The fruit of Baptism, its true fulfillment, is a new life; not simply a better, more moral or even more pious life, but a life ontologically different from the “old” one. And this difference, the very content of this “newness,” is that it is life with Christ: “…if we be dead with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him” (Rom 6:8). It is His Risen Life “unto God” that is given to us and becomes our life and our resurrection. But his Life in us, our life in Him is precisely the Church, for she has no other being, no other purpose and no other life but to be Christ in us and we in Christ.”
Alexander Schmemann
Of Water and Spirit
pg. 120