A dead body cannot do anything anymore. That’s such an obvious statement that I really shouldn’t have to say that. A dead person is no longer under the power or authority of anyone. One can stand over the coffin and tell the dead body to do this or do that, and they won’t move a muscle. They won’t, and in truth, they can’t do anything. They are dead. In our Scripture from the Book of Romans, Paul tells us, believers and followers of the Lord Jesus, how in a very real sense we are dead to one thing. Let’s look at what God’s Word says.
As Paul began our Scripture, he spoke about being baptized into Christ Jesus, and how through that, we are baptized into His death (vs. 3). Paul spoke of being deeply immersed in the belief and faith in Jesus Christ. By placing saving faith in the Lord Jesus, we are spiritually immersed into the person of the Savior, united and identifying with Him. Jesus became our substitute, and our identification with Him in His death gives us all the benefits for which He died.
In the days of the New Testament Church, baptism by immersion, where the body is submerged beneath the surface of the water, was the common form of baptism. Going down under the water pictures and symbolizes the death and burial of the old way of life. Coming up out of the water symbolizes a resurrection to a new life in Christ. Our old, sinful life is dead and buried. Paul spoke of how when we are saved, when we have accepted the Lord Jesus as Savior, we are now dead to sin and alive to a new life in Christ. Being physically baptized symbolizes and shows that fact, and publicly identifies us as believers, united with Jesus. Because our old life of sin has died, we are to treat the desires and temptations of that old nature as if they are dead.
Those who are united with Jesus by faith, His death and burial become ours (vs 4). We are also united with Him in His resurrection. Sin describes our old self, our old life, and the righteousness we receive through and from Jesus at salvation describes our new life. All of our sins and transgressions of our past are now dead and buried.
When we accept Jesus as Savior, our old sinful self dies with Him, and the new life we now live is a divinely given life. We do not need to, and should not follow the old sinful ways of our past (vs. 6). The power and penalty of sin died with Jesus on the cross. Believers are freed from its power. Jesus defeated the power of sin at work in us. We can enjoy a new life in Christ because we are united with Him in His death and resurrection. Our desire for, and bondage to sin died with Him. We now have freedom from sin’s hold on us.
Jesus was our substitute, and in the mind of God, we died with Him when we were saved. Jesus set us free from the bondage of the sin nature. He died to sin in two senses - He met the legal demands that were over the sinner. He paid the penalty for sin. Jesus also broke the power of sin over all believers. We do not have to obey the orders of sin in our life any more.
We should now regard our old sinful nature as dead and unresponsive to sin. Since death has no more dominion over Jesus, it has no more dominion over us. The power of the sin nature is broken. Because of our union with Jesus Christ, we are no longer obligated to follow those desires.
As believers and followers of Jesus, we need to consider ourselves to be what God has, in fact, made us, and that is dead to sin. Remember that person lying in the coffin? They can’t do anything. No one can tell them to do anything. If you are saved, you are now a dead person to sin, so act like one!
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