Baptism Is a Declaration of War — What the Water Actually Says

A man I deeply admire, Sam Dunn, has spent his life teaching the Word with a kind of clarity that only comes from decades of walking it out. He recently put a set of his lesson plans in my hands — the ones he's been writing to leave behind for his own family — and asked me to carry them forward. This is the first. The teaching is his. The voice is mine. The point is the same one he's been making for years: most of us have no idea how much actually happens the moment we go under that water.

We tend to treat baptism as a ceremony. A nice picture. A box checked. Sam taught it as something closer to a declaration of war — and Romans 6 backs him up.

## Five Things the Water Declares

Paul writes in Romans 6:3–6 that we are baptized into His death, buried with Him, raised as Christ was raised, brought into newness of life, so that the body of sin might be destroyed. Sam walked through each of those five phrases one at a time, and the structure is worth keeping.

**Baptized into His death.** "For Christ also suffered once for the unrighteous, to bring you to God. He was put to death in the body but made alive in the Spirit" (1 Peter 3:18). Through His death we get access to God, and we are made alive by the Holy Spirit.

**Buried with Him.** "This water symbolizes baptism that now saves you also — not the removal of dirt from the body but the pledge of a clear conscience toward God" (1 Peter 3:21). When we go under, we are telling the world we believe Jesus conquered death, hell, and the grave.

**Raised as Christ was raised.** He is seated at the right hand of God, with angels, authorities, and powers made subject to Him (1 Peter 3:22). That includes the power of choice. For the first time, we actually have the ability to choose right.

**Newness of life.** "I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me" (Galatians 2:20). If Jesus defeated Satan, and we are in Christ, then Satan has no grip left on us. Every past sin, every past sickness, anything in your history that does not line up with the Word of God — already defeated.

**The body of sin destroyed.** "If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness" (1 John 1:9). When we sin now, we confess and we are clean. We do not have to live under the curse of our past anymore.

## Why the World Can't See It

Sam paired this with 2 Corinthians 4:4 — "Satan, who is the god of this world, has blinded the minds of those who don't believe." The world genuinely cannot tell right from wrong the way we can. But in Christ — Jesus the Anointed — we can now choose to do right.

And then the part I love. "We have this treasure in jars of clay... We are pressed on every side by troubles, but we are not crushed... struck down, but not destroyed" (2 Corinthians 4:7–9). Sam's conclusion was blunt, and it's a line I've carried into every facility and recovery room I've ever sat in: Christians everywhere need to get in the habit of telling Satan to get thee behind me.

Baptism isn't the finish line. It's you announcing which side you're fighting on.

**If you've never been baptized, or you were baptized but no one ever told you what it actually meant,** reach out. We'd be honored to walk through it with you — and to pray with you wherever you are on that road.