When Jesus died, we died.

Romans 6:3 Or do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus have been baptized into His death? In the previous verse, Paul questioned his readers, “How shall we who died to sin still live in it?” The statement begs another question that Paul answered in today’s verse. When did we die to sin? We died to sin when Jesus died on the cross. He died to sin because once and for all, He paid the ransom for sin. Later in vs. 6, Paul made this point. Romans 6:10 “For the death that He died, He died to sin once for all; but the life that He lives, He lives to God.” The writer of Hebrews 7:27 nailed it when he wrote of Jesus’ priestly ministry, He “who does not need daily, like those high priests, to offer up sacrifices, first for His own sins and then for the sins of the people, because this He did once for all when He offered up Himself.” Paul wrote that we have been baptized into Christ Jesus. The concept of baptism conveys the idea of being immersed into or put into or united with Jesus when He died. This clearly is in Paul’s understanding because he wrote in 1 Corinthians 1:30 “But by His doing you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, and righteousness and sanctification, and redemption.” Wonder of wonders, in order to declare us just in His presence and give us grace in which to stand, God united us with Jesus making Him the means through which God demonstrated His righteousness in condemning sin and justifying the ungodly. His death to sin became our death to sin. When He died, we died. So shall we continue in sin because we are under grace? May it never be! If we are to live to love with Jesus, this great truth must be a daily consideration and firmly believed and applied. When we wake up each day in this world, we didn’t wake up to love our lives in this world and pursue our selfish agendas. Our identities are not derived from this temporal world and life in this world. Everyone else lives that way, but not those who know that they have been united with Jesus in His death. Notice this verse is another question. Do you not know that God united you with Jesus Christ so that when He died, you died to this world? So my Live to Love encouragement today from this verse is that if you wish to live to love with Jesus, believe, delight in, count as truth that you are dead to sin in this world. Acknowledgment: Music from “Carried by the Father” by Eric Terlizzi. www.ericterlizzi.com