Romans 6. Baptism

Romans 6. Baptism

 

Before we are baptized into the Church we must forsake our sins and stop committing them. The Apostle Paul teaches that we must not continue on in our sins, that God forbid it. If we desire to be baptized we must put our old selves away and burry the sinner that we can be resected into a new clean life (See Romans 6:1-13).

Prior to the crucifixion of Jesus Christ, he took upon himself the sins of the world atoning for all mankind In doing this he set the example that our sins should die with Christ on the cross e.g. we must repent and forsake our sins that we may not repeat them. In burying our sins unto death we can be reborn spotless and anew. Christ resurrection is symbolic in that we also are resurrected through baptism—in that we emerge from the water cleansed of our previous sins born again as a new person.

“Baptism cannot be by any other means than immersion of the entire body in water, for the following reasons:

1.      “It is in the similitude of the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, and of all others who have received the resurrection.

2.      “Baptism is also a birth and performed in the similitude of the birth of a child in to the world.

3.      “Baptism is not only a figure of the resurrection, but also is literally a transplanting or resurrection from one life to another…” (Smith, Doctrines of Salvation, 2:323-24.)

There for in order to keep this newness we must remember, “the natural man is an enemy to God, and has been from the fall of Adam and will be,  forever and ever, unless he yields to the enticing of the Holy Spirit, and putteth off the natural man and becometh a saint through the atonement of Christ the Lord, and becometh as a child, submissive, meek, humble, patient, full of love, willing to submit to all things which the Lord seeth fit to inflict upon him, even as a child doth submit to his father…”(Mosiah 3:19 The Book of Mormon.)

As we continue on in righteousness let us remember who’s servant we are. If we are righteous then we are servants to righteousness, and also the Lord our God. However if choose to be sinners still then we are servants to sin and will find our reward with the devil. It is therefore by our obedience to the commandments of God that we find eternal life and everlasting freedom (See Romans 6:14–23).