BJ'<'ab fo the b11.pti111ed Rom11.n Christ.i11.ns in these terms: "Are ye ignorant tho.t e.11 we who were baptized into Christ ,Tesus were baptized into his death? Wo were buiied then'fore with him through b:iptism into dee.th" (Revised Version). What we ha,e g0t firat to determine here is the exact meaning of being baptized in or into the name of a Person. In a remarkable essay on 'Baptism and the Third Command- ment,' a thoughtful writer :rays, "There is an evident connection between these two, We are baptized in the Name' of the Lord our God. And that is the Name which we are eommanded not to take in ,sin. . . . It is to tell that we are the Lord's, claimed by- him for his ser,ice, c.'llled to be followers of him 'as dear children' (Eph. v. 1). This is the real meaning of a phrase, much used but little reflected on--a Christian name. Such are the names, John, Jame,s, Thomas, among men; Jane, .Wary, Elizabeth, among women. They tell that the bearers belong to Christ. We have two names. The latter of tbe.se, our surname, distinguishes l\8 as the children of our earthly father; the former a,ouche.s us as the children of a Father in heaven. And let us mark well v;hat comes out of this solemn ,erity. If we have upon us the name of the God of gentleness while we ourselves are men of strife, or the name of the God of purity while our own li,es are impure, or the name of the God of truth while we are given to lying, we are taking that name in vain." 1 Following out this clue, let us notice that baptis.n into Christ implies a baptism into his dl!ath. For Jesus "died nnto sin once ; " " he died for the ungodly;" " he died for us ; " that is, he passed through the experience of crucifixion to sa,e the lost. Now, the coWlterpart of this death for sin is found in us if we believe upon him. We realize that we have died in him unto ·or for sin. "If One died for all, then all died " (2 Cor. v. 14). Accordingly, we are to "reckon ourselves to be dead" in Jesus Christ" unto sin." Coleridge has rightly remarked, in his 'Literary Remains,' that "in the imaginatio11 of man exist the seeds of all moral and scientific improvement;" and it is by placing ourselves imaginatively on the cross with Christ, and realizing in his atoning sacrifice our death for sin, that we come to appreciate our individual justification before God. We are thus baptized into his death. IL OUR BAI'TISH INTO DEATH IMPLIES A BURIAL WITH JEsue. For our blessed Lord not ocly died upon the cross ; he was also buried in the tomb. Friends begged the body, took it down tenderly from the accursed tree, wrapped it in spices, and laid it in Joseph's well-known sepulchre. Now, in burial one thought overpowers all others; it is the putting of the dead out of sight, out of all relation to the struggling world ~roand. As long as a man's body remains in the tomb "He has no share in all that's don& Beneath the circuit of the sun." Such a separation took place through burial between the once-living Christ and the bustling world. The throngs might seethe a.round the temple court and settle down to selfubness again, bot the Master-spirit who had been among them is now withdrawn, and sleeping for a sea.son in his tomb. Now, the apostle implies in this passage that a similar sharp separation is experienced by the truly Christian soul from the world. In casting in his lot with Christ, he is buried out of sight, so to speak, and becomes a stranger in the world. His reception by baptism into the Christian community implies his withdrawal from the previous worldly relations in which he stood to other men. And here it is only right to guard against the superficial use made of the burial reference, as if it implied a 'f/Wde in baptism. "'l'his word (crwe.-&..p71µ.Ev), 'we were entombed.,' contrary to the opinion of many commentators," says Dr. Shedd, "has no reference to the rite of baptism, because the burial spoken of is not in water, but in a sepulchre. . . . Burial and baptism are totally diverse ideas, &nd have nothing in common. In order to baptism, the element of water must come into contact with the body baptizoo; but in a burial, the surrounding element of earth comes into no contact at all with the body buried. The corpee is carefully protected from the earth in which it is laid. Entombment, consequently, is not the emblem of baptism, but of death." Const,quently, the ides. of the apostle is that we are spiritually separated from the world by our reception into the Chiistian community by baptism,just as Jesus wa1 physic"ll.Y 1 Tait'• • Thoughts for tho Thoughtful on the Bleued God, and on Obrist and Ohrla-
tianity,' pp. 186--1!15. 011, VI. 1-23.] THE EPISTLE OF PA UL TO TIIB ROMANS. 179