Our epistle reading last week was Romans 6 verses 1-11. Our
epistle reading this week is Romans 6 verses 19 to the end of the chapter. Both
last week’s reading ad this week’s reading are from the same chapter. It isn’t
surprising that there is a connection between the two readings. So I’d like to
refresh your memory of what was said last week.
Our reading began with Paul’s rhetorical question: “What
then, shall we remain in sin so that grace may abound? By no means!” What
Paul says after that is not what we would naturally expect. So let’s start by
talking about what we would naturally expect. When we are talking about sinning
or not sinning we immediately, naturally assume that we are talking about
knowing what is right and wrong, and then revving up the will power to do what
is right. All the self-help books, all the ethicists and philosophers, say the
same thing. What sells their books is some new, clever twist that they come up
with.
They say stuff like, “You see, where you went wrong is that
you were thinking about it in the right way. All that you need to do is think
about it in this way! If you think about it this way you will find that
everything will go splendidly. You will look better, feel better, and have
money coming out of your ears.” If the sales pitch is clever enough we just
can’t help ourselves. We say, “Mmm, that sounds good.” And we give them our
credit card number over the phone.
As we all well know, a lot of times—dare I say, practically
every time—the self-improvement program fails. But it’s never the clever salesman’s
fault. He can always say, “Well, you didn’t try hard enough. It’s not my fault;
it’s your fault! If you had just continued with my program you would have the
results that you were seeking.” And who can argue with that? When they’re
right, they’re right.
So when Paul brings up the topic of sinning, we immediately
assume that he is going to talk to us about how we should improve ourselves. Perhaps
he’s going to give us some new knowledge so that we think about it in a better
way; so that it is easier for us to rev up our will power.
That’s not what Paul does though. Instead he talks about
what baptism has done to you. He says, “Do you not know that when you were
baptized into Christ Jesus you were united with him in his death? In Jesus you
died to sin, because Jesus died to sin once and for all people. United with
Jesus in a death like his you are also united with him in a resurrection like
his. So this is how it is: you are dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.”
Now it is very tempting to us to turn Paul’s words into
something that we can more easily, naturally process. It is very tempting for
us to turn this talk about baptism into some kind of object lesson where
baptism is merely an empty symbol. The logic would go like this: Being dunked
in the water is kind of like dying. Being pulled out of the water is kind of
like being born. With this simple object lesson in hand, Paul is understood to
be like a high school football coach who says, “Go get ‘em boys! Pretend that
you have died. Pretend that you have been raised. Go, fight, win!” Baptism
doesn’t do anything (so it is assumed). So it’s all up to you.
But what if baptism actually does something? What if God is
active in baptism? Then we have a rather different picture. Then God has killed
you with all your sins and evil desires. God has also raised you from the dead
to live in the only true righteousness that exists, which is Christ’s
righteousness. With this way of understanding Paul (which is the correct way),
we are dealing with God’s grace, God’s working, rather than with yet another
self-improvement program. What’s more is that this is at the very heart and
soul of our salvation and the story of the universe. We are being saved by
being crucified in Christ, God’s Son, who died for our sins, paying our ransom.
We will rise from the dead when our Savior comes and rends the heavens wide.
When we have been raised with purified bodies, then the work of our baptism
will be finally finished. The continued dying and the rising that we daily
experience in this life will be over and done with because we will finally be
clean when our sin is left behind in the grave.
So that is what Paul was talking about last week. With this
week’s reading he is continuing this discussion concerning the old man and the
new man. The old Adam is born in sin. He can’t be reformed. The only step in
the right direction is for him to die so that he can’t sin anymore because he
is dead. This is done in baptism. The new man is the one who has been born
again by the water and the Holy Spirit in baptism, united with Christ. The new
man looks to God, believing his promise of salvation in Jesus. The old man and
the new man match up with the terms that Paul uses with our reading this week.
There are two kinds of slaves. All people and every individual, without
exception, are one or the other. Either someone is a slave of sin, which
results in death, or a person is a slave of righteousness, which results in
holiness.
The same temptation exists here as what I spoke about with
the beginning of chapter six. There is a temptation to turn Paul’s words into
mere picture language that results in a motivational speech. We are hard wired
into thinking that righteousness is a matter of one’s own doing—sink or swim,
it’s up to you.
But Paul really means what he says about slavery. Slaves, by
definition, are not free. If it were just a matter of will power, then what
slave would ever remain in slavery? Slaves are slaves because they are forced
to be slaves. They are held in slavery by a force that is more powerful than
themselves.
Our chief hymn last week spoke about the slavery that all
people are born into. All mankind fell in Adam’s fall. One common sin infects
us all. From one to all the curse descends, and over all God’s wrath impends.
Through all our powers corruption creeps, and us in dreadful bondage keeps. In
guilt we draw our infant breath and reaps its fruits of woe and death. From
hearts depraved to evil prone, flow thoughts and deeds of sin alone. God’s
image lost, the darkened soul seeks not nor finds its heavenly goal.
Our slavery to sin is a real slavery, not a pretend slavery.
No amount of knowledge, no amount of effort is able to set us free. We can only
be set free by God’s action, which he does through his Son by the power of the
Holy Spirit. By dying together with Christ and rising together with Christ we
are changed by God. A force more powerful than ourselves brings us into a new
kind of slavery—slavery to righteousness—leading to our sanctification.
But don’t be turned off by the sound of the word “slavery”
here. That word sounds especially bad to our American ears that pride
themselves on liberty. When Paul says “slavery to righteousness” he is
being somewhat ironic. It’s like saying that someone is enslaved to goodness.
Or someone is enslaved to having everyone like him. We’re alright with slavery
if it means that we are totally bound up with something good. And that is the
case here. Being a slave to righteousness is being a slave to the incredible
bounty of Christ’s gifts. He does great things in you.
Again, a verse from our chief hymn last week gets to the
point: We thank you Christ new life is ours, new light, new hope, new strength,
new powers. This grace our every way attend until we reach our journey’s end.
So there are two slaves. The one is how we all are by nature
and by natural birth. Those who are baptized and believe are the other. Since
this is the case, Paul says, you should no longer present the members of your
body as slaves to sin, being obedient to sin’s desires as though sin were still
your task master.
Guard the member of your body that is your tongue so that
you do not speak evil of others, or even that it should be filled with useless
garbage. Use your tongue to call on the name of God, to sing and declare his
praises. Guard your eyes and your ears so that they do not lead the rest of
your body into evil. Immediately we might think of sex here, which certainly is
valid, but it’s not just that. Your eyes and your ears are bombarded by false
philosophies, false understandings of who you are, of how you should live your
life, what the future for this old world is. The media that you take in with
your senses has its effect on your soul. It is constantly teaching you about
what life is all about. The eyes and the ears are the pathway into the mind. Guard
your mind so that you love the Lord your God who has filled you up with good
things, and so that you know that what is best is love. Direct all the parts of
your life toward being kind and helpful to whomever crosses your path
(including, especially, those in your own household), rather than looking at
them as people whom you can use toward your own ends.
You see, here’s the deal: All that old stuff is passing
away. Jesus is coming. The resurrection from the dead is coming. So what should
it profit a man even if he managed to gain the whole world but to lose his
soul? The one to whom a person is a
slave is the one to whom a person belongs. So if you present yourself as a
slave to sin, then you belong to sin. Sin comes from the devil, and so you
belong to him. Wherever your master goes, that is where you, his property, will
go too. The devil is going to go to hell, so if you remain chained to him as
his obedient servant, then that is where you will go too. But if you are
obedient to the teaching that God has caused you to hear, that is, if you
believe that God’s promises to you are true, then you are not a slave to sin.
You are obedient to what God has said. You say, “Amen! That’s true.” Thus you
belong where your master is. You belong in heaven.
With last week’s sermon as well as with today’s I’ve tried
to give you a big picture kind of look at what Paul is saying. I’ve tried to
show you how Paul’s teaching is different from all the self-improvement
projects that people have come up with since the fall into sin. There are many
points of contrast. With baptism it is God who is at work. With self
improvement projects it all depends on you. With baptism we are dealing with
the utter incompetence of mankind for any true improvement. With self
improvement projects people are taught to depend on mankind’s abilities.
But the most important point of contrast is that baptism
actually works. It is the only thing that works. With self improvement projects
it all ends in death, even if the person should be faithful to the program his
or her whole life through. Baptism, on the other hand, works now and into
eternity. It begins to work sanctification while we live and battle against the
flesh, the world, and the devil. This prevents us from being completely
sanctified in this life as Paul goes on to explain in Romans chapter 7. But
God’s work of making us holy will come to completion with the resurrection from
the dead on the last day. This will not be our achievement. It will be totally
God’s achievement. God, who does all things well, is a whole lot better at
achieving things, so this should really not be surprising.
The superiority of God’s work over our self improvement
projects should be obvious, but realize that this way of thinking does not come
naturally to us. I’ve studied the bible for many years now, and I still have to
read these chapters in Romans very slowly and carefully. I think it’s because my
fleshly mind always wants to play tricks on me while I read it.
We are hard wired into thinking that it’s all up to us. Or,
on the other hand, if it’s all up to God, then we end up asking those
rhetorical questions that Paul asks such as, “If it is all a matter of grace,
then why not sin all the more so that grace abounds?” Our brains have an easier
time making sense of either of these ways of talking, but both of them are
false. Both of them end in death and rottenness. Salvation, on the other hand,
comes by hearing and believing God’s working through his Word and Sacraments.
There’s no graduating from this hearing and learning. Those who think they’ve
graduated have almost certainly been taken over by fleshly, worldly thinking.
The lies are easier for us to understand and accept than the truth.
But God has given us the gift of Paul’s instruction. The
Gospel Paul preaches of Christ and him crucified is the power of salvation to
all who believe. The salvation of God that is worked through his preaching is
the truth. It will prevail. Whereas other notions, while they sound good to our
ears now, will most certainly let down those on Judgment Day who believe in
them. Continue to grow, therefore, in your knowledge and understanding.
He who has begun a good work in you will carry it on to
completion until the day of Christ Jesus. May the God of peace himself
sanctify you completely, and may your whole spirit, soul, and body be kept
blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. The one who calls you is
faithful, and he will do it.
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