Morning Musing: Romans 6:6-11

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“For we know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body ruled by sin might be rendered powerless so that we may no longer be enslaved to sin, since a person who has died is freed from sin. Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him, because we know that Christ, having been raised from the dead, will not die again. Death no longer rules over him. For the death he died, he died to sin once for all time; but the life he lives, he lives to God. So, you too consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.” (CSB – Read the chapter)

As you read through Romans 6, Paul repeats himself. He makes one basic point and then drives it into our heads almost relentlessly. The reason for this is simple: This stuff is crucial to understand if we are going to properly understand the Gospel. And the point he makes is one we have talked about before. Apart from Christ, we are slaves to sin. In Christ, we are free. Let’s explore this with Paul here a little further.

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Where Is Your Sting?

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Over the course of his Gospel, the apostle John presents us with seven signs pointing to who Jesus is. These were all miracles Jesus performed (although they are far from the total of His miraculous deeds) whose weight and import went well beyond the miracles themselves to the things they revealed about Jesus. On our journey so far, we have examined six of them. Today we are looking at the last: the raising from the dead of Lazarus. Like all the others, this one revealed something crucial about Jesus. Let’s talk about what that was and why it matters.

Where Is Your Sting?

The story of Jesus’ death and resurrection is an incredible one. It is one that has inspired countless other stories since. The idea that someone actually defeated death and returned to tell about it has given hope to untold millions over the course of the 2,000 years since it happened. We’ll talk more about all of that this Friday and next Sunday as we give all of our attention to the resurrection itself. For the moment, I want to draw your attention very briefly to one part of it. 

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Digging in Deeper: 2 Corinthians 3:12

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“Since, then, we have such a hope, we act with great boldness.” (CSB – Read the chapter)

A few weeks ago I was in the Lego Store with my family and saw their Bumblebee set. I’m not talking about the bug. I’m talking about the Transformer, great warrior, and loyal friend of Optimus Prime. It may be one of the cooler sets I’ve built because it actually transforms from a VW Bug to a robot. It’s sitting on my desk in robot mode now, but I switch it up every now and then just for fun. I love Transformers. I also love cartoons. Because of this, I was most excited to see the new Transformers movie, Transformers One. I didn’t get to catch it in theaters because life, but I finally got to watch it recently. Let’s talk about it.

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Digging in Deeper: Romans 6:3-5

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“Or are you unaware that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? Therefore we were buried with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we too may walk in newness of life. For if we have been united with him in the likeness of his death, we will certainly also be in the likeness of his resurrection.” (CSB – Read the chapter)

I am a Baptist preacher. We Baptists love baptism. It’s kind of in the name. And when we say the word, we mean it with its original Greek meaning. The word batidzo, from which our English word is merely a transliteration rather than a translation, means to immerse something in water, not to merely sprinkle some water over it. One of the two things that makes a Baptist church a Baptist church is a requirement that a person has been baptized before they can be a member. Yet as important as the practice is to us, we didn’t invent it. In fact, Christians generally didn’t invent it. Lots of religions used some form of baptism as an initiatory and cleansing rite. We simply took something that was already in existence and added our own unique symbolism to it. Here we find Paul talking about some of that symbolism. Let’s walk through this with him.

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Morning Musing: Romans 6:1-2

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“What should we say then? Should we continue in sin so that grace may multiply? Absolutely not! How can we who died to sin still live in it? (CSB – Read the chapter)

When you write a lot of things, you occasionally find when you go to write something new that you’ve written it before. That happened a couple of weeks ago as I was starting to studying Romans 6 in preparation for writing about it as we continue our journey. More specifically, I discovered that I had written about these two verses before. I also found myself agreeing with what I said then. So, with some updates after six years, and for the first time ever in nearly eight years of writing this blog, here’s a repeat of an old post.

What should be the relationship of a follower of Jesus to sin? Obviously we shouldn’t do it, but let’s be honest: a simple “ought not” isn’t usually sufficient to keep us from it. We need to understand the why behind the ought before we’re going to wrap our hearts and minds around it to a sufficient degree that it begins to have the kind of power in our lives it needs to have. Here in beginning of Romans 6, after Paul has just been telling us about the power of grace in light of the power of sin, the apostle explores this very idea. His treatment may not be exhaustive, but it is powerful. Let’s start unpacking this today, and continue with Paul on the idea over the next several days.

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