#DailyDevotion The Power Of Baptism Is Not Merely Symbolic
omans 6:1–11 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. 6We know our old self was nailed with Him to the cross to stop our sinful body and keep us from serving sin any longer. 7When we’re dead, we’re free from sin. 8But if we died with Christ, we believe we’ll also live with Him because 9we know that Christ, risen from the dead, will not die again. Death has no hold on Him any more. 10When He died, He died to sin once, never to die again, and the life He lives He lives for God. 11So you, too, because you are in Christ Jesus, think of yourselves as dead to sin and living for God.
For those who think baptism is merely symbolic and does not have the power of God I can only ask them if St. Paul is being merely symbolic here? Did we merely die to sin symbolically? I think not. When we were baptized we died to sin. It no longer has any power over us. We should not then as he says, live in it any longer. We were baptized into Christ death. Was this merely a symbolic baptism into death like many lodges have? Of course not. We truly were united with Christ on the cross and suffered with him our punishment for sin on the cross. We truly died the first death there and the second death cannot harm us, if we continue in this true and most holy faith.
Joined with Christ into his death on the cross through baptism we also were buried with Christ. And as we were were buried with Christ in baptism, in similar fashion as Jesus was raised from the dead, we were raised to newness of life. We were dead in our trespasses and now we are made alive in Christ. We have experienced the first resurrection, the resurrection of our dead souls. Adam sinned and his soul died that day. He passed that death to all his offspring including you and me. Christ rose from the dead and having been joined to his resurrection through the waters of baptism our souls are now made alive. This is a real, true resurrection. Likewise, as Christ was raised bodily on the third day, on the day of his return, our bodies will join his in his resurrection.
When we were baptized into Christ our old selves were crucified to stop our sinful body and to keep us from serving sin any longer. Our old self died there and we are free from sin, from slavery to the fear of death and from the power of the devil. This has important implications which the world and the devil wants us to forget. They want us to believe we are still sold under sin. We are not. They want us to believe they still have power over us because we still live in this sinful flesh. They do not. While we certainly feel the tempters’ power they cannot make us do anything. When tempted by the world, our flesh and the devil we simply tell them we do not belong to them any longer. We belong to Christ now. We are free from their power. Christ died once to sin never to die again. He lives for God now. We too who have been baptized into Christ are dead to sin and living for God now. We are not merely symbolically dead to sin and living for God now. We are truly dead to sin and living for God now.
Heavenly Father, grant we may daily remember our baptism and the power it has given us over sin, death and the devil so we may now live our lives for you. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.