June 7, 2022 KNOWING THIS
Romans 6:4-6 “Therefore we have buried with Him through baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life. For if we have become united with Him in the likeness of His death, certainly we shall also be in the likeness of His resurrection, knowing this, that our old self was crucified with Him, in order that our body of sin might be done away with, so that we would no longer be slaves to sin.
If the resurrection of Jesus is something we celebrate once a year on Easter, then somehow we are deficient in our understanding of the impact of the resurrection. In verse 3, Paul wrote-‘Or do you not know’-referring to the fact that if we have been baptized into Jesus, then we have also been baptized into His death. There is a connection with us being baptized into Christ and His resurrection-they are not two separate events. Being baptized into Christ is more than being immersed in, or sprinkled with water; water baptism is to be the outward sign or public confession of what has taken place on the inside. Being immersed in water is a picture of being placed in a grave-death to ourselves-and then raised out of the grave as a new person. Being baptized into Christ means that our old self-that part of us that is contrary to God-our sin nature-is put to death. In order for us to walk in newness of life, it was necessary that the old man be crucified. Also, to walk in newness of life, we must understand and receive the scriptures that teach that we have died to who we were and that we have been made new with a new nature, a new spirit, and a new mind. We also must understand that to walk in newness does not happen automatically as we see in Ephesians 4:2-24 where we are instructed to “put off the old self” and to “put on the new self.” The key to us walking in newness is for us to identify with the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus, realizing that our old self died with Him and we were resurrected in newness.
Romans 8:11: “But 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 indwells you.”
Blessings,
Buddy
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