; He wasn’t just baptised as an outward sign at the beginning of His ministry on the earth, but His whole living and work on the earth was a life of baptism.

To live a life of baptism means that we are daily under the application of the death of Christ, experiencing the effectiveness of His death as an ingredient in the all-inclusive Spirit.

Day by day, there’s a putting to death of the negative elements within us not by doctrines or teachings but by living a life of baptism, for the Spirit in us puts to death anything negative in our being.

May we remain in the death of Christ, in the mould of His death, until we are conformed to His death by the power of His resurrection.

We all can testify that, as we live our Christian life and church life, there’s a continual putting to death in us of all the negative elements by the death of Christ.

On the one hand, we are buried with Christ through baptism into His death; on the other hand, we live a life of baptism in our daily Christian life.

This is something that we experience day by day, and we are bringing the newly saved believers into the same experience.

We need to bring the repentant believers into the experience of living a life of baptism by first baptising them into Christ and into His death, and then helping them understand that their Christian life is a life of baptism.

It’s not that, now that we are saved and baptised, we are now waiting for the Lord to come take us to heaven; rather, we are living a life of baptism, a life in which we allow the Spirit to discharge the old negative elements in our being and add Himself to our being so that we may live Christ in newness of life.

Day by day, we are exercising our spirit, we remain in our mingled spirit, we live together with Christ, and we experience Christ in his death and resurrection. This is our daily experience as believers in Christ.

Lord Jesus, thank You for burying us with You through baptism in Your death! Hallelujah, we have been baptised into Christ and into His death, and we have been buried with Christ! Amen, Lord, our old man has been crucified with Christ and now we are buried with Christ. We are one with You, dear Lord, in Your death. We are identified with You, for we have been immersed into Christ through our baptism into Him. Hallelujah, when Christ died, we also died! Oh Lord, we want to live a life of baptism today. Save us from coming out of the mold of Christ’s death. May we live a life of baptism by being daily under the application of the death of Christ so that His resurrection life may be manifested in us. We exercise our spirit, Lord, to be one spirit with You in everything we do and say today. Hallelujah, we have been buried with Christ through baptism in His death, and now we live a life of baptism until we are fully transformed and conformed to the image of Christ! Praise the Lord!

Walk in Newness of Life by Reigning in Life as a New Creation in Resurrection

On the negative side, we have been buried with Christ through baptism into His death, and we now live a life of baptism. This is so that the death of Christ is applied to us constantly as we remain in the mould of His death.

On the positive side, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we also walk in newness of life (Rom. 6:4). Hallelujah!

The glory of the Father refers to the manifestation of divinity. As we live a life of baptism, the negative elements in us are put to death, and the glory of God’s divinity is expressed through us.

After baptism into Christ and into His death, we become a new person in resurrection (Phil. 3:10). We become a new person; the old man, the old person, is gone, and now we are a new creation in resurrection!

The power of Christ’s resurrection is the Spirit; on the one hand, the death of Christ is in the Spirit, and on the other hand, the resurrection of Christ with its power is also in the Spirit.

This means that, for us to experience the power of Christ’s resurrection, we need to be identified with Christ in His death and be conformed to His death.

Death is the basis of resurrection. As we live a life of baptism, as we live a crucified life like the Lord Jesus did, our conformity to the death of Christ affords the power of His resurrection the opportunity to rise up and express the life of God in us.

If we want to know Christ’s risen power, we must ever love the cross, for life alone from death arises, and there’s no gain except by loss.

In our daily experience, we often simply react to things; our spouse says something, or something happens to us, and we react. We even sense the reaction rising up in us.

Someone may cut in front of us on the road, and we react. Our wife says something to us, and we are ready to respond. Sometimes there’s an inward reaction, and sometimes there’s an outward reaction.

May we remain in the death of Christ by the power of His resurrection so that we may live a life of baptism, and may we learn to walk in newness of life!

We were crucified with Christ, we are buried with Christ, and our old man is buried; now we live and walk in newness of life!

To walk in newness of life means to live today in the realm of resurrection and to reign in life (Rom. 6:4; 5:17). The newness of life is related to the life-giving Spirit, who is Christ Himself in His resurrection.

We walk in spirit, for in spirit we are joined and mingled with the Lord as one spirit. The way for us to walk in newness of life is the Spirit; we need to live, walk, have our being, and do all things in the Spirit with our spirit.

Thank the Lord that we have been baptised into Christ and into His death, and now we are a new person, a new creation in resurrection.

On the one hand, we now live a life of baptism, and on the other hand, we walk in newness of life.

Every day in our life, may we receive the abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness so that we may reign in life! Amen!

Our daily walk needs to be in the realm of resurrection; in this realm, we need to be in the Spirit mingled with our spirit, for the Spirit is the reality of resurrection.

As we walk in newness of life, this deals with all that is of Adam in us until we are fully transformed and conformed to the image of Christ (Rom. 12:2; 8:29).

We live a life of baptism and walk in newness of life in big and small things in our daily life.

In all the little things in our daily living, we need to remain in the mould of Christ’s death so that He may live in us and we may walk in newness of life.

Sometimes we are about to lose our temper for someone touches our button and gets on our nerves; at such times, we simply need to be watchful and turn to our spirit so that all that is of Adam will be put to death and we are transformed and conformed to the image of Christ.

May we not be fashioned to this age but be transformed by the renewing of our mind so that we may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and well pleasing and perfect.

May our mind be renewed until we are one with the Lord. May we not be modernised by being conformed to this age but rather, may we allow the Lord to renew our mind and conform us to the image of Christ.

In our daily life and in the church life, we need to live, act, behave, work, and do everything in newness of life by exercising our spirit at all times.

Lord Jesus, we want to live a life of baptism and walk in newness of life! Hallelujah, we who have been baptised into Christ and into His death were not only buried with Christ but also raised with Him to walk in newness of life! Amen, Lord, thank You for making us a new creation in resurrection! We want to know You and the power of Your resurrection and the fellowship of Your sufferings, being conformed to Your death. We want to walk in newness of life today. May we remain one with You in Your death, being conformed to the death of Christ daily so that the life of Christ may be manifested in us in resurrection. Oh Lord, may we live in the realm of resurrection today. We exercise our spirit to receive and enjoy the abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness so that we may reign in life! Amen, Lord, keep us in our spirit today! We want to live, behave, act, work, and do everything in newness of life! Praise the Lord for our mingled spirit!

References and Hymns on this Topic

• Inspiration for this article/sharing comes from the Word of God, the enjoyment in the ministry, a sharing by the brothers in the message for this week, and portions from, Collected Works of Witness Lee, 1952, vol. 1, “The Crucified Christ,” ch. 9, as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, Chapters 5 through 8 of Romans – the Kernel of the Bible (2025 ICSC), week 3, The Likeness of the Death and Resurrection of Christ.
• Similar articles on this topic:
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