March 13, 2005

Glorious Freedom

Text: Romans 6:16-23

The Lenten and Easter season was an important time for new believers in the early church. Often Lent was a forty-day period of preparation for believer’s baptism – which usually took place on Easter morning. In some places, the church would baptize the genders separately so that as the new believer entered into the water they could also disrobe and leave all of the clothing that symbolized their old life behind. As they came out of the water they were given a new white robe profoundly symbolizing the new life that they had now experienced in the sacred act of baptism.
In baptism, as we go into the water our old life is put to death and buried with Jesus, and as we come out of the water we are being resurrected to new life in Christ.

A few years ago – while I was working as a college-age pastor – we were preparing some new believers for baptism. I gave to the college students that I would be baptizing my very best “new life in Christ through baptism” theology. “The baptized are now part of the redeemed Body of Christ,” I told them. “After this sacred rite you will by the grace of God be initiated into his holy family.”

The baptism services in this particular church always went in chronological order according to age. The children were baptized first – usually by the children’s pastor – and then the teens, etc. When it came time for the college students to be baptized the first candidate Lisa, and I, began to enter the baptismal together. As we took the first step, Lisa threw out her arm, stopped me and said, “Wait! I’m not sure I’m ready for this.”

I assumed that she was nervous because part of the routine at this church was that the one being baptized briefly shared their testimony and witnessed to their faith in Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior before proceeding with the baptism. There was a large congregation there that night, so I assumed she was having a case of baptismal stage fright. I tried to calm her fears by whispering, “Oh, don’t worry Lisa. You’ll do fine. Just share what God has done in your life. The people will love you!”

She gave me a very exasperated look and replied, “I don’t care about that! What I’m concerned about is that after this is over everything will be different. You and I will be brother and sister!” she declared. “And I’m not sure I’m ready for that!”

Eventually she did decide she was ready. And she does remind me from time to time that even though I have since moved away from her church that we are still brother and sister and no distance is going to undo our baptismal bond.

I. Old Aeon – New Aeon

Paul would have loved Lisa’s rich understanding of what was taking place in her baptism, for critical to understanding Paul’s theology in Romans is appreciating the possibilities for life that Paul believes to exist because of the resurrection of Jesus Christ re-enacted by the believer in baptism. Because of the resurrection, a new aeon – a new time period – has broken into human existence. The “old aeon”(as we have saw in the first week of Lent) was dominated by the sin of Adam. In the old aeon violence and death ruled. In the old aeon the law kept humankind enslaved to sin.

Christ, however, exposed the harsh truth about the old aeon. His death put to rest any need to continue cycles of retribution and violence. His life, and especially his condemnation as a law-breaker, exposed the inadequacy of the law so that in his resurrection a new aeon – a new possibility for living – has dawned.

For Paul, baptism is the sacrament through which we participate in the transition from one aeon to another. As the believer goes into the water, the old aeon is put to death and as the believer comes out of the water they become a witness to the new aeon – the life made possible by the resurrection.

Paul also demonstrates a fascinating understanding of the human person in this Romans text. To borrow a phrase from an old Bob Dillan song, Paul believes that every person has “gotta serve somebody.” All humans must have a master. We will be slaves to whomever or whatever we present the members of our body. Paul labels all authorities, other than God, to whom we become servants – money, self, sensuality, the principalities and powers – as “sin.” The ultimate problem, therefore, is that if we serve “sin” we enslave ourselves to the old aeon of death. It is only by offering our bodies as slaves to righteousness that the new aeon of life dwells in us.

II. Overcoming the Curse

Christ, according to Paul, came not just to “save souls” or to deliver people into heaven. Christ came to bring to everyday people freedom from sin in their everyday life. The problem is that people continue to give themselves over to the enslavement of sin – we keep living in the old aeon. All people must ultimately choose a master, the problem is that we continue to choose to be servants of all of the arenas of sin.

The gospel is often set in the language of the Exodus event. In the same way that the children of Israel found themselves hopelessly enslaved to Pharaoh, so humankind finds that they are hopelessly and continually enslaved to the destructiveness of sin.

God’s answer was to overcome the curse of sin and death. In Paul’s logic, in the same way that death has the final word in every human life, so – in the aeon of Adam – sin had the final word. Apart from Christ, people were hopelessly enslaved to the law, which only served to expose their constant sinfulness. In the old aeon sin continued to have the final word in the world.

“But thanks be to God,” declares Paul, that he raised Christ from the dead. Because Jesus lives then we can be assured that death no longer has the final word in human existence. The power of death has been destroyed, and with that destruction came the end of the reign of sin in the lives of people. Just as death no longer has dominion over Christ, neither should we allow sin to continue to have dominion over our bodies.

III. Present Yourselves and Keep on Presenting

Now that the resurrection of Jesus has made possible life in the new aeon, believers must respond by putting to death the old way of living and allowing the new life of freedom from sin to break into their existence. This response is not simply spiritual it is very physical. In the preceding text (Romans 6:1-15) Paul uses the word that gets translated “present” several times (NRSV). He writes that we should no longer “present” our bodies to sin, as instruments of wickedness, but “present” our bodies to God, as instruments of righteousness.

The word Paul uses (peri-istame) could also be translated “walk alongside.” It is, interestingly, a verb form that connotes continual action. So we could say it this way. In the same way that we used to walk and kept walking alongside sin, we should now walk and keep on walking alongside God. Beyond a one-time commitment, this text calls us to present and then every day keep on presenting our bodies to God for his service.

The reward we get is sanctification. Certainly Paul means by sanctification a state of being freed from the bondage of sin. But beyond a “state of being” things that are sanctified are set apart for special purposes. In other words, the reward we receive by being freed from sin is the amazing opportunity to participate in the holy service of God in the world as his sanctified instrument. This only makes sense. As long as we remain a vessel corrupted by the pollution of slavery to sin we are of little or no use to the Kingdom of God. Instruments that are to be sanctified – made holy – for the use of the Kingdom must be not only ceremonially holy, but also ethically pure in order to be of great service.

Again this is the reward and goal of our salvation, to be freed from sin in order to be of use to God’s redemptive work in the world.

I feel it necessary, given some of the misunderstandings of the Holiness tradition, to insert a small disclaimer here. At times in our tradition this text has been used in a way that confuses freedom from sin with “sinlessness.” Paul is not describing in this passage a kind of life in which sin no longer tempts, tries, or finds its way into the believer’s life. Our hope is not that we will be sinless, our hope is that we can experience freedom from or victory over sin. Freedom from sin means that we need not, nor should we continue to allow sin to have the last word in who we are.

Because Christ confronted death and sin, overcoming both in his glorious resurrection, we have this assurance: death and sin do not get the final word in our existence. We often emphasize eternal life as the conquering of death – and rightly so. But Paul wants us to know that the resurrection means that sin is defeated as well.

What an important message for our world today. As we encounter people who are caught in habits, addictions, and patterns of broken relationships we know that in Christ they can experience freedom from sin. Those habits, addictions, etc. do not get the final word in our existence, the power of Christ does. That is good news!

Overcoming sin, like overcoming death, is not an easy victory. As Martin Luther was known to say, “In baptism Adam is put to death. But he is also a very good swimmer.” Christ’s conquest over death was costly and painful. In the same way, our freedom from sin may take a long process of presenting our bodies day after day to righteousness in order to ultimately experience the freedom from sin God promises. But we can keep on presenting our bodies to him because of our hope that death and sin do not get the last word.

A friend of mine once told me that this Romans text means that Christians should never be allowed to say, “Well that’s old so-and-so. That’s just the way they are” because in Christ “old so-and so” can become “new so-and-so.” That is the free gift of God - eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.