death and new life

Good morning sisters and brothers,
Yesterday Paul talked about how grace is more powerful than sin, so even when the law revealed how much we sin, grace covered all that sin up. Today he starts by responding to a rhetorical question: does that mean we should sin more so grace has more opportunity to show its power? The answer is, "Of course not." Here he helps us see what baptism really means.

When we were baptized into Christ's body, that means we were joined to his death. That means two things: first, we died to sin. Sin has no more power over us because, through Christ's death, we can say our old, sinful self is dead. It also means we will be raised with Christ, first now in that we have the power of Christ's new life working in us, then on the last day when the dead are raised from the dead, we will rise to be with Jesus. So we are able to be totally done with sin because our death and new life with Christ let us put it away.
Enjoy your new life today,
Sam

Romans 6:1-12

What then are we to say? Should we continue in sin in order that grace may abound? 2By no means! How can we who died to sin go on living in it? 3Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? 4Therefore we have been buried with him by baptism into death, so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life. 5For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we will certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his.


6We know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body of sin might be destroyed, and we might no longer be enslaved to sin. 7For whoever has died is freed from sin. 8But if we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. 9We know that Christ, being raised from the dead, will never die again; death no longer has dominion over him. 10The death he died, he died to sin, once for all; but the life he lives, he lives to God. 11So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus. 12Therefore, do not let sin exercise dominion in your mortal bodies, to make you obey their passions.