The apostle Paul tells us that in baptism we are joined to Christ in his death and resurrection (Rom. 6:1–11; Col. 2:11–13). There are two possible ways of understanding this. First, one could understand this from the standpoint of the ancient Greek mystery religions. Understood as a Greek mystery, baptism would be a dramatic rite portraying the death and resurrection of Christ. When one went through such a rite, it was believed, that which had been dramatized would become a reality in the life of the one going through the rite. Paul probably did not understand baptism in terms of the Greek
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