In 6:3-5,
Paul reminds them of the fact of their baptism [163]. Baptism has a social
intertexture wherein the implied audience would construe being baptized
according to Paul’s explanation: “baptized into his death” (6:3b) [164]. This
ritual also contains an ideological texture. The ritual of baptism would cause
the participant to experience and affirm as real the significance of the rite
of baptism: that Christians have died with Christ to sin [165]. This baptism
into Christ’s death also contains a historical intertexture, in that the death
of Christ and his resurrection were conceived as one event. This implies that
the rite of baptism also communicates to the Christians that they have been
raised with Christ from the dead. On the grounds that they have metaphorically died
to the power of sin and received resurrection life, they are able now to “walk
in newness of life” (6:4 NRSV). As mentioned previously, 6:4 constitutes the
main rebuttal of the rhetorical question in 6:1. What follows in 6:5-14
elaborates on 6:4, as indicated by the causative γαρ in 6:5. The verb περιπατειν (“to walk” [6:4])
contains a social intertexture that recalls the Hebrew verb הָלַךְ and denotes a
lifestyle. To walk in “newness of life” with its underlying social intertexture
of life after death creates an ideological texture that compels Christians to
live a lifestyle that has a clear break with sin. This lifestyle conforms to a
corporate identity as intimated by the proliferation of first-person plural
verbs. These first-person plural verbs assert ideological power on the implied
audience, encouraging them to conform to the new corporate identity characterized
by the new lifestyle. Thus, by reminding the implied audience of the rite of
baptism, Paul exerts ideological power on the implied audience in order to
convince them that they have died to sin and have been raised with Christ in
some decisive and meaningful way. The twofold reality of the conclusion in
4:23-25 is thus impressed upon Judean and especially gentile Christians: that
they are able to live a righteous life without abusing the abundance of favor
(5:20-21) that comes with trust in God (4:23-25).
Death is made sure by
the fact of the crucifixion in 6:6-10. The social intertexture underlying
crucifixion mobilizes ideological power to impress upon the implied audience that
the life of sin is over. This social intertexture reinforces the conclusion in 4:23-25
and mobilizes ideological power to assure the implied audience that because
Jesus’s death on the cross is sure, sin is totally expiated. Thus, the body of
sin is destroyed (6:6), and Christians are “freed from sin” (6:7).
Notes for the Above
[163] Moo notes that “by
the date of Romans, ‘baptism’ had become almost a technical expression for the
rite of Christian initiation by water.” In a footnote, he also observes that of
Paul’s eleven occurrences of the word βαπτιζειν (“to baptize”), all
but one denote water baptism (Epistle to the Romans, 359 and n. 38).
Contra James D.G. Dunn, who interprets it as a metaphor for incorporate into
the body of Christ. See Dunn, “Salvation Proclaimed: VI. Romans 6:1-11: Dead
and Alive,” ExpTim 93 (1982):261
[164] For
the possible understandings of Paul’s implied audience about baptism, see the
discussion in Florence M. Gillman, A Study of Romans 6:5a: United to a Death
like Christ’s (San Francisco: Mellen Research University, 1992), 37-42. She
observes the chiasm in 6:3, “We were baptized into Christ, into his death we
were baptized,” and is probably right to conclude that Paul’s implied audience
understood the Christian baptism as one that identifies the Christian with
Christ’s death. Cf. Brook W.R. Pearson, who observes that in the cult of Isis
and Osiris, baptism identified the believer with the death of the god Osiris in
the Nile. See Pearson, “Baptism and Initiation in the Cult of Isis and Sarapis,”
in Baptism in the New Testament and the Church: Historical and Contemporary
Studies in Honor of R.E.O. White, ed. Stanley E. Porter and Anthony R.
Cross, JSNTSup 171 (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic, 1999), 51
[165] Émile
Durkheim, The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life, trans. Joseph Ward
Swain (New York: Free Press, 1965), 463-65.
Source: Andrew Kimseng Tan, The
Rhetoric of Abraham’s Faith in Romans 4 (Emory Studies in Early
Christianity 20; Atlanta: SBL Press, 2018), 78-80
