Freed From Sin! [Romans 6]

1What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin so that grace may increase?  2May it never be! How shall we who died to sin still live in it? 3Or do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus have been baptized into His death? 4Therefore we have been buried with Him through baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life.5For if we have become united with Him in the likeness of His death, certainly we shall also be in the likeness of His resurrection, 6knowing this, that our old self was crucified with Him, in order that our body of sin might be done away with, so that we would no longer be slaves to sin; 7for he who has died is freed from sin.

Romans 6 began with a question that Paul not only asked, but immediately answered. Asking and answering questions was a common and effective form of teaching used by Rabbis and was part of Paul's Rabbinic training. Paul surmised that some people could and would come to the wrong conclusions concerning the gospel message. He knew that some would reason that if Jesus forgave all sins and that the more sin there is, the more grace and forgiveness there is, then why not just do what you want and keep on sinning? And so Paul addressed that faulty thinking and explained that those who are truly baptized into (identified with) Jesus' death are freed from having to continue in sin.

The remarkable truth is that trusting Jesus results in a new life and a new future. We are no longer slaves to sin and freed from having to continue in sin! In the next chapters of Romans, Paul explained how we can walk in this newness of life and that God has provided the grace not only for justification, but for sanctification or the process of walking in the newness of life with Jesus.

We praise You that you provided a solution to the sin problem and a way for us to have brand new lives freed from sin. Thank you for being able to anticipate being raised with Christ one day. Cause us to grow in our faith in the gospel of Jesus and to be able to increasingly walk in the light of it.
Beth Warlick, 7/17/2009