"Paul is here writing to people about their conversion and he is trying to show them that if they have been truly converted they must forsake sin. He says here in the verse: 'We who died to sin, how shall we longer live therein?' You see he speaks of dying to sin, and that brings him to the idea of a burial. He wants to show them that when they were converted--if they were really converted--that their conversion was a baptism of the Spirit; that just as Christ died, was buried and rose to a new life, so the converted soul through the work (or the baptism) of the Spirit on him died to his old life and rose to a new life, and therefore such an one must not sin. The passage therefore reads: 'Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death, that like as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also must walk in newness of life.'" "Well, now, let me see," said the father. "You say the writer compares the conversion of a soul to a baptism of the Spirit?" "Yes, he speaks of it as a spiritual experience; not a mere outward reformation, but an inward spiritual experience, and when he says buried with him by baptism he means a baptism of the Spirit." "Why does he call it a baptism?" asked Dorothy. "That's the point exactly," said the father. "Sterling says the writer is not talking about a water baptism. Well, I don't see why it may not be a water baptism. It says nothing about a spiritual baptism. But anyhow let it be a spiritual baptism; the important point in this argument is that he calls it a baptism, and note carefully he calls the baptism a burial. No matter whether it is a water or a spiritual baptism that he is talking about, he shows what his idea of a baptism was. It was like a person being buried and being raised again." "I think, Mr. Sterling," said Dorothy, "that the verse shows that the important thing about baptism is the way it is performed; that it is not water that makes the baptism; that it may be water, or it may be the Spirit, or possibly it may be something else; but that the important thing is the way it is performed. In other words, it must be like a burial and a rising again. It looks to me as if Paul is showing what a wonderful experience a person's conversion is." "Exactly," said the father, "and I suppose the writer could not express that spiritual change in conversion better than to call it a baptism by the Spirit, and he showed mighty clearly his notion about baptism; to him it was a burial and a rising again.'