Romans 6. Baptism

1) Romans 6:1-13

- Before we can be baptized, we must yield ourselves to God and reject our sins. We have to forsake them and turn from them before we can be baptized into Christ’s death and partake of his resurrection as well.

-Christ’s baptism symbolizes His death, it symbolizes the body of sin being laid down to death that we might be raised up from the dead by the glossy of the Father. And just as we are dead in Christ we too will be freed from sin.

-Sprinkling of water does not symbolize the laying down to death. Christ died that he could overcome the body and break the chains of eternal death. He died that we might too die in him so that we can also be raised from the dead. So without our bodies being laid below the water and come forth again new and clean from sin, then we cannot partake of the blessings of baptism. It is symbolic of his death, and there for symbolic of your sinful death and renew spiritual cleansing.

- We maintain the newness of life by not yielding to sin. We must reject all sin from befalling us and making us unclean of the blessings of His death and resurrection. Because just as we have been planted in the likeness of his death, we shall be also in the likeness of his resurrection. So we need to follow after Christ and live as he did once we have been baptized and freed from death and sin.

- According to Mosiah 3:19, we need to have the natural man die at our baptism. When we are laid below, the sinful, prideful, lustful man is what is being laid down, and when we are brought back up we are bringing a new man, with a newness of life, dedicated to following Christ the rest of our mortal days. So ideally, the natural man is what needs to die.

2)

We know whose servants we are by the fruits we bring forth. If we serve our God we will be a positive instrument in his hands, bring his blessings to his children. We will be examples and a light to the world so that they can know where the true source of happiness lies. Those around us will notice us for our works, and seek after us that they can also know of the joy that we have obtained. But if we are servants to our enemy, we will emit darkness in our lives. We will be incapable of true happiness and will seek after the whores of the earth. Just as a bad tree cannot produce good fruit, our lives cannot produce good fruit if our roots are planted in rotten ground. So we can know who we serve by the fruits that we produce, if we have pure happiness and joy, we know that we are following the Father. If we feel empty, dark, and lost, then we know that we have submitted ourselves to the enemy, to the snake to deceive our first parents, and is the enemy to God.

It is only through Christ that true freedom is found. Because of Adams transgression, we will all taste the pains of death, but through Christ, he can swallow it up for us, and we can be set free from sin and death and rise with him through the atonement and his triumph over death. Freedom comes in and through Christ only. Any other proclaimed source is an abomination and disgrace to God and is nothing more than a counterfeit of Satan, who is the antithesis of freedom.