The substantiating
sentence speaks expressly of the participation in the death of Jesus which the
believer receives by means of Jesus’ association with him. This association begins
with baptism. For this reason Paul explains what took place in baptism; it happened,
without exception, to all who have been baptized. The only provision was that
they were to be baptized into Christ, because there were also many other
baptisms at that time. The effect of baptism assumes that it unites with
Christ; Paul did not expect that effect from the water or from the degree of understanding
or faith exercised in the act by the one being baptized or by the baptizer. But
because the believer was baptized into Christ, he was baptized into his death;
hence it is true of him that he died to sin. On account of Jesus’ death Jesus has
the authority to forgive his sin and to save him from guilt and form the power
of his sinful will; for this reason baptism receives its content and importance
from his death.
In order to explain
the effect Paul expects from baptism, the preposition eis in baptisthēnai
eis Christon eis ton thanaton autou is frequently filled with mystical
sentiments. Here to be baptized “into him and into his death” occurs when the
believer focuses his thinking and feeling intently upon Christ and approximates
his death. Yet the new assertions cannot be severed from the first part of the
letter, nor do they permit us to construe a relationship with Jesus other than
established by faith. This faith is actualized by the whole person, in complete
sobriety, in the broad daylight of consciousness. An element of mystery enters
faith in Jesus, as well as baptism, because his divine work grants Jesus the power
to shape the individual’s inner life. Paul always considered the one who
associates his human life with those have been apprehended by his message and
his bequest. The one who receives baptism focuses his thinking and volition on
him and on his death; yet in him he also finds the one who shapes his innermost
life, as the potter forms his clay (9:21, 23). By means of God’s creative
power, Jesus turns his death into the death of his own. Paul’s final
explanation in regard to this is that through Christ’s association with his
own, they are moved by his Spirit (8:9). (Adolf Schlatter, Romans: The Righteousness
of God [trans. Siegfried S. Schatzmann; Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson, 1995],
136-37)
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