Dead to Sin, Alive to God: what a description of what it means to be saved!
God uses different terms to help us to understand what Jesus’ death and resurrection do for us. In some places it talks about washing our sins away. One of the major words for Romans is “justified” that is, we are “aligned” with God. Marriage and courtship are images that are used. Immaturity and maturity are used, too. So are blindness and sight. Here the images are death and life; slavery and freedom.
In earthly terms, if a person commits a crime they cannot be punished for it after they’re dead. If a person was a slave, and they die, they no longer serve as a slave. Right?
Romans 6 teaches us that in baptism we are united to Jesus in his death. We are given his death. “We were therefore buried 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.”
We’ve been through the grave with Jesus. This life we live is a new life. As Luther writes in the Small Catechism: Baptism, “indicates that the Old Adam (our sinful nature) in us should by daily contrition and repentance be drowned and die with all sins and evil desires, and that a new man should daily arise to live before God in righteousness and purity forever.”
Every day is about death and new life. Every day we remember our sins – all of our wrong doings – and we become contrite – that is sorrowful and ashamed of our behavior. Being ashamed, we repent – that is we turn away from our sin. We don’t want them in our lives any longer. Every day that old sinful person goes down in the waters of baptism to be drowned, and a new person comes out of the water. The old is dead and the sin gone in God’s eyes. Now there is only the new living in Christ.
This is a daily battle – no, a battle that is waged moment by moment. When we sin, it traps us into slavery. It shackles and binds us. But again, when we die in our Baptism those shackles are removed, we are set free, and rise to live a new life to a different and better slavery – slaves to righteousness giving us hope, dignity, life and joy.
As Jesus said, “No one can serve two masters.” We are people who are torn between two masters. We are slaves in our sin to sin, and we work to receive our wages – and the wages of sin is death. But we have also received the free gift of God in Jesus – eternal life.
Jesus receives sins wage for us on the cross, and in baptism he binds us to himself. Death has been given to us. But Jesus did not stay dead – he rose and he gives us new life.
Father, thank you for Jesus’ death and life. Sometimes I still creep back to that old master, sin, please set my heart on serving you so that you will be glorified in my new life in Christ. Amen.
God uses different terms to help us to understand what Jesus’ death and resurrection do for us. In some places it talks about washing our sins away. One of the major words for Romans is “justified” that is, we are “aligned” with God. Marriage and courtship are images that are used. Immaturity and maturity are used, too. So are blindness and sight. Here the images are death and life; slavery and freedom.
In earthly terms, if a person commits a crime they cannot be punished for it after they’re dead. If a person was a slave, and they die, they no longer serve as a slave. Right?
Romans 6 teaches us that in baptism we are united to Jesus in his death. We are given his death. “We were therefore buried 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.”
We’ve been through the grave with Jesus. This life we live is a new life. As Luther writes in the Small Catechism: Baptism, “indicates that the Old Adam (our sinful nature) in us should by daily contrition and repentance be drowned and die with all sins and evil desires, and that a new man should daily arise to live before God in righteousness and purity forever.”
Every day is about death and new life. Every day we remember our sins – all of our wrong doings – and we become contrite – that is sorrowful and ashamed of our behavior. Being ashamed, we repent – that is we turn away from our sin. We don’t want them in our lives any longer. Every day that old sinful person goes down in the waters of baptism to be drowned, and a new person comes out of the water. The old is dead and the sin gone in God’s eyes. Now there is only the new living in Christ.
This is a daily battle – no, a battle that is waged moment by moment. When we sin, it traps us into slavery. It shackles and binds us. But again, when we die in our Baptism those shackles are removed, we are set free, and rise to live a new life to a different and better slavery – slaves to righteousness giving us hope, dignity, life and joy.
As Jesus said, “No one can serve two masters.” We are people who are torn between two masters. We are slaves in our sin to sin, and we work to receive our wages – and the wages of sin is death. But we have also received the free gift of God in Jesus – eternal life.
Jesus receives sins wage for us on the cross, and in baptism he binds us to himself. Death has been given to us. But Jesus did not stay dead – he rose and he gives us new life.
Father, thank you for Jesus’ death and life. Sometimes I still creep back to that old master, sin, please set my heart on serving you so that you will be glorified in my new life in Christ. Amen.
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