On April 21st, Easter Sunday, we celebrated Jesus’ resurrection looking at Romans 6:1-14. Too often we don’t preach the whole gospel. Too often we stop at forgiveness for our sin. But this is not the whole gospel. The good news is not merely the promise of forgiveness, but also the promise of new life!
Explaining justification by faith, Paul boldly proclaimed that God’s grace exceeds our sin. Some may take this as license to keep sinning, “If increased sin means more grace, why worry about sin?” But those who have faith in Jesus are united to Him, they share in His death and His resurrection. This means a changed relationship to sin and to God.
In Christ, believers have died with Him to sin, and its power over us is broken. In Christ, we are raised with Him to new life. We are now dead to sin and alive to God. That means sin is no longer our master, and we must no longer obey sin. This new life is not just a future reality, it begins now.
Paul’s first command in Romans is to “consider yourselves dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus.” Sin’s power has been broken but it is still present. We will still be tempted but we must not obey sin. We used to present the members of our bodies to sin, but now we must not make any occasion for it. Instead we are to present ourselves to God for righteousness.
He is risen! And so are we. It’s time to act like it.
