“For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his.” Romans 6:5 ESV

Paul is answering a question, and it is a fair one. If grace covers everything, why not keep sinning?

His answer is not a warning. It is an identity. You died.

That is what the font did. Paul has just said we were buried with Christ by baptism into death. Not symbolized. United. The word he uses means grown together, the way a graft fuses to a branch until you cannot separate them without killing both.

We do not live like that is true.

We treat the old self as a tenant rather than a corpse. We manage it, negotiate with it, keep it in a back room and hope it stays quiet. And when the same sin surfaces again we conclude nothing actually changed at the font, that baptism was a ceremony and the real work is ours to grind out.

That is the Law exposing what we actually believe about our own baptism.

But Paul does not say we should feel dead to sin. He says we have been united with Him, and he builds the whole argument on something already accomplished.

We shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his. Certainly. The same union that put you in His death guarantees you a place in His rising. Not probably, not if you manage the old self well enough.

You are not fighting toward a resurrection. You are living out of one already secured.

The water was not a symbol. It was a funeral, and it was yours.

Prayer:

Lord, remind me what happened to me in the water. When the old self speaks like it still has authority, let me remember it was buried with Christ. Raise me daily into the life You have already guaranteed. Amen.