This is all that is said on the subject of baptism, as a Sacrament of the Christian Church, in the Scripture-history of The Acts of the Apostles.
The first passage we meet with on our subject is in the sixth Chapter of the Epistle to the Romans. St. Paul, the writer of this Epistle, had been dwelling, in the former Chapters, upon the great gospel-doctrine of salvation by grace through faith. He had declared, that “a man is justified by faith without the deeds of the law;” (iii. 28,) that in this way Abraham was justified; (iv. 3,) and that in this way every one else must be justified: (iv. 24,) and in the latter part of the fifth Chapter he had spoken strongly of God’s grace much more abounding where man’s sin abounded. The Apostle, then in the beginning of the sixth Chapter anticipates an abuse which might be made of this doctrine, and corrects it. “What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin,” in order “that grace may abound? God forbid!” Abhorred be the thought! And he proceeds to reason upon this; and to show, not only its _incongruity_, but (in a sense which other Scriptures allow) its _impossibility_:—“How shall _we_ that _are dead_ to sin, _live_ any longer therein?” And then he brings in the subject of their baptism. “Know ye not, that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ, were baptized into His death? Therefore we are buried with Him by baptism into death; that like as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life.” (v. 3, 4.) After what we have seen already of baptism, as administered by the Apostles and others, we can be at no loss to perceive the meaning of St. Paul’s expression, “baptized into Christ.” According to His own command, all who believed in Him were baptized; and this act or Ordinance was their open avowal of faith in Him,—their public and palpable engrafting and incorporation into Him and His Church,—and their solemn dedication and consecration to the love, worship, and service of God the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. { 57} Their baptism into Christ, consequent upon, and declarative of, their faith in Him, publicly and manifestly bound them unto Him;—to strict and spiritual conformity with Him. And thus the Apostle goes on to remind those who had been “baptized into Christ,”—for the Epistle was addressed to those at Rome who were “beloved of God and called to be saints,” and whose “faith was spoken of throughout the whole world,” (i. 7, 8,)—that they were “baptized into His death;” that is, into conformity to His death; that in virtue of His dying for their sins, and after the pattern of this His death, and by motives and considerations drawn from His death, they should die to all sin and be delivered from the reigning power of it. ‘The faithful,’ observes Beza on this expression, ‘are said to be baptized into the death of Christ, that through His death sin may die and be abolished in them.’ And to carry this conformity still farther, St. Paul adds, “Therefore we are buried with Him by baptism into death.” For as Christ’s burial was a manifestation of the reality of His death, so ought it to be also with them respecting sin. It was likewise an introduction to, and preparation for, His glorious resurrection. And thus the Apostle proceeds with his exhortation;—“that like as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory (the glorious power) of the Father, even so we also (we who are baptized into Him) should walk in newness of life.” And in the following verses—indeed to the end of the Chapter—St. Paul presses the Roman Christians to devotedness to God’s service, in language the most forcible which could have been made use of. Here then we see what baptism is, in the case of real believers: and it is of such alone that the Apostle here speaks. The obligations which result from it to righteousness and holiness are of the strongest possible description. And these obligations have their influence upon the faithful; though that influence is capable of a continued increase. How different is this from a service which is “outward” only “in the flesh!”