“Therefore we have been buried with Him through baptism into death, in order that as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life” (Romans 6:4).
Union with Christ means participation in His death, burial, and resurrection.
Believers are united with Christ not only in His life, but also in His death. When believers come to faith in Christ, they symbolically share in His death, dying to sin in order to live to God (Rom. 6:10-11).
That reality has profound implications. Having died to the old life of sin and been raised to share new life in Christ, believers cannot continue in the same old patterns of sin. They now live in an entirely different realm. Those who die in Christ live in Christ. In the words of the great nineteenth-century theologian Charles Hodge, “There can be no participation in Christ’s life without a participation in his death, and we cannot enjoy the benefits of his death unless we are partakers of the power of his life. We must be reconciled to God in order to be holy, and we cannot be reconciled without thereby becoming holy.”
As a result, believers cannot help but “walk in newness of life.” Walk describes daily spiritual conduct. Believers have a new direction in life; they no longer live like they did before they were saved (1 Peter 4:3-4).
Let us praise God for rescuing us from sin and death and making us alive with Christ.
00Philip Holderhttp://www.hoperoadnazarene.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/hrn-logo-520x140-1.pngPhilip Holder2015-11-17 06:40:492015-11-17 06:40:49ALIVE IN CHRIST
“Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus have been baptized into His death?” (Romans 6:3)
(Believers are united with Christ)
A person who believes Christians are free to continue sinning betrays a fundamental lack of understanding of what a Christian is. Christians are not merely guilty sinners declared righteous by God because Christ has satisfied the demands of God’s righteousness on their behalf. There is much more to salvation than justification. Believers are also placed into union with Jesus Christ. Paul introduces this momentous truth by means of the analogy of water baptism. Some wrongly interpret this passage to teach that baptism itself places us into union with Christ. But Paul had just spent three chapters (Rom. 3—5) teaching that salvation is solely by faith in Christ. He would hardly then turn around in chapter 6 and teach that it was by ritual. The apostle, as he did in 1 Corinthians 10:1-2, used baptism in a metaphorical sense. (The Greek word translated “baptism” simply means “to immerse”). Paul also uses other metaphors to describe believers’ union with Christ. In Galatians 3:27 he says believers have put on Christ, while 1 Corinthians 6:17 says Christians are joined to Him. But none is so graphic as that of baptism; the leaving of one environment (air) and entering another (water) symbolizes believers leaving Satan’s realm (Eph. 2:2) and entering that of the Lord Jesus Christ.
What does our union with Christ mean in our everyday lives? First, it provides the means of fellowship with both Jesus and the Father (1 John 1:3). It also should motivate us to avoid sinning. In 1 Corinthians 6:15, Paul chided the Corinthians for their lax view of sexual sin: “Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ? Shall I then take away the members of Christ and make them members of a harlot? May it never be!” Finally, our union with Christ provides hope of future glory (Rev. 3:21).
What a blessed privilege and awesome responsibility is ours, to have our lives inextricably bound with the Son of God (Col. 3:3)! Hallelujah! Hallelujah!
Let us praise God for all the blessings resulting from our union with Christ. And in light of our union with Christ, do we lack anything necessary for living the Christian life?
00Philip Holderhttp://www.hoperoadnazarene.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/hrn-logo-520x140-1.pngPhilip Holder2015-11-16 08:12:422015-11-16 08:12:42BAPTIZED INTO CHRIST
“How shall we who died to sin still live in it?” (Romans 6:2).
In Christ, believers are dead to sin.
I frequently encounter people who profess to be believers, yet are living in all kinds of vile sins. People claiming to be believers while living in constant, unrepentant sin was not lost on the apostle Paul. In Romans 6:1 he asked the rhetorical question, “Are we to continue in sin that grace might increase?” In verse 2 he answered his own question by exclaiming “May it never be!” It expressed Paul’s horror and outrage at the thought that a true Christian could remain in a constant state of sinfulness. For a person to claim to be a Christian while continuing in habitual sin is absurd and impossible.
Paul goes on in verse 2 to explain why believers cannot continue to live in sin, asking, “How shall we who died to sin still live in it?” His point is that believers, at salvation, died to sin. Therefore, they cannot live in a constant state of sinfulness, because it is impossible to be both dead and alive at the same time. Those who continue in unrepentant sin thereby give evidence that they are spiritually dead, no matter what they may claim.
Unbelievers are “dead in [their] trespasses and sins” (Eph. 2:1), walking “according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, of the spirit that is now working in the sons of disobedience” (v. 2). Believers, on the other hand, have been “delivered . . . from the domain of darkness, and transferred . . . to the kingdom of His beloved Son” (Col. 1:13).
Christians no longer live in the realm of sin, though they still commit sins.
Having a proper understanding of the believer’s relationship to sin is foundational to progressing in holiness. Take comfort today in the reality that sin, though still dangerous, is a defeated foe.
Let us praise God who, because of His mercy and love, made us alive together with Christ (Eph. 2:4-5). Father we ask you to help us walk worthy of that high calling (Eph. 4:1).
00Philip Holderhttp://www.hoperoadnazarene.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/hrn-logo-520x140-1.pngPhilip Holder2015-11-13 06:17:262015-11-13 06:17:26DEAD TO SIN
ALIVE IN CHRIST
/in Steadfast Hope“Therefore we have been buried with Him through baptism into death, in order that as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life” (Romans 6:4).
Union with Christ means participation in His death, burial, and resurrection.
Believers are united with Christ not only in His life, but also in His death. When believers come to faith in Christ, they symbolically share in His death, dying to sin in order to live to God (Rom. 6:10-11).
That reality has profound implications. Having died to the old life of sin and been raised to share new life in Christ, believers cannot continue in the same old patterns of sin. They now live in an entirely different realm. Those who die in Christ live in Christ. In the words of the great nineteenth-century theologian Charles Hodge, “There can be no participation in Christ’s life without a participation in his death, and we cannot enjoy the benefits of his death unless we are partakers of the power of his life. We must be reconciled to God in order to be holy, and we cannot be reconciled without thereby becoming holy.”
As a result, believers cannot help but “walk in newness of life.” Walk describes daily spiritual conduct. Believers have a new direction in life; they no longer live like they did before they were saved (1 Peter 4:3-4).
Let us praise God for rescuing us from sin and death and making us alive with Christ.
BAPTIZED INTO CHRIST
/in Steadfast HopeDEAD TO SIN
/in Steadfast Hope