"Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death, that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life." (Romans 6:4)

 

The burial of Christ after His death was extremely important for two reasons: First, it assures us that His death was a physical death and that His resurrection was a bodily resurrection. Secondly, His burial--like His death and resurrection--has profound doctrinal and practical significance for the believer's individual life.

 

All this is pictured, as our text points out, by the ordinance of baptism, displaying symbolically the death of Christ for sin and the death of the believer to sin, then the burial of the corruptible body of flesh (which, for all but Christ, returns to dust in accordance with God's primeval curse). And finally, the resurrection, demonstrating Christ's eternal victory over sin and death, and, in the case of the believer, the beginning of the new life in Christ.