Romans 6:4 - Coke's Commentary on the Holy Bible

Buried with him by baptism— As the ordinance of baptism seems plainly to be sometimes represented, by sprinkling or pouring water; as particularly when God is said to save us by the washing of regeneration, and renewing of the Holy Ghost, which he shed on us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Saviour (Titus 3:5-6): so some have thought that it is here mentioned with an allusion to the laying of a body under water; and yet, according to this mode of reasoning, it more naturally alludes to the throwing of earth upon the dead corpse, in which the body is entirely passive, and not at all active in going down into the grave, than to plunging it into the earth or water. But, after all, I am very much of opinion with Mr. Henry, or his continuator,Dr.Evans,who, in the exposition of this passage, says, "Why this burying in baptism shouldso much as allude to any custom of dipping under water in baptism any more than our baptismal crucifixion and death should have any such reference, I confess I cannot see. It is plain, that it is not the sign, but the thing signified in baptism, that the Apostle here calls being buried with Christ; and the expression of burying alludes to Christ's burial. As Christ was buried, that he might rise to a new and more heavenly life; so we are in baptism buried, that is to say, cut off from the life of sin, that we may rise again to a new life in faith and love." Others have thought, that the reference is onlyto the benefits of spiritual baptism, and that nothing can be concluded about the external mode of baptism from this verse, more than from the next, which speaks of our being therein symbolically planted together in the likeness of Christ's death; or than from the figure of baptism saving us, as represented by the floating of Noah's ark, when the few that were in it were saved by water; 1 Peter 3:20-21. But no mode of baptism can be signified by either of these. As the church at Rome seems to have been planted about the year 43, and this Epistle was written in the year 58, that is, fifteen years after; and yet the Apostle speaks of the converted Romans in general as baptized; it must be supposed that baptism was administered to those whose parents had been Christians at the time of their birth. See Gale's Serm. vol. 2: p. 202.