But is union with Christ really achieved
by baptism? That says far more than the average Baptist preacher is prepared to
say, and although Baptists are happy to use this text as a support for
immersion as the mode of baptism, it seems to say far too much about the
efficacy of baptism. There is one escape, though, and that is to argue that the
baptism in view here is actually the baptism of the Spirit, not baptism in
water, and some interpreters take this route of escape. However attractive that
option might seem to be, it does not appear to be on target. The language of
this text looks like the language of water-baptism, not Spirit-baptism, in the
wider NT usage.
The linguistic link between water
and Spirit goes back to the words of John the Baptist: “I baptize you in water
for repentance, but he will baptize you in the Spirit” (with slight variations
in the Gospel accounts). But notice that in the comparison, Christ is to
Spirit-baptism what John is to water-baptism, i.e., the baptizer. In Romans 6,
Christ is not the baptizer, but instead he is the goal of the baptism, the one
to whom believers are connected by this baptism. That is not the language of
Spirit-baptism. Furthermore, the Romans language of baptism “into Christ” (eis
Christon) recalls the Matthew 28 language of baptism “into the name” (eis
to onoma), and that text is clearly talking about water-baptism. The only
reason why one might argue that Romans 6 is not talking about the efficacy of
baptism would be foreign to Paul, but according to Acts 22:16, Paul was very comfortable
with such language. (Stanley K. Flower, Rethinking Baptism: Some Baptist
Reflections [Eugene, Oreg.: Wipf and Stock, 2015], 23)