Immersed or dipped?

My husband and I approach the cool water at the beach in very different ways.  If the temperature of the water is a little too cool for comfort, I like to dive right in and be completely covered with it immediately.  Although the initial shock is greater, it moment is soon passed and my body quickly adjusts to the water temperature.

My husband, who is not a fan of the beach much anyway, prefers to gradually make his way into the surf, letting his body adjust bit by bit.  Some people who enter the water this way prefer it because it allows them to escape getting completely wet, while with my way there is no way to prevent being soaked from head to toe.

There is no "better" way to enter the surf.  However, when it comes to our spiritual life, there is no such thing as a slow progression into Christ.

 "Know ye not, that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into his death?  Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life." Romans 6:3,4

When we trust in the Lord Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior, we are --in a spiritual way we cannot fully fathom -- baptized together  into His death and raised again into "newness of life."  The Apostle Paul says this is such a dramatic event that "Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new," (2 Corinthians 5:17.)  The old person we were was crucified with Christ and we are raised a new creature. So lovely is the new creature we have become Paul says it is "created in righteousness and true holiness."

We have not been merely dipped, part by part into our Lord.  We have been totally immersed, dived into Him.  We have not been changed just a little, we have been totally transformed and raised again.  Because of this, it is incumbent upon us to walk as those that are alive from the dead.

  "For if we have been planted together in the likeness of his death, we shall be also in the likeness of his resurrection:  Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with him, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin.  For he that is dead is freed from sin.   Now if we be dead with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with him:   Knowing that Christ being raised from the dead dieth no more; death hath no more dominion over him.  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.   Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, that ye should obey it in the lusts thereof.   Neither yield ye your members as instruments of unrighteousness unto sin: but yield yourselves unto God, as those that are alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness unto God." Romans 6:5-13