Before the apostle Paul challenged believers in Romans 6:12 to “not let sin reign in their bodies,” he reminded them of the gospel and connected the imperative of personal holiness to the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus. Paul’s point was, “Your sin was crucified and buried with Christ. Why would you want to live in it any longer?”
What should we say then? Should we continue in sin so that grace may multiply? Absolutely not! How can we who died to sin still live in it? Or are you unaware that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death? Therefore we were buried with Him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we too may walk in a new way of life. (Rom. 6:1–4)
The implications continue endlessly because the implications of the life, death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus are endless. The apostle John closed his Gospel account with this statement about Jesus:
And there are also many other things that Jesus did, which, if they were written one by one, I suppose not even the world itself could contain the books that would be written. (John 21:25)
There is more to the life of Jesus than could be recorded within the pages of the Bible. But the core of the message—the gospel—has been perfectly communicated to us. It is the content of God’s mission and the message encapsulated in Jesus’ ministry. For us it is the lens through which we understand and live out our faith.
Adapted from Transformational Discipleship (B&H Publishing Group, 2012)
