Romans 6:1-4 “What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound? God forbid. How shall we, that are dead to sin, live any longer therein? Know ye not, that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into his death? Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life.”
In the close of Romans, chapter five, we are told that where sin abounded (through Adam), grace did much more abound (through Christ). Paul then poses the question of what our reaction to this blessed truth should be. There are those today who say if they believed in the doctrine of sovereign grace they would just go on living in sin and having a good time. Apparently, there were those in Paul’s day who thought the same thing.
In reality, when we truly grasp the grace of God and how it has been extended to us, living in sin is the last thing we want to do. The grace of God has already “much more” abounded. When the reality of that is revealed in our live through the Holy Spirit, we truly find that we have a cross to bear. We, who are sinners by nature, no longer desire the ways of sin.
God has, in His mercy, forbidden the love of sin in our lives. In giving us an experience of grace with Jesus, we find ourselves dead to sin. We no longer find life in pursuing the ways of carnality. Instead, we find destruction and great unrest in pursuing the things we once loved.
This dying to the love of sin comes as a result of being baptized into Christ. This is not just about being submersed in water. John the Baptist said there was one coming after him who would baptize us with the Holy Ghost and with fire (Matthew 3:11). When we are baptized into Christ, we are baptized into His death: this is the death that frees us from sin.
To be baptized into Jesus is to be buried with Him. We are completely submerged in the experience of His love that imputed to us His righteousness. Thankfully, we know that His life did not end in death. As with any baptism, there is a going down and there is a coming up.
Jesus was raise up from the dead. Furthermore, He was raised up by the obvious glory of the Father. When we are baptized into His death, we must then be partaker of being raised up. While we certainly look forward to our literal resurrection from the grave, the experience that Paul is talking about here is taking place here.
We are dead to sin here. We are baptized into Christ here. We are buried with Him by baptism into death here. By the glory of the Father, we should walk in the newness of life here. It is a newness of life because we cannot live any longer in sin, but rather we live in the imputed righteousness of Jesus.
May God reveal in us the power of this new life that we now live by the faith of the Son of God (Galatians 2:20)!