Romans 6:1-14
Dear RTB’ers,
The message that I see in today’s passage is from death to life – Jesus died and rose from the dead; likewise, we who are dead to sin can live a new life: …just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life. (v. 4b)
Paul makes such a compelling plea for us to live in that newness of life. It’s a simple two-step process: avoid sin and seek God. First, avoid sin: 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. (v. 6) So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin… (v. 11a) Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, to make you obey its passions. (v. 12) Do not present your members to sin as instruments for unrighteousness… (v. 13a) Paul is begging us, just avoid sin. But why is that so hard?
Step two – seek God. Period. It’s not that complicated. But it’s also not easy.
Blessings!
One thing we ought not miss in this passage is the word “death” and all it’s variants or allusions (e.g., “dead,” “died,” “crucified,” “buried”). In order to walk in newness of life, we ourselves must first die (i.e., die to sin and self), but it seems to me that we try to skip over that bit. We want to claim the hope of the Resurrection on the basis of some trite prayer of “accepting” Jesus, but we don’t really want to give up our old lives — or our sin. We must each ask ourselves whether we have, in fact, been united with Christ in His death. Do we, in fact, consider ourselves dead to sin? Or are we just reading these words and blowing them off as lofty “Bible speak” with no real relevance to our own here and now?