Therefore we are buried with him by
baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the
glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life. Romans 6:4
There is
no point in our saying that we believe that Christ has died for us and that we
believe our sins are forgiven unless we can also say that for us old things are
passed away and all things are become new, that our outlook toward the world
and its method of living is entirely changed. It is not that we are sinless,
nor that we are perfect, but that we have finished with that way of life. We
have seen it for what it is, and we are new creatures for whom everything has
become new.
But I can
imagine somebody saying, “Don’t you think that this is rather a dangerous
doctrine? Don’t you think it is dangerous to tell people that they are dead to
sin, dead to the law, dead to Satan, and that God regards them as if they had
never sinned at all? Won’t the effect of that make such people say, ‘All right,
in view of that, it does not matter what I do’?” But Paul says that what
happens is the exact opposite, and that must be so because to be saved and to
be truly Christian means that we are in Christ, and if we are in Christ, we are
dead to sin, dead to Satan, dead to the world, dead to our old selves. We are
like our Lord.
Let me put that positively. We have not only died with Christ— we have also risen with Him: “Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life” (Romans 6:4). We live in “newness of life.” We have been raised with Christ.
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