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Sunday School Lesson
From Death To Life (Romans 6:1–4, 12–14, 17–23)
stronger way.
Baptism marks the public
declaration of our death to self.
Offer Self in Body Romans 6:12-14
Since our old self was cruci- fied with Christ, which is sym- bolized in baptism, we are no longer enslaved to sin (Ro- mans 6:6). But we are not totally done with sin as long as we are in this world. (This is Paul’s argument in Romans 7.) We still have to count our- selves dead to sin (Romans 6:11). This is a daily task.
In the rest of the lesson text Paul used several metaphors to make his point: a dominion metaphor (slave and master), a material metaphor (pay- ment and gift), and a temple metaphor (offering and in- strument).
The temple metaphor is
dominant. This practice of the resurrected life is made effec- tual by daily offering our- selves to God in our physical bodies (instruments). We can- not let sin reign in our bodies. Otherwise we might obey its evil desires. Paul will use this offer language three times in this paragraph. We are not to offer ourselves to wickedness, but we are to offer ourselves to God and to his righteous- ness. The instrument of wickedness is contrasted with the instrument of righteous- ness. If we do not understand this offering of ourselves to God, it shows that we do not understand grace.
Free Self Through Bondage Romans 6:17-23
The Bible is full of para- doxes, and this is the most paradoxical part of our text.
We are set free from sin only to return to slavery. But it is the blessed slavery of a change of allegiance to God. We par- ticipate in and appropriate the grace of God by obeying the pattern of teaching that is in the gospel. This makes us slaves to righteousness. Esti- mates range from one-third to one-half of the city of Rome were slaves. The recipients understood this metaphor all too well.
There was no way the old slavery could lead to right- eousness. But the new slavery results in righteousness lead- ing to holiness (sanctification, mentioned twice in the text). The new slavery results in eternal life.
Paul closed this section with the material metaphor: sin’s payoff is death. In con- trast, eternal life is a gift. Jesus specializes in bringing life out of death.
Jesus specializes in bringing life out of death. This is the gospel message and also Paul’s reminder to the Chris- tians in Rome.
Die to Self in Baptism Romans 6:1-4
Baptism is death before death. Paul reminded the Christians of this truth so that they would not presume on
grace. Romans 5 ended with Paul affirming the need for grace because of so much sin. Someone in the church must have argued that one way to get more grace was to sin more. Paul countered such thinking by reminding the people of their baptisms. Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase? By no means! Paul could not say no in a
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