Passage of the Day - December 29, 2012

Romans 6:1-7

What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin so that grace may increase? ² May it never be! How shall we who died to sin still live in it? ³ Or do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus have been baptized into His death? ⁴ Therefore we have been buried with Him through baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life. ⁵ For if we have become united with Him in the likeness of His death, certainly we shall also be in the likeness of His resurrection, ⁶ knowing this, that our old self was crucified with Him, in order that our body of sin might be done away with, so that we would no longer be slaves to sin; ⁷ for he who has died is freed from sin.

This passage appears to point to two things.  First, it points to baptism by immersion as immersion best represents the likeness of being buried and subsequently being raised from the dead.  Secondly, it points to baptism being more than a mere outward sign of an inward reality.  Baptism is the joining our old self to Christ in His crucifixion and thereby making it an execution of our old self.  Without this execution, we are still slaves to sin.  Only with our new resurrected self can we ever hope to glorify and please God.

Scripture taken from the NEW AMERICAN STANDARD BIBLE®,
© Copyright 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995 by The Lockman Foundation
Used by permission." (http://www.lockman.org/)