a
daily dying unto sin. For your baptism is simply an overwhelming by
grace--a gracious overwhelming--whereby sin in you is drowned; so may
you remain subjects of grace and not be destroyed by the wrath of God
because of your sin. Therefore, if you let yourself be baptized, you
give yourself over to gracious drowning and merciful slaying at the
hands of your God, and say to him: Drown and overwhelm me, dear Lord,
for gladly would I henceforth, with thy Son, be dead to sin, that I
may, with him, also live through grace.

THE POWER OF BAPTISM.

6. When he says, "All we who were baptized into Christ Jesus were
baptized into his death," and again, "We were buried therefore with
him through baptism into death," he speaks in his own Pauline style
concerning the power of baptism, which derives its efficacy from the
death of Christ. By his death he has paid for and taken away our
sins; his death has been an actual strangling and putting to death of
sin, and it no longer has dominion over him. So we, also, through his
death have obtained forgiveness of sins; that sin may not condemn us,
we die unto sin through that power which Christ--because we are
baptized into him--imparts to and works in us.

7. Yea, he further declares that we are not only baptized into his
death, but, by the same baptism, we are buried with him into death;
for in his death he took our sins with him into the grave, burying
them completely and leaving them there. And it follows that, for
those who through baptism are in Christ, sin is and shall remain
completely destroyed and buried; but we, through his
resurrection--which, by faith, gives us the victory over sin and
death and bestows upon us everlasting righteousness and life--should
henceforth walk in newness of life.

8. Having these things through baptism, we dare no longer obey--live
unto--the sin which still dwells in our flesh and blood in this life;
we must daily strangle it so that it may have no power nor life in us
if we desire to be found in the estate and life of Christ. For he
died unto sin, destroying it by his death and burying it in his
grave; and he acquired life and the victory over sin and death by his
resurrection, and bestows them upon us by baptism. The fact that
Christ himself had to die for sin is evidence of the severe wrath of
God against sin. Sin had to be put to death and laid away in the
grave in the body of Christ. Thereby God shows us that he will not
countenance sin