What is the context?
Paul is answering the suggestion that grace should lead to more sin. He appeals to baptism into Christ’s death and burial with Him, directing the reader toward walking in newness of life.
The full discussion in Romans 6:1–4 explains the question Paul is answering and the different traditions’ accounts of baptism. These verses connect baptism with belonging to Christ and the life that follows His resurrection.
How is this passage commonly understood?
Christians share the connection between baptism, Christ’s death and resurrection, and the call to a changed life. They differ over how baptism brings or signifies that participation. The Catholic Catechism 1262–1266 teaches forgiveness and new birth through baptism; the Reformed Westminster Confession 28.1–6 describes a sign and seal whose effect is not tied to the moment of administration.
The 1689 Baptist Confession 29 describes the sign of fellowship with Christ for professing believers and requires immersion. The Methodist Articles XVI–XVII describe God working through sacramental signs and retain infant baptism. These distinctions concern the act’s recipients, mode and relation to God’s grace, rather than disagreement that the passage calls for new life.
Where does this fit in God's plan?
Colossians 2:12–13 also connects burial with Christ in baptism and being raised through faith in the God who raised Him. Paul places the new life of believers within the same saving work that raises Jesus, rather than presenting baptism as an isolated religious performance.
What is our position?
The Baptism study understands this passage as death and resurrection with Christ enacted in the believer’s baptism. Our position favors immersion because it expresses burial and rising, and treats baptism as a real, faith-filled act of obedience rather than an empty performance. The study also distinguishes this act from earning salvation: forgiveness and the gift of the Spirit come through faith, and the water has no power apart from Christ.