All of us who have been baptized into Jesus Christ have been baptized into His death. So we have been buried with Him through baptism into death, in order that as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life. Therefore, baptism is the symbolic rite of death, burial and resurrection. Let me comment on that for a moment. I am mystified by those who teach that water baptism is anything less than a full burial of the body by total immersion in water, because herein is our body s relationship to the water we are buried .
Baptism also symbolizes resurrection , and a walk characterized by newness of life .
It is an outward expression of an inward work. Since we have become a new creation in Christ, we celebrate by showing forth, through baptism, the work of Christ in our lives. He died for our sins and we recognize our old nature as dead with Christ . Knowing this, that our old self was crucified with Him, that our body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin. As Christ was buried in His flesh, we bury, through baptism, our old nature.