July 2, 2016: Day 34 – Romans 6

Can we start with vs.23?  Go back and read that again, okay, if you don’t want to go back I’ll include it here: “For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.”  Do you see that beautiful juxtaposition where Paul includes the promise of what God will do for us.  But, do you notice where he starts?  Again, we start at the place where we need to recognize our limitations.  Let me be more precise, he begins by lifting up our sinfulness and ends with the grace of God which is free and which ultimately leads to eternal life.

But if we were talking about grace and how important it is to recognize that it is free, and that it is the most evident when it is held up against the foil of sin, then, as Paul states, maybe we should sin more and more just in order to received more and more grace.  I know, that sounds ridiculous to us, but there is some logic to that.  The beginning of chapter 6 is used routinely for both baptisms and funerals.  In baptisms we are reminded that Jesus died for our sins and as a result we are baptized into his death.  Does that make sense to you?  Let me explain.  Jesus’ death produces the defeat of sin because of the resurrection.  In our baptism we are proclaiming that we have a new Lord and so we, in turn, die to sin.  So, if we have died to sin then we should not let sin reign in our lives.  In funerals we are reminded of the powerful message of the resurrection.  There is more to life than this life.

I think we need to go back to vs. 23.