Godbey's Commentary - Acts - Romans - Enter His Rest

Spirit by which sin is exterminated, God forbid that we should run into papistical dogmas of
baptismal regeneration by giving a materialistic interpretation to this passage. It does not say
“baptized into water,” but “into Jesus Christ.” Hence, the construction of it simply to mean water
baptism materializes God and runs into idolatry. This baptism, which is none other than that of the
Holy Ghost, actually puts you in Christ, where there is no sin, thus utterly and eternally annihilating
sin, as we have indicated by our baptism into His death. Just as Christ died on the cross, so do we
die to sin in this baptism, when by the Holy Ghost we are baptized into the death of Christ, when we
are as free from sin as the dead body of Jesus was from life while lying in the tomb.
4. “Therefore we have been buried along with him through baptism into death.” We find here
that the baptism is the agent who executes the work of the burial into the death, which means the
atonement of Christ, which is the receptacle of all sin which escapes damnation; i.e., every old man
of sin must either be buried into the atonement of Christ and be left there forever, or be burned in
hell fire world without end. It is astounding that Bible readers identify this baptism with the burial
which is positively contradictory of Paul’s plain statement which makes the baptism the undertaker
instead of the interment. “In order that, as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the
Father, so may we also walk in newness of life.” Here we see that the resurrection must be
homogeneous to the interment, being performed by the omnipotent power of the Holy Spirit, who
raised the body of Christ from the dead. Therefore it follows as a logical sequence that the Holy
Ghost Himself is the agent in both operations, i.e., the internment and the resurrection, thus clearly
and demonstratively proving that this is none other than the baptism of the Holy Ghost slaying the
man of sin and burying him forever into the death of Christ, the only receptacle of sin as an
alternative of hell. When this old body of sin is thus forever removed, eternally buried in the death
of Christ, the new man, having been resurrected in regeneration, now utterly disencumbered and free,
walks on forever with God in “newness of life.” We must bear in mind that water is not mentioned
in this chapter, while all the language is homogeneous with the baptism of the Spirit and out of
harmony with a material transaction. If your conscience demands baptism by immersion in water,
do not hesitate to satisfy your convictions in the beautiful symbolism of the material ordinance. Yet
it is exceedingly pertinent that we do not mar this beautiful, clear and demonstrative statement of the
supernatural baptism of the Spirit by confounding it with an outward ceremony. The thing buried in
this transaction is not your physical body, which is buried in water and baptized by immersion, and
the same identical body immediately raised up by the muscular power of the administrator; but that
old body of sin, which is invisible and spiritual, having been crucified by the Holy Ghost in
sanctification and now buried into the death, i.e., the atonement of Christ, and left there forever;
because if unfortunately Satan raises him up, “the last state is worse than the first.” Hence we see
the utter heterogeneity of two transactions, the internment involving the old man of sin after he has
been crucified by the Holy Ghost, putting him down deep into the death of Christ, the exterminator
of all sin, there to abide forever; while the new man, the son of God, created in the heart by the Holy
Ghost in regeneration, is raised up to walk in newness of life forever. Hence we see that one thing
is buried, so to remain forever. An infinitely different thing is the subject of the resurrection; i.e., the
old man, the son of the devil, is the subject of the interment; and the new man, the son of God, the
subject of the resurrection. Hence we see the impertinency in the interpretation of this Scripture as
simply applying to water baptism by immersion, in which the same physical body is the subject both
of the interment and the resurrection.