Some teach that a person dies to sin when he accepts Christ into his heart by faith. Then he is buried in baptism to show that he has already been saved. Others teach that we die to sin when we repent, which means that we are free from sin when we repent. (Really, most say we die to the love of sin, not to sin itself.) What does the Bible teach?

Although a person must believe and repent (turn from sin) before he is baptized, Romans six shows clearly that one does not die to sin when he believes or repents. Notice carefully these verses: Paul said we are "baptized into Christ Jesus" and "into His death" (Rom 6:3). The next verse says "we were buried with Him through baptism into death" (Rom 6:4). Notice, verse four does not say "into His death," but "into death." There are two "deaths" in the sixth chapter—Christ's and our own. The person buried is the one who is dead in sin. When he is baptized into Christ's death, he dies to sin. So, he is buried because he is dead (in sin) in order to die (to sin)! When we are buried with Him through baptism, we are "united together in the likeness of His death (and) certainly we also should be in the likeness of His resurrection" (Rom 6:5). Notice Paul said, "For he who has died has been freed from sin" (Rom 6:7). When a person "dies," he is free. (This does not happen at the point of belief, nor repentance.) Then he says "if we died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him" (Rom 6:8), and we reckon ourselves "to be dead indeed to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus our Lord" (Rom 6:11). We were dead in sin (Col. 2:12,13), but when we "obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine to which (we) were delivered," then we were "set free from sin, (and) became slaves of righteousness" (Rom. 6:17,18). A person is baptized into Christ's death (His blood, Rev. 1:5) in order to die to sin! The old man of sin was "crucified with Him" (Rom 6:6). The new life (union with God) follows the burial of the man who was dead (separated from God), and he is "raised to walk in newness of life." The man who is buried is dead in sin. Romans 6 teaches that when one is baptized into the death of Christ, he is washed in the blood, therefore dies to sin and becomes alive in Christ.