Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen.
The text this morning is from Paul’s Letter to the Romans, the sixth chapter:
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? 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. For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his. We know that our old self was crucified with him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing, so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin. For one who has died has been set free from sin. Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. We know that Christ, being raised from the dead, will never die again; death no longer has dominion over him. For the death he died he died to sin, once for all, but the life he lives he lives to God. So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.
Thus far the text.
My dear friends in Christ,
Sometimes, don’t you just hate to read Paul? I mean, don’t get me wrong, I love the theology of Paul, but it requires so much effort to bring out what he’s saying. He writes in such long sentences, and every sentence is based on something from before, even sometimes from the front of the book. It’s rough.
Now, today’s text is rough. We get what we like out of it. We get what we’re used to hearing. Baptism… death… resurrection… dead to sin… go out and live for Jesus… At least that’s how this often goes because we’re not really careful with Paul. But is that what Paul is saying? Let’s break it down…. old school. Okay, well, let’s just look at what he’s saying.
First, Paul is basing this whole reading off what came before, specifically that as we sin, and we will continue to sin all through our lives, God’s grace continues to cover us. We can never out-sin God’s grace. And that grace, in essence, is Jesus Himself. We are saved by grace through faith, right? But what is grace? God’s favor? God’s love? Yes, all these things, but they are located in the person of Christ. We are saved by Jesus through faith.
And this is important to get because we’re not saved by our own works, and we’re not saved just because God willy-nilly loves us. We’re saved because He sent His Son, Jesus Christ, to take on our flesh, take on our sin, die for our forgiveness, and be raised in the promise of everlasting life.
So, since we have been saved by this grace in Christ Jesus, should we continue in sin? This doesn’t just mean, “Stop sinning.” We should; we should try. But we’re never going to not sin. We will always sin because, in this life, we will always be sinners. It’s not like Paul is oblivious to that fact. He’s a sinner, and he’ll always have his sin with him. He talks about that a lot. But, what he’s talking about here is the idea that we should not be so enslaved to our sin, so tied up in our sin that it is our identity, given over to our sin that it is our lord, that it takes us away from grace, away from Jesus.
Instead, we should find our identity in Christ. He is the Lord and Master. He is the One who covers us. So, should we continue in, under, with sin? Should it be our master? By no means! No way! Paul says we’ve died to sin, and therefore, we cannot live in it any longer. Again, this doesn’t mean that we won’t sin, but it means that we have a place to come, to repent of our sin, to receive absolution for our sin, to know that we are forgiven, to have Jesus serve us, and that place is where Christ is, and where His Word and Sacraments are: the Church.
And why does Paul say this? Why does he have confidence that we are to no longer continue in sin? Because we have been baptized. We have been washed in the water with the Word. We have, at these little fonts, in rivers, in lakes, in oceans, been baptized and our sins have been washed away. That is why Peter says Baptism saves us. It washes away our sins as the flood destroyed the unbelievers in Noah’s day. And it destroys them. It destroys our sin. It wipes us clean and makes Christ dirty. It makes Jesus the one who is punished for our sin, and it makes us righteous in the blood of the Lamb. If it destroys sin like unbelievers in the flood, then it saves us, protects us, like Noah was as he was shut up in the ark by God.
And how does Baptism, then, do such a thing? It kills us, giving to us the death of Christ. We are baptized into Christ’s death. That means that the cross of Christ comes to us on that day. The cross of Christ comes to us on the day of our Baptism, giving to us the death of Christ and killing us. This Old Adam that we have, the flesh of sin, the dead man, is buried under the water, just as Jonah was buried in the belly of the great fish, just as Jesus was laid in the tomb.
But that’s not all. Like Jonah being spit up on the shore, like Jesus rolling away the stone, Baptism then raises us up. It resurrects us. It gives to us the very same eternal life in Christ that Christ has on the day of His resurrection. That’s what the newness of life is, that we walk in life and it is new to us, for we no longer need fear the wages of sin, we no longer need fear the death that is to come to us, we no longer need fear the sin that was our master. We have a new Master, for He speaks the Word of forgiveness over us in our Baptisms, making us clean, bringing to us new life forever.
Paul is definitive here. There is no question. It is Baptism that does this to us, making us Christ’s own brothers and sisters. We need not be captive to sin for Jesus is our Master. If we fall, if we fail, we are yet His and He will rescue us. If we are taken away, Jesus rescues us. If we do anything that is not holy, is not good, is not right, is not salutary, Jesus has already given to us His death that covers these sins.
And why? Because if we have been killed in the waters of Baptism, then we shall be made alive in the waters of Baptism. If Baptism brings us Christ’s death, it also brings us His Resurrection. If Baptism kills this old self, bringing it to absolutely nothing, reducing it to ashes, then Baptism also brings life to the New Adam, bringing those ashes back together and making them perfect.
Just as the Old Adam, the Adam of Adam and Eve, was formed from the ground and had the breath of life breathed into him by the Holy Spirit, so, too, does the Holy Spirit breathe the new life of faith into the ashes, the dead body, of our New Adam. He gives to us new life, He invigorates us, enlivens us, by giving to us faith, by giving to us grace, which is Jesus Christ Himself.
The Holy Spirit breathes Jesus, the New Adam, into us, and this Jesus lives in us by faith, by the Word, by the Sacraments. That is why Baptism saves us. And that is why Jesus continues to give us the gifts of the Church, the Word, which we gladly hear and learn, Baptism, where we are washed, and the Supper, where Jesus literally enters our bodies with His true body and blood. Jesus continues to live in us, and this gives to us the life everlasting.
And then, we need not fear. Just as Christ has been raised from the dead and lives unto all eternity, so, too, do we then, raised from the dead through Baptism, live for all eternity. Baptism is our spiritual resurrection, if you will, and it gives us the promise, too, of our physical resurrection. It’s a down payment, a promise, of the inheritance of the new life in Christ that is to come when He returns from heaven to judge the living and the dead.
And when He looks at you on that day of judgment, He will say, “You are Baptized in my name. You have been washed in my blood. I have given to you the gift of faith. You are saved and shall live forever.” You need not fear that day, but instead look to it, saying, “God’s own child, I gladly say it: I am baptized into Christ.”
This is what dead to sin means. This is what alive to God in Christ Jesus means. You are His forever. You could not cover the price of your sin, so Christ paid it all. You need not work, you need not give payment to Christ for this free gift. He has given it to you freely, and it is a gift that lasts unto eternity.
You need not give yourself over to sin, or let it taunt you. You have greater comfort, that Jesus has made the sacrifice for sins once for all. You have no need to fear in your conscience; you do not need to be wringing your hands. You have washed in the blood of the Sacrificial Lamb.
You need not let the devil assault you with his accusations, he is toothless. All he can do is gum you as a child does a knuckle. He has no bite. Do not give into him. God has washed you in Christ Jesus and has released you from the devil’s power, and there Christ unites with you in such a way that the devil cannot separate you.
And death, that fake god of the unholy trinity of sin, death, and the devil, death has no more dominion over you than it does Christ. Just as Christ has been raised from the dead and lives to all eternity, death cannot and will not hold you in the grave. Though it seems to have won the battle for all those who have gone from us, Baptism gives to us the supernatural power of God to hear. And hear we shall, even in the grave. For when the Lord calls us forth from the dead, as He did Lazarus, there, we shall rise up and be immortal forever.
There is nothing better, then, than this Baptism. This is comfort. This is joy. This is hope. For though we die, we are only sleeping, and we sleep in Christ’s arms until He awake us. And when He does, we shall see paradise forever.
You see, maybe Paul is difficult to understand, but the comfort he has in his words, the comfort he gives to us through Christ in the gifts of the Church, is comfort for eternity, it is comfort for life. And if you are in Christ, if you have had your sins forgiven, if Jesus has claimed you as His own, done the work of obedience for you, given to you all that He has promised, then there is nothing for us to fear. We are Christ’s, not sin’s. Christ is the good Master, the God Master, and He has dominion over us for all of our lives. In Jesus’ name, amen.
Now may the peace of God which passes all human understanding guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus, our Lord! Amen.
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