Romans 6:3-11
Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? Therefore we have been buried with him by baptism into death, so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life. For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we will certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his. We know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body of sin might be destroyed, and we might no longer be enslaved to sin. For whoever has died is freed from sin. But 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. 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.
What does it mean to be “freed from sin”? How would my life look if I was freed from sin? What would be different? What does it mean to be “enslaved to sin”? In what ways am I enslaved to sin? When I think of being enslaved to sin, my first thought is something that I can’t quit doing that I know is wrong and I always regret doing it. An addict is perhaps a good illustration of being enslaved to sin. The destructiveness of their addiction and how it is connected to a lifestyle based around this addiction. The deceit that is necessary to keep feeding the addiction. The erosion of their self-esteem and the loss of self. And the eventual physical death of the addict because their master demands more and more from them.
What am I enslaved to? Anger? Arrogance? Apathy? Averice? Sin causes me to trust myself rather than God. Sin causes me to prefer deception to honesty. Sin causes me to create my own image and reject being made in their image. If I was dead to sin, I would not even be aware of sin’s allure. But Paul says, “consider” yourselves dead to sin. He is saying that I have to look at it and think about it that way.
Everything we do is symbolic of what we believe in. Jesus was crucified, buried and rose again. So we undergo baptism as a symbolic gesture of our faith. Our faith and desire to crucify our ego, the part of us that loves darkness (John 3:19) in order that we may rise from this death to live a new life. Just as Jesus trusted His Father to raise Him from the dead, we trust God to raise us into a new life as we reject the life that we built upon sinful desires. By “sinful desires” I mean our ego.
And by crucify I mean take upon ourselves the cross as Jesus did. Which means that we willingly love others for their benefit not looking to gain anything and being willing to suffer the losses that love gives us in return. Loving neighbor is symbolic of the cross. Loving others, not clinging to our own needs, wants, rights or desires but loving as Christ loved, to the point of death, to the point of completely losing our own egos, our own selves till nothing is left but Christ. Every act of love is an act of self-denial. But every act of self-denial not done in love, only serves to feed our ego. Loving others is how we lose our life that we may find it.