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 Seventh
in a series on the Great Commission, by Archibald McLean, 1786.
Read carefully, and critically.
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“Baptism
also imports the believer’s spiritual conformity to Christ in
his death and resurrection, by dying unto sin, and rising again
to a new life of holiness… The chief scope of the apostle in
Rom. 6: is to show that believers must not “continue in sin
that grace may abound;” for “how shall we that are dead to
sin,” viz, by Christ’s death, “live any longer therein,”
namely, in our own persons, as was the case before we knew the
grace of God in truth? He reminds us that our death unto sin by
the death of Christ was signified by our baptism; wherein we
were immersed into “his death — buried with him,” or “planted
together in the likeness of his death;” by which we were given
to “know this, that our old man was crucified with him (hina),
to the end that the body of sin might be destroyed (viz, in us),
that henceforth we should not serve sin.”
Now
our burial in baptism represents the destruction of this body of
sin, or our putting it off, as the body is put off by death
(Gal. 5:24 Rom. 8:13). Peter also considers this as signified in
baptism, and an effect of Christ’s death and resurrection. He
says, “Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the just for
the unjust (that he might bring us to God) being put to death in
the flesh, but quickened by the Spirit.” And having observed
that baptism doth now save us by this, he shows that the
influence of Christ’s
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death upon us must be mortification of
sin, and conformity to him in his sufferings (1 Pet. 3:18-22;
4:1-2).
Christ
was raised from the death which he suffered for our sins by the
glory, i.e., by the Spirit of the Father, called also the power
of God, his mighty power; and it is the energy of that same
Spirit which quickened Jesus, and dwells in him as the risen
head, that begets us to the faith of him by the word, unites us
to him as living members of his body, and’ so quickens and
raises us up to a new life of conformity to him in holiness.
This
is that spiritual resurrection which is represented in baptism,
wherein believers are risen with Christ, through the faith of
the operation of God, who hath raised him from the dead, that
like as he was raised up by the glory of the Father, even so
they also should walk in newness of life. And in reference to
this, the apostle exhorts the believing Colossians: “If ye
then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above,
where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God. Set your
affections on things above, not on things on the earth.” This
he enforces by motives drawn both from their present state and
future glory: “For ye are dead,” (viz: to the law, sin, and
the world, by communion with Christ in his death; “and your
life,” to which ye are risen with Christ, and enjoy at present
by faith and hope, “is hid with Christ in God.” But “when
Christ who is our life shall appear, then shall ye also appear
with him in glory.” (Col. 3:1-5)
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