e glory of the
Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life" (Rom. 6: 3, 4).
Baptism is the monogram of the Christian; by it every believer is
sealed and certified as a participant in the death and life of Christ;
and the Holy Spirit has been given to be the Executor of the contract
thus made at the symbolic grave of Christ.

In considering the great fact of the believer's death in Christ to sin
and the law, we must not confound what the Scriptures clearly
distinguish. There are three deaths in which we have part:

1. _Death in sin, our natural condition_.

2. _Death for sin, our judicial condition_.

3. _Death to sin, our sanctified condition_.

1. _Death in sin_. "And you . . . who were dead in trespasses and
sins," "And you being dead in your sins" (Eph. 2: 1; Col. 2: 13). This
is the condition in which we are by nature, as participants in the fall
and ruin into which the transgression of our first parents has plunged
the race. It is a condition in which we are under moral insensibility
to the claims of God's holiness and love; and under the sentence of
eternal punishment from the law which we have broken. In this state of
death in sin Christ found the whole world when he came to be our
Saviour.

2. _Death for sin_. "Wherefore, my brethren, ye also are become dead
to the law by the body of Christ" (Rom. 7: 4). This is the condition
into {110} which Christ brought us by his sacrifice upon the cross. He
endured the sentence of a violated law on our behalf, and therefore we
are counted as having endured it in him. What he did for us is
reckoned as having been done by us: "Because we thus judge, that one
died for all, therefore all died" (2 Cor. 5: 14, R. V.). Being one
with Christ through faith, we are identified with him on the cross: "I
have been crucified with Christ" (Gal. 2: 20, R. V.). This condition
of death for sin having been effected for us by our Saviour, we are
held legally or judicially free from the penalty of a violated law, if
by our personal faith we will consent to the transaction.

3. _Death to sin_. "Even so reckon ye also yourselves to be dead unto
sin, but alive unto God in Christ Jesus" (Rom. 6: 11, R. V.). This is
the condition of making true in ourselves what is already true for us
in Christ, of rendering practical what is now judicial; in other words,
of being dead to the power of sin in ourselves, as we are already dead
to the penalty of sin through Jesus C