Thursday 2nd April
Read Romans 6:1-4
“What shall we say, then? Shall we go on sinning, so that grace may increase? 2 By no means! We are those who have died to sin; how can we live in it any longer? 3 Or don’t you know that all of us who were baptised into Christ Jesus were baptised into his death? 4 We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life.” (NIVUK)
Paul is clarifying a common misconception about the gospel. If the privileges and life that it offers are so free and gracious that there is nothing we need to do to attain them other than trust in Jesus, then surely there are no consequences if we continue life as before? In fact, we magnify the graciousness of God by drawing upon it to the utmost!
Paul explains the flaws in that logic beginning with the largest – we died to sin. This is a past act. It is not a death to sin such that we are like a corpse, insensitive to its effect. In fact experience tells us we become far more aware of its sinister effects! It is a legal death. The person we were legally died when we trust in Jesus. When we are united with Him, symbolised by baptism, we die with Jesus and then rise anew.
The analogies most commonly used reflect the truth that there is a before and after. Once we were enslaved to sin, a prisoner of its whims, but now we are redeemed and freed by Jesus. It is like an adult deciding to live like a child, a married person living as though single, or a released prisoner living as if they were confined to a cell. Those captured by grace could not go back.
