“Therefore we were buried with Him through baptism into death, that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life” (v. 4). – Romans 6:3-4
Romans 6:3 begins in a most curious (and significant) way: “Or do you not know that as many of us as were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death?”…
The question takes us back to the point Paul made in 6:2, that believers, having been united to Christ, have “died to sin” and therefore cannot go back to their lives of complacent sinfulness. Paul is asking a hypothetical question, a question that assumes the Romans do know that they have died to sin because it is the clear implication of being “baptized into Christ Jesus,” which includes being “baptized into His death.” As Dr. James M. Boice writes: “Although the Christians in Rome had never had [apostolic] teaching, Paul assumes their knowledge of this doctrine by these words. In other words, what he is referring to here was common Christian knowledge.” If so, it is common no more, and we would do well to consider what Paul means when he speaks of being baptized into Christ, that we might better comprehend our death to sin.