Trinity 6
Dear friends in Christ. In today’s Gospel reading Jesus gives us the theme “righteousness,” telling us that a higher/ greater righteousness is expected of the Christian: unless your righteousness exceeds the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, you will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven. The point to remember here is that the scribes and Pharisees are seemingly holding to God’s commands, God’s Law—but what? They still are not acceptable to God. Why? Because the righteousness God looks for is different and a higher kind. He looks for that absolute perfect righteousness—one that we, in no way, no matter how much we may do, can attain. The perfect righteousness that Christ here requires is that righteousness that He brought about and now fully and freely gives us in His holy word and sacrament. It’s His perfect keeping of God’s Law—for us, in our place. It’s His holy and perfect innocent suffering and death for our sins. In short, the righteousness that God demands of us in order to get into heaven is not a righteousness that we can produce—like that of the scribes and Pharisees; instead it is a righteousness that God Himself gives us, a righteousness that Jesus brought about and therefore it is a perfect righteousness—not one from within us but one that comes from outside of us—from God, who declares us righteous and credits to us the perfect righteousness of Christ.
Where this doctrine of the righteousness of Christ being given to us and opening heaven to us is being taught and believed is precisely where the devil is most active. That’s because he wants to destroy our faith, faith that receives Christ and His righteousness which opens heaven to us. One way he does that is to try to get us to think that since we are saved by God’s grace through faith in Christ, since we have His righteousness and an open heaven, it doesn’t matter how we live; he wants us to think that it doesn’t matter whether we strive out of love and faithfulness to the Lord to do His holy will; he wants to get us to think we can live any way we want—sin all we want because, after all, it doesn’t matter since we are forgiven our sin and heaven opened to us. Sadly, many Christians have a very lackadaisical attitude when it comes to sin and fighting against sin.
The devil was already doing that in Paul’s day. He was trying to get the people to think that since God, in grace, forgives us our sin why bother about trying not to sin; in fact, we should sin all the more so that God can show us more and more grace and can prove Himself ever so gracious.
By trying to get Christians not to strive after a life of holiness the devil is really trying to get the Christians to expel the Holy Spirit from their hearts. If we Christians stop following the Holy Spirit’s leading and guiding us into a life of good works, and continue on living a life of sin and for self, we grieve the Holy Spirit and expel Him from our hearts. And guess what? Where there’s no Holy Spirit there’s no faith. And what else? Where there’s no faith, there’s no way to receive the righteousness of Christ and the forgiveness of sins. That’s why a life of good works is vital: it’s not that good works keep us in the faith—they are simply the fruit/ evidence of faith—but evil works do destroy faith because continued willful refusal to follow the Holy Spirit drives Him from the heart.
Our life now as Christians is one constant battle against sin. We are constantly on guard against falling back into what Christ redeemed us from. The work/ exercise of faith is conflict and strife against the devil and his temptations, against the devil’s ally within each one of us—our old sinful nature. In this battle the Christian fights against sin, temptation, the devil and our old sinful nature, we have a powerful weapon that is easily overlooked and not brought into the battle: our baptism! Ignorance of what baptism is and what happens in baptism is a great enemy in the war against sin.
1. St. Paul writes in our text: Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death... So what really happens in baptism? We are united with Jesus in His death and burial. Right away, we see that baptism is a reality. It is not a mere symbolic act; it’s not just a ritual. Baptism is the reality: we were baptized into his death[.] We were buried…with [Jesus] by baptism into [his] death. When Jesus suffered and died on the cross, He was there loaded down with the sins of the world—your sin, my sins, of all people ever to live. There He was cursed for those sins and there the wrath of God was poured out on Him until every last bit of God’s anger over sin was satisfied/ stilled. Jesus died as the world’s sinner cursed by God.
In baptism it’s as if we were there; it’s as if we were cursed and died. In baptism, then, is the forgiveness of our sin because baptism connects with Jesus in His death: all of God’s wrath over sin was poured out on Him and now since baptism connects us with this death, God’s wrath over our sin has already been poured out on us—Christ enduring it; our sin no longer stands before God. Why? Connected with Jesus in death, what happened to Him happened to us; it actually happened to Jesus on the cross and our baptism connects us with that moment of the cross. In baptism, we died; we died with Jesus and to sin.
When Jesus went to the cross He was loaded down with the sins of all; He died; He was buried; and when He rose again, He was free from sin; no longer was He loaded down with the sins of the world. Why? Because He paid the price for them and stilled God’s wrath. He conquered sin by never once sinning and by paying the price for sin. Jesus broke the power of sin! Finally there was One who never sinned—and did so not for Himself but for all people. It was into this Jesus and His death and resurrection that we were baptized. What does that mean? It means that our sin cannot condemn us. Jesus both fulfilled what we cannot do of God’s Law and He also suffered the consequences of our sin.
It also means that now connected with Christ, sin’s power has been broken in us. It means that sin is not now our master; we are not its slave that has to do its bidding. Instead, connected with Christ in baptism, with Him in us, with the Holy Spirit leading and empowering us, we, then can say “no” to sin. Our text: We know that our old self was crucified with him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing, so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin. For one who has died has been set free from sin. Since we died with Christ in baptism, sin no longer has a right over us. Just like a dead slave no longer obeys—or even can obey—its master, so too we who have died with Christ in baptism no longer let sin live, work, dominate us. The thing is, in baptism our old self was crucified with [Christ]. The goal of crucifying our old sinful self is no longer to serve sin because our old self no longer rules us.
Our death to sin, though, is something that we don’t see in the midst of our struggle against sin, in our struggle to live holy lives. As we daily look at our lives in the light of God’s holy Law, we will see and feel our sin. It will often seem like baptism means nothing/ has no power, since, after all, we are still sinning. But, dear Christian, the very fact that there is that struggle shows the power of baptism in us. It shows that connected with Christ in baptism, He has given us the Holy Spirit and a new self, the Christian, who fights against our old sinful nature resisting sin and temptation. Remember, Christ destroyed not only sin’s claim on us but also its power and lordship over us. Our daily lives as Christians show this battle in us between sin and holiness. And it is precisely here that we see the great power of baptism as it connects us to Jesus’ death, burial and resurrection.
Just as the death [Jesus] died he died to sin, once for all—Jesus died once--one death—so now for us there is one baptism for the remission of sins. Although baptism is a once in a lifetime act its power and effect remain/ stand. Daily we Christians go back to/ return to our baptism. We do this as we recognize our sin—either as we particularly feel them or discover them as we examine our lives in light of God’s holy Law. Recognizing our sin, we go to the Lord in sorrow over our sin and by faith once again reclaim the blessings He gave us at baptism—forgiveness of sins. Here is the great power of baptism in our daily struggle with sin. Not only does baptism connect us with Christ, not only are we no longer slaves of sin and devil, but when we do sin, the forgiveness of sin that Jesus won for us is there and announced/ given us in the absolution and faith receives it. And in great joy and thanksgiving for that forgiveness, led by the Holy Spirit, we strive all the harder to live a holy life. Daily remembering our baptism means that we drown once again our old sinful self in repentance.
2. So, yes, baptism is death; we die in baptism as we are united with Jesus in His death; in baptism we are dead to sin—its power to condemn and rule over us is taken away; as we daily live out our baptism, we put to death our old sinful nature. But baptism doesn’t just mean death, it means life as it raises us to life.
Our text: We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life. Here’s our life of holiness. Here’s where baptism is our great power in the struggle against sin. Baptism unites us with Jesus’ death and also His resurrection. Jesus rose from the dead and our baptism connects us to the resurrected Christ. In union with Him is the power for victory over sin. In baptism we are connected with Jesus and just as He rose from the dead, we too rise from the death of sin to new life. His new life is our new life. Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. Again, is baptism just a ceremony or something symbolic? Hardly! This new life that baptism gives as it connects us with Christ and His resurrection shows itself in now in us; it is a present reality. This new life—the life of Christ—in us shows itself as now we look to the Lord, rejoice in the Lord, think and love only what is of God. This new life that we have been given in baptism as we are united with Christ and His resurrection continues on eternally into heaven. This is the vital point we need to remember as we live out our daily lives using the power of baptism to fight against sin: although we feel sin in us, let us believe and hold to what the word says: we are free from sin and truly have that divine life hidden in us. Hold to the word; hold to what holy baptism works and does in you. That’s why St. Paul writes at the end of our text: So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus. Here is faith: consider[ing] yourselves dead to sin and alive to God. Only because we are united with Christ in baptism can we be sure that we remain dead to sin and alive to God. Baptism brought about that union and faith maintains that union as a living reality. The living and resurrected Christ keeps coming to us in His word and sacrament—His body and blood being truly/ bodily present—strengthening that union as He strengthens our faith through which we are in Him and He in us and by which we receive His gifts and blessings and so live to God in spiritual joy and a peaceful conscience.
Baptism, which promises and brings victory over death and the devil, is our powerful weapon in saying “no” to sin and living a life of holiness. May we remember its power that since Baptism connects us with Jesus we died with Jesus to sin and rose again with Him to a new life—now and eternally. INJ