Trinity 7 2021
Romans 6:19-23
July 18, 2021
Zion Lutheran Church + Nampa, ID
Last week we considered the first portion of Romans 6 in which we heard Paul addresses the question, “Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound?” To which he answers immediately, “By no means!” His next question asks whether or not we have any actual understanding of grace. “Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death?” Don’t you know what that means? What God’s grace in Baptism has given to us and made us to be? Don’t you know that grace reigns supreme in the believer over sin and disobedience?
Paul goes on, ‘We were buried with Christ by Baptism into death in order that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too would be raised from the death of sin and walk in newness of life” (Romans 6:4). That newness of life is sanctification which is a gift that leads to eternal life. “If we have been united with Him in a death like His, that is a death by crucifixion, a death in obedience to God the Father and the Law, and we have been united to Him in a death like His by Holy Baptism, then we shall certainly be united with Him in a resurrection like His” – which we are in Holy Baptism. In Titus 3 Paul says this is Baptism both of regeneration, which is justification, and also renewal, which is sanctification.
Paul then rephrases his earlier question. He asks “What then? Are we to sin because we are not under the law but are under grace?” Again he answers, “By no means!” We are free from sin, not for sin. “Just as you once presented your members as slaves to impurity and to lawlessness leading to more lawlessness, (you who are Baptized) now present your members as slaves to righteousness leading to sanctification.”
All of this can be a bit confusing which is why Paul spends so much time on it in Romans and his other writings. If we are not ruled by sin why do we sin? If we are free from condemnation of the Law what does our obedience matter? What does Paul call us slaves?
You are slaves to the one that you obey. You are ruled by sin or by God, there is no third option. Either you are slave to sin, hating the law and seeking your own way, which leads to damnation, or you are obedient to God, a slave to righteousness, loving His Law and His ways. We know that our old man, that wicked part of us continues to struggle and fight against the new man in Christ that you have been made into. He hates God and His law. The Old Man was crucified with Christ in order that the body of sin would be brought to nothing.
Here is the point of our Epistle today, from the last portion of Romans 6 – as a baptized believer in Christ you are no longer enslaved by sin. You are free in Christ. Baptism has killed you and anyone who has died to sin has been set free from sin. This is what it is to be baptized.
Baptism does not make you your own master. The One whom you are baptized into is your Lord. Being ruled by grace, you are now free to engage in the life-long battle against your sinful desires, the devil, and the world. You are now free to serve God in righteousness and purity.
Because in your baptism you have been freed of the Law’s condemnations. You have been and are absolved of your sins. You are not guilty. You have not, however, been freed from the Law’s demands. You have been be freed of sin by Baptism which saves. You now belong to God. Free of sin you become a slave of God. His mark is upon you. You are ruled by grace. You are not free in regard to righteousness, but yoked with Christ. Your justification leads to your sanctification. Because you have been united with Christ through faith and in Baptism, then this leads to your sanctification, so act like it! When you struggle with knowing what this is to look like and how it is to be lived out, look to Christ, both as an example but also as your liberator.
Christ didn’t struggle with being a slave of His Father for He was without sin. He was happily obedient to His Father even when it was unjust and terribly painful and didn’t seem to make sense. He never doubted that His Father loved Him and would vindicate Him. He was perfectly obedient, perfectly holy and sanctified for He is God in the flesh. He died upon the cross to earn not His own freedom, but earn yours. He knew that His Father would work everything together for good and deliver us to Himself as a gift.
The giftedness of this freedom from sin and being chained together to Christ’s death and resurrection is the key. You are baptized, which is not so much a conversion of intellect or experience, as it is an on-going, daily crucifying of the old sinful man and a raising of the new, a conforming you into the image of Christ and not the other way around.
So that you no longer get what your sin has earned or deserved, but are gifted with Christ Himself. “For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus, Our Lord.” Wages are earned and deserved. Gifts are not. The wages you deserve is death, eternal death because of your sinfulness. But the very essence of grace which fills both the Giver and the gifted with joy is that your freedom in Christ leads to your sanctification, your holiness, your set-apartedness with Christ Himself. To believe this – that God gives us eternal life in Christ for free without works–is to live by faith. And that is the life into which we are all Baptized to which we have been called.