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Pastor Lud Golz
Pastor Lud Golz

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  Home | Transcript Archive | April | April 16, 2020

Thursday, April 16, 2020

In our last visit we began looking at what is said in Romans about sanctification.  That is, the process of becoming more like Jesus Christ once we’ve been saved by trusting in Him. 

Paul starts with a rhetorical question in Romans 6:2, “We died to sin; how can we live in it any longer?”  He answers the question by taking the Christian back to his baptism.  He’s not teaching about the need to be baptized.  He is presuming they were baptized and refers to what their baptism signified. 

It seems to me he is referring to their baptism by immersion.  Verse 3 says, “Don’t you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death?”  He continues in verse 4, “We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life.” 

The picture is death, burial and resurrection.  When you die you are buried in a grave.  The reason you are buried is to avoid the stench of a decaying body.  That’s the picture Paul wants us to have. Baptism of the believer pictures identification with Christ in His death and burial as the person is immersed in the water.  It’s saying, “I died to the old way of life, the way of sin, and don’t want even the stench of the old life to be present any more.  I want it buried.”  Then when you’re brought up out of the water, you’re saying, “I am now going to live my life relying upon the power of Christ’s resurrection.” 

That’s a vivid picture of what the process of sanctification is all about.

 

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