Opening Prayer
Lord, grant us grace through Your death and resurrection. Amen.
Text: Romans 6:3-11
Or do you not know that as many of us as were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death? Therefore we were buried with Him through baptism into death, that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life. For if we have been united together in the likeness of His death, certainly we also shall be in the likeness of His resurrection, knowing this, that our old man was crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves of sin. For he who has died has been freed from sin. Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him, knowing that Christ, having been raised from the dead, dies no more. Death no longer has dominion over Him. For the death that He died, He died to sin once for all; but the life that He lives, He lives to God. Likewise you also, reckon yourselves to be dead indeed to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Devotion
What a glorious teaching! What power for faith and sanctification! Learn this Epistle well; follow its teaching, then sin can never rule over you. You are righteous and alive and free and strong in Christ. Can sin hold Christ any more? Neither can it hold you who by Baptism are united with Him if you believe. “Since one died for all, then all have died. All believers in Christ have died, have been punished in Christ for their sins which are fully paid for in Christ. Their union with Him by faith makes them all partakers in His suffering and death. But if they are accounted like Him in death, so are they accounted in the resurrection. They already live a life of resurrection in faith. And as Christ’s glory shines in His resurrection, as by resurrection He was set free from all that men had inflicted upon Him and for which they condemned Him, as in the resurrection He was justified by God: so also all believers are justified from all sin by His resurrection, just as they all were punished in His death. A blessed exchange between us sinners and Him, our Substitute! It is a wonderful truth that never entered the thoughts of man, – a truth that no one ever shall comprehend or accept on his own, if God’s Spirit did not in His mercy enlighten us. It is the most firmly and clearly established doctrine that is given, and it gains no foothold among men! And yet the world and its wisdom are vanity compared to this truth, – and if this were not true, then what would there be? – This is our salvation: ‘I in them – and they in Me! I in them, all in all: wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, redemption!’ We are in Him: partakers of everything that He has” (Löhe). So, ponder this Epistle well now, word by word, and pray God’s Spirit to enlighten you. How happy we would be if we understood how to read this our letter of emancipation! Do it diligently, and you shall soon perceive glory in it and learn how you may have the light of the Holy Spirit.
Closing Prayer
We pray You, merciful God, give us the grace of the Spirit to understand the Word, to believe it and follow it. Amen.
Hymn
Thou hast died for my transgression,
All my sins on Thee were laid;
Thou hast won for me salvation,
On the cross my debt was paid;
From the grave I shall arise,
And shall meet Thee in the skies;
Death itself is transitory,
I shall lift my head in glory.
Satan’s arrows all lie broken,
Death and hell have met their doom;
Christ, Thy rising is the token:
Thou hast triumphed o’er the tomb;
Thou hast buried all my woe,
And my cup doth overflow;
By Thy resurrection glorious
I shall wave my palms victorious.
Hymn
Kingo: Like the golden sun ascending L 346:5-6 ELH 354:5-6 tr. G. A. T. Rygh;
tune: Werde munter