We went to visit Jennifer and Brian earlier this week. It was great. They are both doing very well and our grandbaby is kicking. As some of you know, Brian and Jen have two dogs: Clint and Lou. Clint is Brian’s and Lou is Jen’s. They told me that when they leave the house they have to put Lou in a pen because she destroys things. Lately, she has attempted to eat three remotes and several DVD and Video cases, besides other things.
Jen says that it’s not that Lou wants to be bad. She just gets upset when they leave. My thought is, “She’s a dog. Dogs do dog type things like eat remotes and DVD cases.” That’s their nature. Dogs are… well, dogs. Few things reveal the true nature of a dog like leaving them in your house and going away for a few hours.
You know, as we read Romans, we discover a lot about human nature too. People: were we created in God’s image or not? Do we human beings want to be more like God or the devil? Which one do we favor most by our actions, attitudes and conversation? In Romans 7 we find Paul saying: I don’t want to be bad… I just am! Look at it for yourself. Romans 7: 18 For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh; for the wishing is present in me, but the doing of the good is not. In other words, “I don’t want to be bad, I just am.” For us to be good, we need to be in God’s presence constantly. We will see how this happens for the Christian in Romans 8.
Meanwhile, God can’t leave us alone in paradise for any length of time if there is something we can get into that we shouldn’t. The first time man sinned he had help from the devil, but ever since then we’ve been able to do it pretty well on our own. Just look at what has happened since creation that has put humanity in such a condition! There is no way around it! The whole world is in a mess spiritually. It’s true! We may not want to sin, but guess what… we do. You may ask: Can anything change that? Are we stuck in this condition as slaves to sin without a remedy? And I’m so glad you asked! Because the Bible says there is freedom from the slavery of sin! God has supplied the way, paid the price, opened the gates, broken the bondage, and set the captive free! It is a work of God called grace.
When God’s word in Romans speaks about this, the answer is clear. Once again, lets review: This letter has taken us from section one: We are all sinners (chapters 1:18-3:20), through section two: God justifies those who have faith (chapters 3:21-5:21). And now, as we begin in section three we discover entering grace and walking in newness of life in Christ (6:1-8:39). Today, we see in chapter 6, the transition from old self in sin to newness of life in Christ. This chapter describes an amazing process of conversion into freedom. It captures the emancipation moment. Chapter 6 is all about change from the condition of slave to sin to freedom from sin. It is all about grace. That is, grace properly understood and applied! And this grace is a transforming work of God! But the recipients have a cooperative part in it. Not everyone receives God’s grace, therefore not everyone is saved. But (and this is a difficult truth) some who do not receive God’s grace have been trained to behave better than they otherwise would.
Listen! You may be able to train a dog to behave better. But you will still have a dog. You can also train a sinner to act better than they are, but you still have a sinner. If the problem of sin were just a matter of training, Jesus would never have died on the cross. No, our problem runs much deeper than that. A well trained sinner is still a sinner.
The only way to fix us is to put our old nature to death and raise us back to new life in Christ. Romans 6 addresses this head on and gives us a clear picture of when this change takes place by the grace of God!
Let me share an illustration: There was a Harrison Ford movie (Regarding Henry) out some years ago in which he played a lawyer. He was a first class jerk. The movie starts with him concealing evidence so that his case destroys a man’s character in court. He hides evidence all the time. He says, “That’s how I pay for my client’s ticket out of trouble.” It is also how he pays for his mistress and other sinful life-style. He’s married and he has to attend all sorts of dinners with important people whom he gushes over and brown noses. He has to ask his wife for their names. He has a daughter whom he hardly knows. She can never be good enough for him. If her report card has a “B” he totally ignores the “A’s” and tells her she needs to work harder and do better. He’s a jerk.
One night after a party he leaves his wife in the hotel room and goes to the local convenience store to get some cigarettes. As he enters the store he walks in on a robbery taking place. He is shot in the head. He actually dies! But, somehow they manage to resuscitate him and in the days ahead his life hangs by a thread. He lives. But his memory is gone. The tapes are erased. He has to learn to walk and talk again. His wife and daughter work with him. He’s different. As the days pass he falls in love with his wife and becomes a soul mate with his daughter. His daughter teaches him how to tie his shoes and he asks, “How did you learn to do that?” “Why, you taught me, dad,” she says. He makes cookies with them and they become a close family. He begins to read and go over his old cases trying to restore memory. Then he finds a file with evidence that he had hidden in it. He brings it to the man who he had beaten in court by concealing it. I think this is yours he tells him. It’s a compelling story of life change from bad to good.
He begins as a certified, first class, lying jerk and ends up an upstanding, wonderful, honest man. Hollywood frames the question well. “How do you fix a jerk?” Their answer? You kill him and take away his old nature and bring him back to life as a new man.
Interesting…
Romans 6 describes what happened to us when our change in nature took place. It was when we entered death. Not ours, but Jesus’ death for us. This happened when we were buried with Christ by baptism into death. Then we were raised to walk in newness of life.
God tells us here that we have become united with him in the likeness of his death. That’s what baptism is for us. It is becoming united with Jesus Christ in his death, burial and resurrection. Can you see it?
What does the Bible say happens here?
This is when we died to sin. Vs 2
This is when we were baptized into his death. Vs 3
This is when we were buried with Christ through baptism into death in order that as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life. Vs 4
This is when we were united with Christ in the likeness of his death. Vs 5
This is when our old self was crucified with him so that the body of sin might be done away. Vs 6
This is when we were set free from sin. Vs 7
This is when we died with Christ. Vs 8
This is when we became alive to God in Christ Jesus. Vs 11
This is when we obeyed from the heart the form of teaching to which we were committed. Vs 17
This is when we became slaves to righteousness. Vs 18
It’s all about receiving God’s saving and transforming grace through faith. Just imagine the transformation! All of this is used as Paul’s argument for a proper understanding and application of saving grace! He asks two questions about grace here:
Verse 1 and verse 15. (read them).
These verses contextualize this entire passage as an explanation of saving grace! Grace is not an excuse to sin. Even though it is true that grace abounds over sin even as sin increases, but how so? Not to give us freedom to sin! But to give us freedom FROM sin!
The work of God in the life of the Christian is a work of grace that produces righteousness! How so? By calling us to be like Jesus! First, we who believe the gospel, unite with him in his death, burial and resurrection by baptism. Here in baptism, we enter Jesus’ death, we are cleansed by his blood, we are united with him in his death, we are set free from the law and sin. That’s what God tells us here. F.F. Bruce says it well, “We may agree or disagree with Paul, but we must do him the justice of letting him hold and teach his own beliefs, and not distort his beliefs into conformity with what we should prefer him to have said.” And, “From this and other references to baptism in Paul’s writings, it is certain that he did not regard baptism as an ‘optional extra.’”
That is why Jesus said in Matthew 28:18-20. All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore, go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to obey all that I have commanded you, and lo, I will be with you always! Even to the end of the age.
Let us sum up: We have learned about our sinful condition.
We have learned about God’s grace to justify the sinner who has faith.
Today we learned when that takes place, and how we enter the death, burial and resurrection of Christ by baptism. Here we find freedom from sin and new life in Christ by God’s grace.
If I could draw this on a board it would look like this:
As a division, in the center we would draw the cross, the tomb, and the risen Lord and write: the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ, and beneath it write: baptism into Christ as our acceptance of this work of God’s grace.
One the left, under the heading of “Slaves to Sin,” we would write all the words associated with the old self: Sin, death, lusts, unrighteousness, under law, slave of sin, impurity, lawlessness, and ashamed.
On the right, under the heading of “Freedom in Christ,” we would write all the words associated with the newness of life: Grace, united with Christ, free from sin, alive to God, righteousness, sanctification, enslaved to God, eternal life.
You see, what divides the sinners from the saints is Jesus: his death, burial and resurrection. Jesus is not a trainer who whips sinners into shape so that they look and act better. Jesus is not a lawyer giving out rules and hiding evidence so that we win our case in heaven’s court. Jesus is our sacrifice. Jesus is the way, the truth and the life, by whose death, burial and resurrection we receive God’s saving grace. We enter his death, we are buried with him, and we are raised to walk in newness of life by uniting with Jesus Christ. This occurs when we are baptized by faith through grace. It is a gift of God, not a work of man.
Yet even the baptized must remember to present ourselves to God. We present the members of our bodies as instruments of righteousness. We present ourselves to God as alive from the dead, and our members as instruments of righteousness to God.
Having been set free from slavery to sin, we have become slaves to God, slaves of righteousness, resulting in sanctification. The outcome of this work of grace in us is eternal life in Christ Jesus.
********* Sermon over *********
There are those who disagree with this and say that baptism has nothing to do with salvation. They see baptism as a human work and an effort to earn grace. Loud objections and cries of “baptismal regeneration” and proof texts of Ephesians 2:8-9, Romans 10:9-10, etc. begin to fly, as if these verses somehow strip Romans 6 (not to mention dozens of other passages on the purpose of baptism) of it’s obvious meaning.
Why? What is at stake here if we admit that baptism actually IS how the Bible teaches that we receive God’s grace?
It is true that this teaching conflicts with the Protestant theology about grace. Protestants have reacted to Catholic theology in certain cases creating a chasm of opposing extremes: the Protestant danger is an extreme view of faith minus works, and the Catholic danger, an extreme of works minus faith. (I realize this is a gross oversimplification but it captures a central issue). On the Protestant side of the coin the cry is, “Saved by grace ALONE, through faith ALONE.” On the Catholic side of the coin the cry is, “Christ’s Church (and only the church) extends the Sacraments of Grace.” Both build extreme views that pit faith against works in unbiblical ways. Both point to pet scriptures to justify their positions. One of the key issues of this battle centers on what we do with baptism.
Another thorny issue related to this has to do with understanding our sinful nature and how we came by it. This too has an impact on the meaning of baptism. Let’s say that we are born in sin… just for argument’s sake. This theological beachhead was established when Augustine and Pelagius fought over “original sin” and Augustine’s view that we all sin in Adam became accepted as orthodox. If baptism is the point of receiving God’s grace, then when would you want your children to be baptized?
Of course, personal faith takes a beating when this view is pressed. The child without any faith of its own, is treated as if the church can somehow impart sanctifying grace upon him/her with our without the child’s will but through a proxy. Later confirmation follows to see if it “took.” This harkens back to the Old Testament practice of circumcision. By paralleling circumcision and baptism too closely, there is a blur between the Old and New Covenants that ties baptism to the Old and obscures its New Covenant significance. In reaction to this and other teachings, the Protestant movement rejected baptism in connection with salvation and called it a work. They threw baptism out with the bath water! (Other issues dealing with the sovereignty of God and free will of man are also central matters related to all this but that can’t be covered here).
Reaction against false teaching sometimes creates an over reaction into another false teaching. Getting back to baptism, Jesus’ question to the Pharisees comes to mind: “John’s baptism: is it from heaven or from men?” These Pharisees had rejected John’s baptism, but they didn’t want to admit all that this implied, especially before an audience sympathetic to John.
If asked the question, “Christian baptism: is it from heaven or from men?” Most of us who know anything about what the New Testament says about being baptized will at least admit that baptism comes to us from God and his word. That is a step in the right direction.
Discovering that the purpose of baptism involves receiving God’s grace through faith is still a hurdle that many can not cross. Until we come to embrace the “One Lord, one faith, one baptism” of Ephesians 4, our unity in the “One body” will continue to stand in disarray.
I have observed an interesting phenomenon. Those in evangelical circles who decry baptism’s connection with salvation the loudest tend to preach a salvation received by works more than they realize.
Most will claim that you must believe to be saved, yet believing is something you DO. It is a human act, even if divinely endowed and empowered.
Most will tell lost sinners to “confess Jesus as Lord” to be saved, yet this confession is something you DO. It is a human act.
Most will tell lost sinners to “just say this sinner’s prayer” to receive Christ and be saved, yet praying is something you DO. It is still a work of man.
But when the Bible talks about baptism, there is an interesting twist. No one is told to baptize themselves. In fact, of all the so called works, baptism is the only thing that you DON’T DO. Baptism is something DONE TO YOU. Did you get that?
Go over that list again and tell me which ones you do and which one is done to you. Yet the only one that you DON”T DO is the one called a “work!”
In baptism a believing, repenting, confessing, praying sinner… let me emphasize that last word, SINNER, embraces Jesus’ death and actually enters Jesus’ death and is raised up from the water of baptism to a new life in Christ. It is done in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. It is authorized by the name and work of Jesus Christ. Incredibly, God does the work, the baptized receives the grace, forgiveness of sin, newness of life and freedom in Christ. These are all gifts of God’s grace, not rewards for works.
From this view verses like these begin to take on their obvious sense and meaning:
Mark 16:16 Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved. But whoever does not believe will be condemned.
Acts 2:38 Then Peter said to them, "Repent, and let every one of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins; and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.
Acts 22:16 ’And now why are you waiting? Arise and be baptized, and wash away your sins, calling on the name of the Lord.’
Romans 6:3 Or do you not know that as many of us as were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death?
4 Therefore we were buried with Him through baptism into death, that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life.
Galatians 3:27 For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ.
Col. 2:12 buried with Him in baptism, in which you also were raised with Him through faith in the working of God, who raised Him from the dead.
13 And you, being dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, He has made alive together with Him, having forgiven you all trespasses,
1 Peter 3:21 And corresponding to that, baptism now saves you-- not the removal of dirt from the flesh, but an appeal to God for a good conscience-- through the resurrection of Jesus Christ,
This is not an attempt to answer all the objections to baptism’s place and purpose in God’s plan, but to present some evidence to stir the thinking of those who reject its significance as a response to the gospel to receive God’s work of saving grace through Jesus death, burial and resurrection.
