To be “in Christ” is to be united
to Christ, and to have the same relationship with God that Christ has. So Romans
8:1 states, “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in
Christ Jesus.” Because God does not condemn Jesus, those who are united to
Jesus experience no condemnation. Indeed, nothing can separate us from the love
of God we have by virtue of being “in Christ” (Rom. 8:39), since Christ is the
object of God’s unfailing love (Mark 1:11). 1 Corinthians 1:4 speaks of grace
that is given us “in Christ Jesus.” Ephesians 11:1 speaks of our inheritance “in
Christ Jesus.” This implies that our union with Christ makes us privileged members
of God’s household, along with Christ.
But this new clothing, this new
identity sealed in baptism, is not merely an outer representation or façade. It
represents a new self. Colossians 3:10 speaks (also in the context of baptism)
of how “[you] have clothed yourselves with the new self, which is being renewed
in knowledge according to the image of its creator.” So great is this
transformation that comes from being joined to Christ that Scripture can say, “So
if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed
away; see, everything has become new” (2 Cor 5:17)!
Nowhere is this transformation
spoken of more vividly than in Romans 6, which links baptism to our dying and
rising with Christ. . . .
[Rom 6:3-11] teaches us that
baptism not only unites us to Christ’s person, but to Christ’s history.
Not only does God look at us in the same way God looks at Christ because we are
clothed with Christ in our baptism, but baptism also puts us in a new place,
where what happened to Christ (i.e., his death and resurrection) also,
in some sense, happens to us. In baptism, we are “buried into [Christ’s] death”
(Rom. 6:4), “untied with [Christ] in a death like his" (Rom. 6:5). We have
“died with Christ” in baptism (Rom. 6:8). This gives us the further hope that
we will also “be united with him in a resurrection like his” (Rom. 6:5). We see
the same baptismal perspective in Colossians 3:3-4, which states, “you have
died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ who is your life
is revealed, then you also will be revealed with him in glory.”
In baptism, we die with Christ and
we rise with Christ. But in the New Testament, the accent falls on dying with
Christ. There are a few New Testament passages which also speak of our being
already raised with Christ in baptism (Col. 3:1; Eph. 2:6). For the most part, however,
the New Testament speaks about our resurrection with Christ as something still
awaiting us in the future—it has not yet happened. Note Romans 6:8, for
example, which speaks of our union with Christ’s death as something
which has already happened, and our union with Christ’s resurrection as
a future hope.
But the language of the New
Testament is more emphatic on the subject of our present union with Christ in
his death. Already during Jesus’ own ministry, baptism and death are linked
together (Mark 10:38; Luke 12:50). Our dying with Christ is always spoken of as
something accomplished at baptism. The New Testament never speaks of dying with
Christ as a future event. What does it means to say that we have died with
Christ in baptism? Paul says in Romans 6:6, “We know that our old self was
crucified with him so that the body of sin might be destroyed, and we might no
longer be enslaved to sin.” We hear a similar statement in Galatians 2:19b-20: “I
have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but it is
Christ who lives in me.” (James V. Brownson, The Promise of Baptism: An
Introduction to Baptism in Scripture and the Reformed Tradition [Grand
Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 2007], 47-49)