Baptism is a strange place to begin an argument about how to live. We might start with resolve, a plan, or the consequences of another failure. Paul begins with a burial.
His hearers have already been joined to Christ’s death. The new life he calls them to live begins from that fact.
The Word
συνθάπτω (synthaptō) means to bury together with. The first part, syn-, carries the sense of togetherness; thaptō means to bury. Paul is not merely placing two events alongside each other. He is speaking of people buried with Christ.
In Romans 6:4, synetaphēmen means we were buried with. It is aorist passive indicative: Paul states something that happened to us. In Colossians 2:12, the corresponding passive participle describes the baptized as having been buried with Christ.
Range of Meaning
Burial is what happens to the dead. Used with Christ, the word draws our attention to his real death and to our participation in it. Baptism joins the sinner to the crucified and risen Lord.
The image does not stop at the grave. In both passages burial belongs to an argument about resurrection. Christ’s death ends in life, and the baptized person’s union with him has that same direction.
Where You’ll Meet It
Paul asks in Romans 6 whether grace gives Christians permission to remain in sin. His answer begins by recalling their Baptism into Christ’s death:
“Therefore we have been buried with him through baptism into death, in order that just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we too may live a new life.” (Romans 6:4, NET)
The purpose clause matters. Being buried with Christ is directed toward a new way of living. The fact about Baptism grounds the summons that follows.
Colossians 2:12 places burial and resurrection together too, explicitly connecting being raised with Christ to faith in God’s power. Paul does not offer a mechanical account in which faith becomes unnecessary.
What Confessional Lutherans Hear
The baptized Christian has more to answer sin with than a stronger resolution. God has joined that person to Christ. Daily repentance returns to this gift: the old sinful life is to be put to death, and the new person is to live before God.
Endyō gives the clothing image for this same baptismal belonging. Synthaptō gives the burial image. Both begin with what has been given before describing the life that follows.
That order also comforts the person who has failed again. Repentance is not a request for a different Christ or a better Baptism. It returns to the Lord who died and rose for sinners, trusting his forgiveness and resisting the sin he has condemned.
So What
When temptation says that nothing can change, remember whose death you have been joined to. When presumption says sin no longer matters, remember what that death was for.
Your old master does not have the final claim upon you. You belong to the risen Christ. The God who marks you as his own calls you to walk in the life his Son has opened.