Daily Bread 2010 - Romans 6
Daily Bread 2010 - Romans 6
Dead to Sin, Alive in Christ
1What shall we say, then? Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase? 2By no means! We died to sin; how can we live in it any longer? 3Or don't you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? 4We 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.
5If we have been united with him like this in his death, we will certainly also be united with him in his resurrection. 6For we know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin— 7because anyone who has died has been freed from sin.
Now that Paul has established that we have peace with God through faith, he goes on to talking about “how then shall we live”. Paul knew human nature well and realized that someone might say if our sins brought grace, shouldn’t we sin all the more, so that God’s grace could abound all the more.
In answer to this Paul says in verse 2, “By no means”. That line loses its luster in translation but it really means, “May it never be, ever!” I love Eugene Petersen’s paraphrase of this text which we find in the translation called the Message translates these verses this way,
“So what do we do? Keep on sinning so God can keep on forgiving? I should hope not! If we've left the country where sin is sovereign, how can we still live in our old house there? Or didn't you realize we packed up and left there for good? That is what happened in baptism. When we went under the water, we left the old country of sin behind; when we came up out of the water, we entered into the new country of grace—a new life in a new land!”
Though we become a new creation through our experience of grace and receiving peace with God through faith, it is does not mean we will not be tempted to sin. But as we have been set free from slavery to sin, to return to that kind of behavior makes no sense. Paul likens it to returning to be a slave.
We see this so often with addiction. An addict gets set free from his/her addiction and experiences the freedom and the life that they’ve always wanted. Yet despite living in this freedom, which allows them to live and love as they were created to do, they return to enslavement of their particular addiction.
How about you? Are you living in the freedom that Christ has set you free for? Verses 12-14 give us a clue how we can continue to live in the freedom that Christ has given us. Again here is the Message’s translation of these verses.
“That means you must not give sin a vote in the way you conduct your lives. Don't give it the time of day. Don't even run little errands that are connected with that old way of life. Throw yourselves wholeheartedly and full-time—remember, you've been raised from the dead!—into God's way of doing things. Sin can't tell you how to live. After all, you're not living under that old tyranny any longer. You're living in the freedom of God.”
Let us pray…dear Jesus help us to live in the new way of life you have given us when you conquered sin, death and the power of the devil on the cross. Help us to say “no” to sin, and be raised to live the kind of lives you originally intended for us. We know that as you are in charge of our lives we will experience a freedom we never thought possible, through Your name and in the Spirit’s power. Amen.
Dead to Sin, Alive in Christ
1What shall we say, then? Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase? 2By no means! We died to sin; how can we live in it any longer? 3Or don't you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? 4We 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.
5If we have been united with him like this in his death, we will certainly also be united with him in his resurrection. 6For we know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin— 7because anyone who has died has been freed from sin.
Now that Paul has established that we have peace with God through faith, he goes on to talking about “how then shall we live”. Paul knew human nature well and realized that someone might say if our sins brought grace, shouldn’t we sin all the more, so that God’s grace could abound all the more.
In answer to this Paul says in verse 2, “By no means”. That line loses its luster in translation but it really means, “May it never be, ever!” I love Eugene Petersen’s paraphrase of this text which we find in the translation called the Message translates these verses this way,
“So what do we do? Keep on sinning so God can keep on forgiving? I should hope not! If we've left the country where sin is sovereign, how can we still live in our old house there? Or didn't you realize we packed up and left there for good? That is what happened in baptism. When we went under the water, we left the old country of sin behind; when we came up out of the water, we entered into the new country of grace—a new life in a new land!”
Though we become a new creation through our experience of grace and receiving peace with God through faith, it is does not mean we will not be tempted to sin. But as we have been set free from slavery to sin, to return to that kind of behavior makes no sense. Paul likens it to returning to be a slave.
We see this so often with addiction. An addict gets set free from his/her addiction and experiences the freedom and the life that they’ve always wanted. Yet despite living in this freedom, which allows them to live and love as they were created to do, they return to enslavement of their particular addiction.
How about you? Are you living in the freedom that Christ has set you free for? Verses 12-14 give us a clue how we can continue to live in the freedom that Christ has given us. Again here is the Message’s translation of these verses.
“That means you must not give sin a vote in the way you conduct your lives. Don't give it the time of day. Don't even run little errands that are connected with that old way of life. Throw yourselves wholeheartedly and full-time—remember, you've been raised from the dead!—into God's way of doing things. Sin can't tell you how to live. After all, you're not living under that old tyranny any longer. You're living in the freedom of God.”
Let us pray…dear Jesus help us to live in the new way of life you have given us when you conquered sin, death and the power of the devil on the cross. Help us to say “no” to sin, and be raised to live the kind of lives you originally intended for us. We know that as you are in charge of our lives we will experience a freedom we never thought possible, through Your name and in the Spirit’s power. Amen.
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