Romans 6:1-14; Colossians 2:11-15

In no other teaching of Scripture is the profound effect of the resurrection of Christ on the everyday life of the believer more evident than in these passages.  Water baptism provides a compelling illustration of the deeply spiritual reality of our identification with Christ.  In baptism the believer allows another to immerse him in the water and then be brought back up again by the same person.  The picture is one of death, burial and resurrection.  

But it is not a mere picture; this identification is a reality.  It is not “as if” we died with Christ, but in fact we have died with Him and been raised with Him.  There is no doubt that this is a difficult truth, something we might call a mystery.  But do not miss the recurring use of the word know in Romans 6:3,6,9.  Paul clearly expects that Christians know these facts and also reckon  or consider these facts to be personally true.  

What are the facts?  First it is that Christ not only died for us; we died with Him.  When He bore our sins in His body on the tree our old man died with him.  This “old man” is who and what we were when we entered this world.  It is the person that is inclined to sin, who is powerless to overcome sin, and who has been judged the sinner.  That man is dead.  Not dying mind you, but dead, having died with Christ.  That is what the passage says.

But then as Christ was raised from the dead, so the new man has come to life.  We are truly new in Christ (2 Cor. 5:17).  We have been raised in such a way that we are now able to walk in newness of life.  This is a fact for the believer in Christ.  This is the way it is.  This is God’s word for every believer.

Then we are told (Rom. 6:11) that we must consider this to be personally true.  One becomes a Christian by a choice of faith.  Often people can look back to a specific time when this choice was made as the Spirit enabled.  In a sense this reckoning is a daily reenactment of that first moment of faith in Christ.  We are reminding ourselves, not only of good theology (believers are identified with Christ) but of personal truth (I am new in Christ, dead to sin and alive in Christ).

That reminder of faith must then be followed by a daily, moment-by-moment choice of faith.  I must constantly present myself to God as one who is alive from the dead (v13).  In this way I walk by faith.  In this way my position (dead to sin, alive in Christ) becomes practice.  No longer does sin dominate me.  Christ, by His powerful resurrection, triumphed over all the powers of hell.  My new life is not the result of my best abilities to keep the Law; because of my union with Him in His resurrection His grace enables me to live the new life (Rom. 6:14).

Begin each day by answering the question: who am I?  Present your body to God for righteousness.  As a believer in Christ, this is your only reasonable worship (Rom. 12:1).  This is the renewed thinking by which you can be conformed to the image of Christ (Rom. 12:2).