The Baptism of Our Lord: Epistle, Romans 6:1-11                 

Romans 6:1-11

The unconquerable truths of the epistle reading this week have been, I believe, my go to passage from Paul more than any other in my walk with Jesus. I’ve read commentary on this passage from several different Protestant perspectives as well as the true Catholic position of we Lutherans and this is a pivotal passage to all. It is seen as Paul’s comment on the power of Christ’s death and resurrection and their effect on the life of the believer. In other words, this is sanctification territory. How does the Christian live in Christ? How is his life affected or changed? Is it positional only, or “on paper” where the change comes, or does the believer dare to claim that he actually has a new life? The most important task ahead here is to, as Dr.Mitchell used to tell us at the sem, “Read and reread and reread Romans 6:1-11.”

What becomes evident is the sterling truth that just as the Holy Spirit calls us by the gospel. And just as the Father gives His Son into death for the sins of the world, so it is God’s work first to last wherein the resurrection of Jesus from the dead forms the new life of the Christian. Our hope, our life, and our eternal trajectory are the work of God alone. God be praised. But that work issues forth in the new life, the resurrection life of Jesus in you and me. I’m ashamed to say this, but I love the life of the old man still. Too much. And I understand the longer I walk with Christ, why Luther said that our baptism into Christ must be operative daily, drowning the old man and raising the new. Again, God be praised. And Paul makes this connection crystal clear in 6:3: “Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death?” Of course that death issues forth the very life of Christ and so death and resurrection are found to be the ground of the new reality of the sinner/saint in Christ.

In verses 3, 6 and 8 Paul reminds us that these truths and their application are those that we KNOW. Certainty for the Christian is not arrogance, but settledness. And the new life we enjoy in Jesus Christ is based on the “know-so” realities of the glorious work of Jesus and His baptizing us with water and Word as we read just a couple days ago. And the primary place of this knowing is the Christian’s mind. We do not and must not abandon our minds in this life, but rather see them transformed by God’s truth. And transformed they will be as we “consider yourselves (ourselves) dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus” (v. 11). 

The change is real. Because Christ’s triumph is real. And its fruits are yet one more gift given from the Savior’s hand to those who wait to see what Christ can do. And He does all things well. God be praised!