Baptism

Romans 6:1-13
     Before one is baptized, he must repent. His sins must be dead. Baptism symbolizes the death and resurrection of Christ. Our sins are dead and we are "buried" with him as we are immersed in water. Then we are "raised up" out of the water just as Christ was raised from the dead. Considering this symbolism this is why we are baptized by complete immersion rather than by sprinkles of water.
   These versus teach about how we can maintain the "newness of life". Romans 5:10-11 says, "For in that he died, he died unto sin once: but in that he liveth, he liveth unto God. LIKEWISE reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord. It then goes on in saying that we should not let sin reign over our bodies or to yield ourselves unto unrighteousness, but to yield ourselves unto God.

   Mosiah 3:19 states: "For the natural man is an enemy to God, and has been from the fall of Adam, and will be, forever and ever, unless he yields to the enticings of the Holy Spirit, and putteth off the natural man and becometh a saint through the atonement of Christ the Lord, and becometh as a child, submissive, meek, humble, patient, full of love, willing to submit to all things which the Lord seeth fit to inflict upon him, even as a child doth submit to his father."  Ideally at baptism, the part of us that would die would be the natural man.
   Romans 6:14-23
      We are servants to whomever we yield ourselves to. If we are obedient to sin we are servants of sin. When we are unclean, we are servants of uncleanness.When we are righteous, we are servants of righteousness....ultimately servants of God. When we are servants of righteousness, we are then free from sin.
    The wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life. The true source of freedom is being a servant of God. It is then, that we can receive eternal life.