BAPTISMAL SPIRITUALITY

Romans 6:1-14
What shall we say, then? Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase? By no means! We are
2

those who have died to sin; how can we live in it any longer? Or don’t you know that all of us who
3

were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were therefore buried with him
4

through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of
the Father, we too may live a new life. 
5
For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we will certainly also be united with him in a
resurrection like his. For we know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body ruled by
6

sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin— because anyone who has
7

died has been set free from sin. 

8
Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. For we know that since
9

Christ was raised from the dead, he cannot die again; death no longer has mastery over him. The10

death he died, he died to sin once for all; but the life he lives, he lives to God. 

In the same way, count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus. Therefore do not let
11 12

sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its evil desires. Do not offer any part of yourself to sin
13

as an instrument of wickedness, but rather offer yourselves to God as those who have been brought
from death to life; and offer every part of yourself to him as an instrument of righteousness. For sin
14

shall no longer be your master, because you are not under the law, but under grace.
INTRODUCTION

BAPTISM IN PAUL’S THEOLOGY

The New Testament makes it absolutely clear that all of God’s graces are a gift. To even
suggest that we need to earn God’s grace is a contradiction, because the word grace or
charis literally means to show kindness or to give a present to someone regardless of how
deserving they are. There are many ways in which God shows kindness to us, or showers us
with gifts, but the crowning feature of God’s kindness is shown to us the way in which Jesus
Christ brings us into a right standing with God. The apostle Paul celebrated this kindness and
gift of God in his letter to the Romans by contrasting the great problem of human sin that
distorts and destroys life in our world, with the great love of Jesus Christ who overcame our
separation from God through his obedience and grace.

But God proves his love for us in that while we still were sinners Christ died for us. (Ro 5:8)
While we were enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of his Son. (Ro 5:10)

Because of what Jesus has done for us, Paul tells us, we have been reconciled to God (Rom
5:11). To put this in the strongest possible way Paul borrowed language from both temple
sacrifice and law courts, to say that while we are in fact all guilty of sin, through the
shedding of Christ’s blood on the cross we have been justified or made right in the sight of
God. (Rom 5:8–9).

There are many ways in which this language of sacrifice and lawcourt have been used to
understand what Jesus accomplished for us through his sacrifice, but the main point always
comes back to this: that redemption and salvation in the Christian life are always
understood as God’s gift of kindness to us. Theologians spanning more than a thousand
years of Christian thought, from Paul to Augustine, from Anslem to Calvin, agree that
salvation is God’s gift to us, and not something that we earn or merit for ourselves.

WHAT THAT MEANS FOR US

But this has always caused something of a problem. If salvation is entirely God’s grace, and

PUTTING OUR BAPTISM INTO PRACTICE

CONCLUSION