#DailyDevotion Shall We Walk In Sin Or Newness Of Life
Rom. 6:1-5 What shall we say? Shall we go on sinning so that God may be more gracious to us? 2Certainly not! We died to sin. How can we live in it any longer? 3Or don’t you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death? 4Now when we were baptized into His death, we were buried with Him so that as the Father’s glory raised Christ from the dead we, too, will live a new life. 5If we were united with Him in this likeness of His death, then we will be united with Him also in the likeness of His resurrection.
To understand versed 1 and 2 we need to read the versed in the previous chapter, “20The Law came to multiply sin, but where there was much sin, God’s grace was so much greater 21that, as sin ruled in its deadly way, so His grace is to rule, giving a righteousness by which we live forever through our Lord Jesus Christ.” So if God’s grace is greater than sin and gives life in spite of our sin, why not sin all the more so grace may abound all the more? Well that is the reasoning of a degenerate man. It is the thinking of a man still living in death. But as St. Paul says, we have died to sin. How can we live in it any longer? When, where, how did we die to sin?
St. Paul reminds us of the reality of our baptism. Some people think baptism is something they do for God. They think is some work of theirs. I cannot comprehend that especially reading chapter 6 of Romans in these words above. Baptism into Christ brings about a new reality for us. It is not just a symbolic action. It actually seals us to Christ crucifixion, death, burial and resurrection. Before you were baptized into Christ, you were dead in your sins. Sin and death had its seal on you. The only escape from sin and death is to die. So in baptism Jesus unites us with his death and burial. So we dead. It is like we’ve had this life sentence but that ends when we die. In baptism into Christ we died. In being made dead in Christ we died to sin. It is no longer lord over us. The devil is no longer lord over us. Our flesh is no longer lord over us. Upon our death, they all have lost their control and right to us.
So we can no longer live in sin anymore. You see, we have been raised with Christ in baptism. That is to say our once dead soul/spirit has been regenerated. We have been born from above as John and Jesus promised in John 1 and 3. We are new creations in Christ Jesus. Having raised from the dead by the glory of the Father we walk about now in the newness of life. Some translations make this sound like a command. But it is descriptive of our conditions. We have been given a new life in Christ Jesus by the glory of the Father here in baptism. We are no longer the people we used to be after baptism. Sure, chapter 7 will remind us we still have this fallen flesh which we struggle with, but in newness of life we actually fight against it.
Finally, in baptism we have the promise that just as in baptism we have been joined to Jesus in the likeness of his death we also shall be raised in the likeness of his resurrection. That is to say, having been joined with Christ in baptism, even as he has been raised immortal, imperishable, and glorious, we too on the Last Day be like Jesus Christ in his resurrection. Since this is so we all the more want to live according to his life and not according to Adam’s death.
Heavenly Father, ever keep before our eyes the death and resurrection of Jesus so we may know what is ours having been baptized into him and into his name, and live in newness of life. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.