Hallelujah, Amen!
No Bible study, more a morning contemplation, short and back to work. Sunday we'll hear Romans 6:1-11 from the New Revised Standard Version of the Bible, but right now I'm reading The Message translation. Both it and The Voice translation say what Paul is telling us, informal, conversational, down to earth.
Up to this point in Romans, Paul has been telling us about the new relationship with God (justification - - sins forgiven and in God's sight starting over new and unblemished) that we enjoy through Jesus, and that we come into this new relationship through baptism. Then he asks what we're going to do about it, what are we to do in our new relationship with God:
Romans 6:1-11 (The Message)
6 1-3 So what do we do? Keep on sinning so God can keep on forgiving? I should hope not! If we’ve left the country where sin is sovereign, how can we still live in our old house there? Or didn’t you realize we packed up and left there for good? That is what happened in baptism. When we went under the water, we left the old country of sin behind; when we came up out of the water, we entered into the new country of grace—a new life in a new land!
3-5 That’s what baptism into the life of Jesus means. When we are lowered into the water, it is like the burial of Jesus; when we are raised up out of the water, it is like the resurrection of Jesus. Each of us is raised into a light-filled world by our Father so that we can see where we’re going in our new grace-sovereign country.
6-11 Could it be any clearer? Our old way of life was nailed to the cross with Christ, a decisive end to that sin-miserable life—no longer at sin’s every beck and call! What we believe is this: If we get included in Christ’s sin-conquering death, we also get included in his life-saving resurrection. We know that when Jesus was raised from the dead it was a signal of the end of death-as-the-end. Never again will death have the last word. When Jesus died, he took sin down with him, but alive he brings God down to us. From now on, think of it this way: Sin speaks a dead language that means nothing to you; God speaks your mother tongue, and you hang on every word. You are dead to sin and alive to God. That’s what Jesus did.
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Paul’s message is that being baptized into Jesus means we die to our old life of sin and rise into the life of God’s will. We don't simply go back to business as usual, we turn our lives around and head in a completely new direction. Sometimes in his Children's Time with a group of little kids at the beginning of worship, to everyone's enjoyment, our rector gets to teach them what REPENT means: turn around and go in the opposite direction. Having told them, he shows them. He starts them heading down the center aisle to their Sunday School classes, then shouts REPENT! and they about face and come back up the aisle, then REPENT! and they about face again and head down the aisle, REPENT! and they reverse course again, until, laughing, they get it!
That's what Paul is teaching in this passage. Life is no longer to be our way, but God's way. Which, for a Christian, is a life of love and sacrifice, specifically, the Way of the Cross. We embrace this in our Confession of Sin, praying
that we may delight in your will,
and walk in your ways,
to the glory of your Name.
And then again in our closing prayer
And now, Father, send us out
to do the work
you have given us to do,
to love and serve you
as faithful witnesses
of Christ our Lord.
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Footnote:
We aren't sure of the dating of Paul's letter to Philemon about Onesimus, but other than that, his letter that begins (SV) "Paul, slave of God's anointed Jesus ... appointed and empowered as Son of God ... to all of God's beloved in Rome" likely is his last extant writing ("extant" meaning that we have it; other and later of Paul's letters may have existed, but we don't have them).
Romans is so important in the Christian scheme of things that some writer said all Christian doctrine is but a footnote to Paul's letter to the Romans. And yet it's unlikely that Paul wrote it meaning it to be his final work, because he was fully intent on going not only to Rome to preach, but on to Spain, and likely he thought he would be writing more letters in his future missions and ministry. Martyred in Rome, Paul never had the opportunity to preach the gospel in Spain, or to write more letters.
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pics from Redfish Point to Davis Point, across Shell Island, round beyond The Pass, Courtney Point and Magnolia Beach, the scaffolding is down at 7H. Hallelujah, Amen!
