“Aug 1, 2024 - Dead to Sin, Alive to God”

Wednesday, July 31, 2024

Dead to Sin, Alive to God

Reading:  Romans 6:1-11
    
    Jesus has undone Adam’s sin, leading to the ironic conclusion that “where sin increased, grace abounded all the more”(Rom 5:20).  Now Paul asks:  is this the way following Jesus works?  If our sin leads to more grace, do we keep sinning?  “What shall we say then?  Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound?  By no means!  How can we who died to sin still live in it?”(Rom 6:1-2).  This is probably the accusation Jewish observers are making about Paul’s teaching:  if we set the Law of Moses aside and God forgives all our sins, then we can just sin freely.  Paul rejects this.  “Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death?  We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life”(Rom 6:3-4).  The answer is that when we came to Christ, we died to sin, we buried our lives of sin, and we began to “walk in newness of life.”

    Especially does Paul want us to think of ourselves as participating in the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus.  We are “united with him in a death like his”(Rom 6:5), “crucified with him”(Rom 6:6), “have died with Christ”(Rom 6:8) and are “buried…with him”(Rom 6:4).  Then, “just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life”(Rom 6:4).  Christian conversion mirrors Jesus’ sacrifice, but it now leads us to live in a new way, obeying God rather than living in sin, like Jesus (Rom 6:10).  We also have hope in the future:  “Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him”(Rom 6:8).  Our new spiritual life promises a future bodily resurrection.  “So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus”(Rom 6:11).

    Paul insists that our baptism was not simply a one-time event, but has ongoing significance.  It is in baptism that we bid a final goodbye to our life of sin, contact the power of Jesus’ death, and are raised to new hope and a new kind of life.  We do not perfectly live out our commitment to stop sinning, but we certainly do not “continue in sin that grace may abound.”  Now we live like Jesus:  dead to sin, alive to God.

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One Thing to Think About:  How might this perspective change how I respond to temptations?

One Thing to Pray For:  Proper perspective about my past
 

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