Romans 6:4 Part 3

I took a read (several, in fact) into Moo’s commentary of Romans 6:4 (p.361-367) and if I have been wading and testing the waters before, this has turned out to be a swim in deep waters. It is quite overwhelming – so much so that I begin to understand why some of my friends shy away from theology, taking the stand that God’s word is not suppose to be so complicated: it is we ourselves that make it so. That would be an issue for interesting discussion for another time, God willing, but for now, here’s Romans 6:4, according to Douglas Moo.

Paul in v.4 draws a conclusion from v.3: we have been baptised into Christ and into death, therefore we are buried with him through baptism in order that we are also raised like Christ, to walk in newness of life. If we have died with Christ through (δια) baptism, we have also been buried with him through (δια) baptism.

Moo says this raises 3 interrelated and controversial questions (p.361):
1. Why has Paul introduced the image of burial?
2. What is the meaning of the Christian’s being with Christ?
3. How does baptism mediate this being with Christ?

Answers to these questions fall into 3 general approaches:


Immersion-Emersion Metaphor

The basic argument:

“burial with Christ” as a metaphor for a complete break with the old life

baptism is the symbolic picture of transfer from old life to new life

immersion represents death to the old life, the burial
emersion represents the rising to new life

baptism pictures what has taken place in the believer’s life through conversion

Why is the argument inadequate:

it does not, by itself, provide sufficient explanation

Paul makes baptism the means by which we are buried, and not the place, i.e. where we are being submerged and then emerged

even though the immersion-emersion interpretation can be traced to a fairly early date in the history of the church, to the time of Tertullian, there is not evidence in Rom. 6 or in the NT elsewhere that the actual physical movements involved in baptism were accorded symbolical significance

the argument does not explain what it means by being with Christ nor does it show how this baptism becomes a means or instrument to that being with Christ

Burial a Break, Baptism the Mediator

Basic argument:

burial as a metaphor represents, like the above approach, a complete break with the old life

baptism, however, is seen as a mediator of that break, whether by water baptism or “spiritual” baptism during conversion as the point of break

Why is the argument inadequate:

but similarly, it does not explain the συν compound: what it means for believers to be, or to do things with Christ

some try to explain that we are being in union with Christ in our relationship with him, though Moo felt that Paul did not say we are joined with Christ, but that we have been buried with him

Burial a Description of Participation, Baptism the Mediator

This approach Moo considers as the correct one. This is basically his argument:

Here, the burial with Christ is a description of participation of the believer in Christ’s own burial and this participation is mediated by baptism. Not that the believer in baptism is laid in his own grave, but that through that action he is set alongside Christ Jesus in his (Beasley-Murray). This interprets δια naturally and explains συν adequately.

Baptism however, is not the place or time at which we are buried with Christ, but the instrument, δια, through which we are buried with him.

With this, it may be an obvious conclusion that the “time” of our burial with Christ was the time of his own burial: that when Christ died, was buried, and resurrected, we were “in him” and so participated in these events “with” him. This is evidence by the usage of aorist passive verbs throughout this passage.

But how can we tie this is with the obvious that our transition from the old life to the new is a conscious life experience, not something that happens in A.D.30? Therefore, we may be forced to conclude that we are dealing with a category that transcends time (Schlatter): our dying, being buried, and being resurrected with Christ are experiences that transfer us from the old age to the new, while applied at conversion, has been accomplished through the redemptive work of Christ on Good Friday and Easter.

Paul’s συν refers to a “redemptive-historical” “withness” whose locus is both (1) the cross and the resurrection and Christ – where the “shift” in ages took place historically – and (2) the conversion of every believer – when this “shift” in ages become applicable to the individual.

Maeghan