to have the actual experience of it before he was baptized ; so that he must be a hypocrite, and no true believer, if he was not holy both in heart and life. To this effect he speaks in the whole of the
preceding context a ; and in the words which
we have just read, he confirms the idea, and founds upon it an animated exhortation.
To elucidate this difficult, but important subject, we shall consider,
I. The truth he assumes —
[He takes it for granted that the believer is " dead with Christ." The believer, by virtue of his union with Christ, partakes in all that Christ either did or suffered for him. Was Christ crucified, dead, and buried ? The believer also is cruci- fied, dead, and buried : only Christ underwent this in his body; whereas the believer experiences it in his soul. The believer has what is called " the old man," or " the body of sin :" and this it is which undergoes a change equivalent to that which Christ experienced in his mortal body. This old man is " crucified." Crucifixion was a long protracted punishment : but though the death of the crucified person was slow and gradual, it was sure. It is in this way that " the old man," or " the body of sin," in the believer, is destroyed : is is not so instantly slain, as never to move again : but it is nailed to the cross : it is gradually weakened : and, in the purpose and in- tention and determination of the believer, it is as really dead, as if it were already altogether annihilated. The believer, at his baptism, considered this as solemnly engaged for on his part, and as shadowed forth, yea, and as pledged also to him on the part of God, in the rite itself: " he was baptized into Christ's death, and buried, as it were, with Christ by baptism into death." This was his profession ; and this is his obligation : and wherever true and saving faith exists in the soul, this pro- fession is realized, and this obligation performed. Hence it may be assumed as an universal truth, that, as a scion parti- cipates in the state of the stock into which it has been engrafted, so the believer, engrafted as he is into a crucified Saviour, " is planted together with him in the likeness of his death," or, in other words, is " dead with Christ."]
In close connexion with this is,
II. The persuasion he intimates —
" We believe," says he, " that we shall also live with him."
3 ver. 1 — 7
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