✠ One Message: Christ crucified and risen for you ✠
The Word of the Lord Endures Forever
Verbum Domini Manet in Aeternum
Romans 6,3-11 3716
6. Sn. n. Trinitatis 051
Cornelius, captain, Acts 10
3. Juli 2016
1. О Lord God, Heavenly Father, we confess that we are poor, wretched sinners, and that there is no good in us, our hearts, flesh and blood being so corrupted by sin, so that we never in this life can be without sinful lust and concupiscence; therefore we beseech You, Dear Father, forgive us these sins, and let Your Holy Spirit so cleanse our hearts so that we may desire and love Your Word, abide by it and thus by Your grace be forever saved. Amen. (Veit Dietrich for 6. Sn. n. Trinitatis).
2. Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death? We were buried therefore with Him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life. For if we have been united with Him in a death like His, we shall certainly be united with Him in a resurrection like His. We know that our old self was crucified with Him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing, so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin. For one who has died has been set free from sin. Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with Him. We know that Christ being raised from the dead will never die again; death no longer has dominion over Him. For the death He died He died to sin, once for all, but the life He lives He lives to God. So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.
3. Earlier in his epistle, St. Paul wrote: »None is righteous, no, not one; no one does good, no, not one. Sin entered the world through Adam, and death through sin, and thus death spread to all mankind because all have sinned« (Romans 3,10.12; 5,12). By the very nature of being descendants of Adam, we are born into death. All men must die; all men must serve.
4. Christ has done both on our account. Christ has died; Christ has served. The Apostle Paul proclaims in his epistles: »God shows His love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Christ Jesus emptied Himself, by taking the form of a servant, and humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death on a cross« (Romans 5,8; Philippians 2,5-8). Patrick Henry famously quipped: Give me liberty, or give me death! Benjamin Franklin opined: Gentlemen, we must all hang together, or assuredly we shall all hang separately. 1700 years before the Founding Fathers, Jesus died to give us liberty; He hung on the cross for all the world so that we would not have to hang separately. Jesus did this vicariously: He died and served for us and in our place; thus we call it God’s vicarious atonement for mankind.
5. This vicarious act becomes ours in Holy Baptism. Again Paul: »All of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life. Having been set free from sin, we have become servants of righteousness. Now that we have been set free from sin and have become servants of God, the fruit we get leads to sanctification and its end, which is eternal life« (6,3-4.18.22).
6. Then St. Paul continues: »If we have been united with Christ in a death like His, then we shall certainly be united with Christ in a resurrection like His« (6,5). Death and life, crucifixion and resurrection, go together in Christ Jesus. Holy Baptism unites us to the Passion of Jesus. We have already died and been buried, because Jesus has already died and been buried. Baptism links us to His death and burial. Likewise, we have already been raised to new life, because Jesus has already risen from the grave and He is the first fruits of the resurrection of the dead (1. Corinthians 15,23).
7. The Apostle Paul finally tells us: »Therefore we must consider ourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus« (6,11). »Thus, we are not ashamed of the gospel, for the gospel is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes. For in the gospel the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith, as it is written in Habakkuk 2,4: The righteous will live by faith. For a person is justified by faith alone apart from works of the law (Romans 1,16-17; 3,28).
8. Jesus is righteous, and He gives His righteousness to you in your Holy Baptism. You receive this by believing in your Baptismal promise, and in believing you have faith and trust in Christ who has shed His blood for your redemption and risen for your eternal life. »There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. The Holy Spirit Himself bears witness that we are children of God the Father, and if we are children, then we are heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ« (Romans 8,1.16-17). We have been baptized into His death and life, therefore we are now more than conquerors over all the temporal and spiritual things of creation (Romans 8,37). Amen.
9. Let us pray. O Christ Jesus, Thou are proclaimed in the midst of the congregation; send forth the Holy Spirit to keep us in the faith which trusts in You alone to be our salvation and our justification so that in all we things we conqueror in You who was crucified and resurrected. Amen.
To God alone be the Glory
Soli Deo Gloria
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