[AI translation] Up to now, the apostle Paul has constantly maintained that God's forgiving grace and salvation cannot be earned, earned, obtained by suffering or atonement, but only by accepting, believing, and thus partaking of it by faith. Grace is free to all - for the merit of Christ. He served for it, He suffered for it, His redemptive death is the only merit. Therefore grace is greater than sin, and therefore there is forgiveness of all sin with God. That is why we can be at peace with God, that is why we have free access to His Fatherly presence, freely, courageously, filially.But now a very human question arises: does not this free grace of God make man light-hearted towards sin? For it is well known that what a man gets cheaply he values less than what he has worked for or suffered for. Especially if he gets something for free, which he does not appreciate or value very much. Does God not take this simple psychological fact into account? He gives you the whole heaven for free? Does he sink all our sins in a sea of grace? Does not the frivolous idea follow that we can then remain in sin, "so that grace may abound all the more" (Rom 6:2)? So go ahead, keep on sinning, because forgiveness is free anyway! Does not the proclamation of free grace paralyze the striving and effort for moral good? The apostle also senses this logical trap, and says: "Let him be far from it" (Rom 6,3). That's not the point! The man who is conscious of grace is not the one who can now go on sinning freely, with a clear conscience. That would be the greatest abuse of grace! Of course, it would be beautiful and great if the person who has received grace would never sin again, if he would remain free from all sin. But there is no such thing! Every believer knows this from his own experience. So, if a man under grace is not one who continues to sin without scruple, nor one who never sins again, what is he like? Something very profound mystery is here revealed by the apostle. He says: he who by faith accepts grace, the redemption of Christ, has become one who has in fact already died to sin and now lives on with God. How can this be? What does it mean?
I have often said that death is not the end of life, but only the end of transience. It is only the end of the weak, sinful state, life itself goes on. Indeed, it unfolds in all its richness where our earthly eyes see this life disappear. So death is not the total end, it is only the end of something and the beginning of something else. Death is not an ending, but a change, a transformation of life into a higher form of a different quality. Well, we are used to this idea, we have heard a lot about it. But! There is also a resurrection which does not mean a change from earthly existence to heavenly existence, but which takes place here on earth from the very beginning, a change of earthly life. This is what the apostle says: "But if we have died with Christ, we believe that we have also lived with him" (v.8). Jesus was so in solidarity with us, so completely, totally substituted for us, that when He died, something of me died with Him. It was my old man, the selfish self that was a slave to sin, that died! And so he was freed from sin, as when a slave dies: he is freed from the tyranny of his master forever. With a dead slave, even the cruelest slave-owner can no longer do anything! No matter what he commands, tortures, torments, or forces him to obey: the slave is dead! He has nothing more to do with the slave who served him before. He is freed! Freed by death!
No matter how cruel the slave-owner's sin, once someone is dead to him, he can no longer rule him. God is saying that you who believe in Jesus' death, believe that you have died with Jesus to all that has bound you, to all the sin that has taken hold of you, that has forced you to obey until now! You have died - together with Christ! Jesus did not only take your sins to the cross, but also you yourself. You were even buried - also with Christ. Your old, feeble, good-for-nothing old man is buried. "Knowing this, that our old man was crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be made strong, that we should not afterward serve sin: For he that died is freed from sin." (Rom 6:6-7)
But the last word here is not death, but the risen Christ! That is why Paul continues this mystical train of thought in this way: "if by the likeness of his death we have been made one with him, we shall certainly be made one with him by the likeness of his resurrection"! (Rom 6,5) We are made one with Him - do you understand? One! If we are one with Jesus in His death, we are one with Him in His resurrection. In other words: the old man who died is now replaced by the risen Christ Himself and begins to live - in me, in us! Just as in His death He included our old, sinful nature, so in His resurrection He includes us, shares us, and thus gives us the opportunity to walk in the whole new, Christlike life. In another place the apostle says: "And it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me"! (Gal 2:20) Instead of me, Christ now lives in me and uses me!
This mystery is expressed - not even symbolically - in the rite and essence of baptism. In the old days, baptism was performed by immersing the person to be baptised in water. It was as if they were drowning someone. In this way of baptism, it was almost visible that there was a ritual of death in a certain sense. The person was being buried in the watery grave. But this is only one half of the ritual. The other is that the submerged man is brought up again, as a sign that his old man has died, but behold, the new man rises up purified. Hence this strange explanation of the apostle is understandable: 'Do ye not know that we who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? (Rom 6:3-4)."
I said before that this baptism of our immersion into the death of Jesus, our resurrection to new life, is not only a symbolic act of baptism, but almost a mystical initiation into the death and resurrection of Jesus, which also means for us, by faith, an actual participation in the death and resurrection of Jesus, in the new life of the Risen One. It does not matter that our baptism at that time was not in the form of baptism - the water is really only a symbol, and as such its quantity is not decisive. Nor does it matter that our baptism took place a long time ago, and even at a time when we did not consciously participate in it, because we can now become aware of its validity by faith that our old, sinful old man has indeed died. Let us then be aware by faith that our old, sinful old man really died with Jesus, buried with Jesus! Let us seal our initiation into the death and burial of Jesus by the water of the cross, and let us know that through the resurrection of Jesus the possibility of a whole new life in Christ has indeed been opened up to us.
This is why the apostle says: "In the same way, consider yourselves to be dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus our Lord" (Rom 6:11). As long as you look to Jesus with this faith - and you look only to Him, not to yourself - you can truly see yourself as having died to sin, as having nothing to do with Him, as no longer being dominated by Him, as a stranger to Him; but as having been resurrected to a new life, for this is so, and you will experience it! A mystical death and resurrection will indeed take place in you. This is not self-suggestion, not imagination, but actual reality. But only as long as you see and experience this death and resurrection of yourself in Jesus. See it, live it for yourself in the death and resurrection of Jesus! If we look at ourselves, it becomes clear at that moment how alive sin is in us. But if we look at Jesus, God will make sure that the death of our old man on the one hand and the flowering of new life on the other hand become real in us.
In the morning, when you look in the mirror and see yourself, imagine that behind you, over your shoulder, Jesus is also looking in the mirror and saying: this person you see is no longer you, but me! What is so wonderful and different about living under grace is that it is so together with Jesus, the dead and risen Christ! If you feel in yourself the old sinful desires and passions, you can say: they have nothing to do with me, I am dead to them. That old man of mine which you could control, which served you, is no more! The old me that was so soon offended, so soon displeased, so often hurt, so soon angered, so easily lied to, so fond of covering up this or that favourite sin: it is dead! Together with Christ! That is why the apostle Paul says in conclusion, "Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal flesh, that ye should yield to it in its lusts: neither yield ye your members to sin as weapons of unrighteousness: but yield yourselves to God, as those who are raised from the dead to life, and your members to God as weapons of righteousness." (Rom 6,12-13) Your members: that is, hands - feet - heart - mind - time - work - money: everything. There is an immeasurable change in a man's life when he truly realizes that all this is not his, but God's. If you have a hundred in your pocket which is not yours, but has been entrusted to you by someone else, you cannot use it as you please, but only for what your entrustor has ordered. Otherwise you are an embezzler! You and I have been given a whole new life, together with Christ, one that belongs to God, we cannot dispose of it according to our own pleasure, only as He wills us to use it. Therefore dedicate your members as instruments of righteousness to God, as those who have been raised from the dead to new life.
So let us go from here, happy, liberated, determined, with good hope, with full assurance that sin has no dominion over us, for we are not under law, but under grace.
Poor sinful people, Hope of grace,
The joy, the happiness, the beauty of those who believe in you:
Come, come to us, we beseech thee, Be with us always,
For thou only art our Christ And our merciful Jesus.
(Canto 227, verse 3)
Amen
Date: 14 September 1969.
Lesson
Róm 6,1-14