The word “baptize” is a transliteration of the original Greek word baptizw (baptizo). In turn, baptizo comes from the root word baptw (bapto), a term used in the first century for immersing a garment first into bleach and then into dye, both cleansing and changing the color of the clothStated another way, when you process cloth to change its color, you are said to “baptize” it.  Baptism is figuartively similar as it represents the cleansing of sin and becoming a new person through Christ.

Click Here and Read Romans 6:1-7 This shows us that the mode of baptism (immersion) pictures the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus. In the same way that He went through these things, our old nature is to “die” and we are to be “buried with Him through baptism into death” and raised to “walk in newness of life” (live like Jesus). So we do not just try to be a better person, we bury the “old person” in the water and become a “new person” through our acceptance of Christ. It is like a new birth and a new beginning for us.