Trinity
6
Rom
6:3-11
7/7/24
Well
it’s not hard to find the Law in our Scripture readings this morning! First, we have Exodus chapter 20 in which God
gives the Ten Commandments to Israel. We
hear God say, “You shall have no other gods before me.” He says, “You shall not take the name of the
Lord your God in vain.” Then he adds,
“Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy.”
After
providing these three commandments that deal with God – all of which have
additional explanation – God then lists in rapid succession commandments that
deal with our neighbor: “You shall not murder. You shall not commit adultery.
You shall not steal. You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.
You shall not covet.”
We
have here a comprehensive ordering for life lived according to God’s holy will. We learn how we are to live in relation to
God. We learn how we are to live in relation to our neighbor.
And
in case we may be inclined to think that we can handle at least some of these
commandments, in our Gospel lesson Jesus gives us instruction about what the
Fifth Commandment means. He says, “You have heard that it was said to those of
old, ‘You shall not murder; and whoever murders will be liable to
judgment.’ But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his
brother will be liable to judgment; whoever insults his brother
will be liable to the council; and whoever says, 'You fool!' will be liable
to the hell of fire.”
Jesus tells us that the Fifth Commandment does not simply
deal with the physical killing of another person. Instead, it includes what is in the heart –
the anger that leads us to cause physical harm.
And of course what is true of the Fifth Commandment is true of all the
commandments. They all involve the
deeper spiritual truth that fulfilling God’s will includes thought, word, and
deed.
These words – this Law – leave us in no doubt that we are sinners – that we violate God’s will and sin against God. St. Paul told the Romans, “Now we know that whatever the law says it speaks to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be stopped, and the whole world may be held accountable to God. For by works of the law no human being will be justified in his sight, since through the law comes knowledge of sin.”
The law shows us our sin. We learn that it is not a means by which we
can be justified. That language of
“justification” refers to the Last Judgment.
God will judge and Paul tells us how it will work. He says, “For it is not the hearers of the law who are righteous
before God, but the doers of the law who will be justified.” Those who do God’s
law perfectly in thought, word, and deed are righteous before God. They will be declared innocent.
And those who don’t? They will receive God’s wrath and eternal judgment. Paul says “But because of your hard and impenitent heart you are storing up wrath for yourself on the day of wrath when God's righteous judgment will be revealed. He will render to each one according to his works.”
This
reality of sin encompasses us all. Since
the Fall of Adam we have lived trapped in its power. Paul says, “For we have already charged that all,
both Jews and Greeks, are under sin.” Sin controls us and it shows up in what we
do. The apostle leaves no doubt when he
says, “For there is no
distinction: for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.”
But Paul announces in Romans that
there is more to the story than a sinful existence that leads to God’s judgment
on the Last Day. He says, “For I am not ashamed of the
gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes,
to the Jew first and also to the Greek.” The Gospel is the good news that God has
given us what we don’t deserve and never could earn. Paul says that we “are
justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in
Christ Jesus,
whom
God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received
by faith.”
God has redeemed us. He has freed us
from sin. He did this by sending his Son
into the world. Jesus Christ died on the
cross as the sacrifice for our sin. God is the just Judge. He judged our sin in
Christ. And then he raised him from the dead.
Now by his grace he counts those who believe in Jesus Christ as being
righteous. We who believe in the death and resurrection of Jesus receive what
we don’t deserve and could never earn.
We are justified before God. We
know the verdict of the Last Day, and it is, “Not guilty.” And so Paul tells us, “Therefore, since we have been
justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus
Christ.”
God’s grace has abounded to us in
Christ and we are justified. Yet in our
text from Romans chapter 6 Paul vigorously rejects a false understanding of
what this now means for how we live. Just
before our text he asks: “What
shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound?
By no
means! How can we who died to sin still live in it?”
The Christian life is not one of
security in salvation to go on sinning.
The apostle announces that something dramatic has happened to us. It happened in Holy Baptism. Paul asks,
“Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into
Christ Jesus were baptized into his death?”
The apostle builds on what he knows is a common understanding about
baptism in the Church. We have shared in
the saving death of Christ through baptism.
Notice how Paul just comes out and says that something happened in
baptism.
Yet Paul’s real purpose in mentioning
baptism is not to talk about forgiveness. He goes on to say, “We
were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just
as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we
too might walk in newness of life.”
You have been baptized into the death of the risen
Lord. He is the Lord whom God raised
from the dead. Paul says that you have been buried with Christ through baptism
so that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the Father, you too may walk
in newness of life. He says this because
of the work of the Holy Spirit.
In chapter eight Paul declares, “If the Spirit of him who raised
Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead
will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who dwells in
you.” God raised Jesus through the work of the Spirit. The same Spirit dwells
in you. Through baptism he has given you
rebirth and renewal. Through the Spirit,
the power of the resurrection is already at work in you.
That is why Paul says in our text, “We know
that our old man was crucified with him in order that the body of sin
might be brought to nothing, so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin.” Sin’s complete power and dominion over you
has ended. Through the work of the Spirit you are able to live in ways that
reflect God’s will.
This is the “now” of God’s saving work that is
present in your life. Through the work
of the Spirit you are a new creation in Christ.
At the same time we know that we also live in the “not yet.” The presence of the sinful nature in us has
not yet been completely destroyed. The old Adam still wants to put up a fight
and drag us into sin.
And so the Christian life can’t be
lived “in neutral.” It is not as if the
Spirit leads us along and we have no role to play. That is why just after our text Paul says, “Let not sin therefore reign in your
mortal body, to make you obey its passions. Do not present your members to sin
as instruments for unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God as those
who have been brought from death to life, and your members to God as
instruments for righteousness.”
And it is here
that the Ten Commandments take on a new role for us. Because we are a new creation through the
work of the Spirit we now find in them the guidance for the life that God has
designed – the life God’s intends for us.
We find in them the way we seek to live as we present ourselves to God
as those who have been brought from death to life.
So we now seek
to put God first in our life. We call
upon God’s name in all situations, and place his Means of Grace at the center
of our life. We honor our parents, and
carry out our vocation as parents by raising our children in the faith. We help our neighbor in his or her physical
needs. We are faithful to our spouse as we love and support the one with whom
God has made us one flesh. We help our
neighbor to improve and protect his possessions. We defend our neighbor’s reputation. We are
content with the blessings God has given to us.
Will we do this
perfectly? No. Where we fail, we repent.
We confess our sin and return to our baptism in faith. There we find the assurance of forgiveness. There we also find the source the Spirit’s
work in our life by which the new man arises each day to live according to
God’s good will for life.
We seek to walk in newness of life supported by the hope that the day is coming when the old Adam will be put to death forever. Paul says in our text, “We know that Christ, being raised from the dead, will never die again; death no longer has dominion over him. For the death he died he died to sin, once for all, but the life he lives he lives to God.
In his resurrection, Jesus Christ defeated
death. He was raised by God with a body
that can never die again. Our Lord will
give us a share in that resurrection on the Last Day. Paul tells us that our baptism is a guarantee
of this. He says of baptism, “For if we have been united with
him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a
resurrection like his.” Our bodies will
no longer be the setting where sin tempts us and requires struggle. Instead, we will joyfully and constantly live
according to the will of God – the good life that God intends for us.
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