Friday after Quasi modo geniti Sunday
Posted on April 12, 2024 by under
Scripture: Romans 6:3-11 (NKJV)
6:3 Or do you not know that as many of us as were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death? 4 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.
5 For if we have been united together in the likeness of His death, certainly we also shall be in the likeness of His resurrection, 6 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. 7 For he who has died has been freed from sin. 8 Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him, 9 knowing that Christ, having been raised from the dead, dies no more. Death no longer has dominion over Him. 10 For the death that He died, He died to sin once for all; but the life that He lives, He lives to God. 11 Likewise you also, reckon yourselves to be dead indeed to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Devotion
Baptism is powerful and effective. Many of us came to faith when we were baptized as infants. Baptism has the power to do that, because it is done at Christ’s command and with His words. So we see God at work in our baptism, working the forgiveness of sins in us as He has promised.
Baptism is also a very powerful symbol, in part because of its real power to cause us to be born again from above, and in part because of the similarity with Christ’s own death and resurrection. So we might ask ourselves the question: should we sin more, so that God can be even more gracious to us? The answer, of course, is definitely “no.” Just as Christ truly died for our sins on the cross, and just as Christ truly rose again in triumph from the dead, in the very same way, our old Adam has been put to death. Christ died to save us from sin, not for sin. It would be a grievous error to run headlong into deliberate, willful sin. Rather, we live our lives to God. We still have the Old Adam with us, but we strive against it with the help of Christ and the Holy Spirit.
Collect: Grant, we beseech Thee, Almighty God, that we who have celebrated the solemnities of the Lord’s Resurrection, may, by the help of Thy grace, bring forth the fruits thereof in our life and conversation; through the same Jesus Christ, Thy Son, our Lord, Who liveth and reigneth with Thee and the Holy Ghost, ever One God, world without end. Amen.
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
