Hi Charlie,
Don has presented some good things to think about. I would also offer for your consideration Romans 6:3-4. Here Paul tells us that we are buried with Christ in baptism and raised to walk in newness of life. This is a description of the "new birth". The old man dies, the new man is raised. To dig a little deeper, consider for a minute what the old man is: he is a man who has and is committing sin. When he repents, he puts those sins away. He resolves in his heart to do those things no more and to do what God wants him to do. The old man dies. THEN we bury him -- in baptism, so he can be raised a new person. Now I ask you, if a man has already been made a new creature prior to baptism, why then do we bury him? We *never* bury live people. We only bury the dead.
... just some thoughts...
