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Christ’s death and resurrection becomes our death and resurrection. That’s true, first of all, in terms of our relationship with God. God looks on us as we are in Christ—His blood covers our sins, His perfect life covers our inadequacy. Second, it’s true in terms of our experience. God can make us dead to sin—as if we’d been crucified. He can make us alive to the things of the Spirit—as if we’d been resurrected from spiritual death. Only immersion can accurately illustrate the true meaning of baptism—death, burial, and rebirth. “Baptism” by sprinkling doesn’t adequately symbolize the new birth. What does it really mean to die with Christ?
Baptism represents outwardly what a person must do inside: surrender everything to Christ, lay it all out on the table. If we keep anything a secret, if we hold anything back from God, then we’ll likely remain “slaves to sin” in some way. It’s a good idea, as you prepare for baptism, to take a personal inventory and ask God to work in and with you to change anything that He wants you to change. Our transformation will not happen all at once. But we must be willing to put our whole selves in His hands. When we surrender fully to Christ, our sinful desires are “rendered powerless.”
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The
physical act of baptism graphically represents the steps of conversion.
First, we’re lowered into the water, we’re immersed completely—just
as people who have died are lowered into the grave and covered. This indicates
that we have died with Christ and have buried our old lifestyle. Baptism
is a funeral, a formal farewell to an existence in which sin dominated.
Then, we’re lifted up out of the water by the one baptizing—just
like a person being resurrected from the grave. This says that we’re
a “new creation,” completely given to the “new life”
God has waiting for us. 
