Crucified With Christ

Or do you not know that as many of us as were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death.

…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.

Romans 6:3 & 6

Our baptism by the Spirit into Christ was, as Paul puts it ‘into His death.’  Because it was, ‘our old man was crucified with Him.’  The practical effect of that is, ‘that we should be no longer slaves of sin.’  What is it to be a slave of sin?  It means that sin is the master.  Sin is selfishness in action.  If we consider a few examples from the Ten Commandments, it becomes very clear.  To lie is to refuse to speak the truth because there is some selfish motive that the truth will not serve.  To steal is to take for myself what does not belong to me in order to have what I want.  To commit adultery is to satisfy my own appetite in such a way as to deprive another person of what is theirs.  By contrast, we behold Christ as He exhibited the life of utter selflessness and in that also sinlessness.  Because the Spirit baptizes us ‘into His death’ and therefore we are ‘crucified with Him,’ we, in following Him learn by degrees to live selflessly.  This goes down to the most common interactions of our everyday relationships.  The more like Christ we live, the less we live like the old selfish person we were.  This is a wholesale transformation which is the result of our baptism into Christ by the Spirit. 

Our Great and Gracious God,
we rejoice that You have put us into Christ.
We praise You that You are working in us
a wholesale transformation to conform us to His image.

Tomm Tice
Where the Bush is Burning