Luca looked up from his job of pulling dandelions as his friend Roman pedaled his bike up the driveway. “Hey,” called Roman. “Let’s go swimming at the park.”

“Can’t,” Luca replied. “My mom says she’s sick of seeing yellow dandelions instead of green grass, and I have to get rid of them.” He held up the tool he was using. “I work around the plant with this so I can pull out the whole root–and they sure go deep!” He wiped his brow with a dirty hand. “It’s really hot too.”

“Yeah,” said Roman. “Too hot to do it that way. Why not just cut the tops off? Here, I’ll help you. We’ll be done sooner, and then we can go swimming.”

“Okay,” Luca said. The boys soon finished the job and were off to the park.

Several times in the next few weeks, the dandelions sprouted back up and Mom sent Luca out to pull them again. Each time, he simply cut off the tops.

One day Mom came out to talk to him. “I didn’t understand why we kept getting so many dandelions, but now I see the problem. You aren’t pulling them up by the roots the way I showed you.”

“Oh,” said Luca, looking at the weeds in his hand. “I didn’t think it mattered so much, as long as you couldn’t see them.”

“But it does matter,” said Mom. “If the roots are still in the ground, the dandelions grow right back. You have to get rid of the whole thing–roots and all.”

That evening, Dad heard about the returning dandelions. “That’s a good example of the way we sometimes treat sin in our lives,” he said thoughtfully. “If it isn’t seen by other people, we often think it doesn’t matter. But just because it isn’t visible to everyone else doesn’t mean it isn’t harmful. No matter how much we try to cover it up, it will keep popping back up in our lives, hurting us and others.” Dad looked at Luca. “Do you know how to root out sin instead of just trying to hide it?”

Luca nodded. “We need to know Jesus. Then instead of trying to hide our sin, we can ask Him to forgive us.”

Dad nodded. “And set our minds on the new life we have in Him.

In Romans 6:1-11, Paul addresses people who were baptized or preparing for baptism. He talks about the purpose, function, and goal of baptism, in relation to all human beings who are held under the grip of sin and the reign of death. Through baptism, humanity can make the transition from sin into grace.

Paul talks about the believer’s death to sin. He reminds believers of the historical facts of Christ’s death, burial, and resurrection. Paul goes on to explain that through baptism believers are united to Christ and are therefore participants in the experience of Christ. The believer through baptism has died, been buried, and raised again with Jesus. In other words, baptism transforms people by giving them a way to share the death and resurrection of Jesus. Paul believes that the new life of a Christian would be evident in two ways:

1. Those who are baptized into Christ will celebrate His victory over death. They will live with Him forever.
2. Those who are baptized into Christ will celebrate His conquest of sin. They will live true and holy lives right now.

As Christian theology has developed, one section of the church has seen baptism as a sacrament while a second section regards it as a symbol. For the first group baptism conveys grace to the baptized person. Taken to its extreme, this approach removes the necessity for repentance and faith and elevates baptism to the lofty status of the means of salvation. Those who see baptism as a symbol of spiritual reality may decide that as rites are relatively unimportant when compared to reality, the rite can be dispensed with without losing any spiritual benefit. This position has been adopted by groups such as The Salvation Army.

Our need for redemption surfaces immediately in the biblical story. In following the serpent’s wishes, Adam and Eve found themselves captive to the power of the knowledge of good and evil. This set in motion the drama of redemption-God’s plan to set humanity free from the power of sin through the perfect obedience of His Son, who would stand in for the human race as both sacrifice and Redeemer.

The first revelation of the good news appears in Genesis 3:14-15: “So the Lord God said to the serpent…you are cursed…and I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her Seed. He shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise His heel.” But with that announcement came word of a conflict between the Serpent and the Seed of Eve, or Christ. The Serpent would bruise His heel, but the Seed would crush the head of the Serpent. This complete and utter defeat of Satan will open the doors of sin’s prison and allow its captives to be set free.

The descendants of Abraham were given a foretaste of that ultimate redemption when they were released from slavery in Egypt. Indeed, they may have even thought their redemption was the fulfillment of Genesis 3:15. They were being promised a land of milk and honey and the permanent presence of God with them. But it did not take long for them to see that although they had been physically redeemed from slavery, they were still captives to the power of sin. They would need a more powerful deliverer than Moses to set them totally free.

Jesus of Nazareth came some 1,500 years later, applying the words of Isaiah 61 to Himself: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me, because He has anointed me…to proclaim liberty to the captives…to set at liberty those who are oppressed.” Jesus announced Himself to be Israel’s Deliverer in a synagogue in Nazareth at the beginning of His ministry—not long after making it clear to the serpent, in a face-to-face confrontation, that He would not repeat the mistakes of Adam and Eve. By Christ’s obedience to God, He would stand in for the fallen race of Adam and redeem His descendants.

Therefore, Paul called Jesus “the last Adam” in 1 Corinthians 15:45. As soon as God announced His approval of Jesus and His baptism, the Spirit led Him into the wilderness to be confronted by the Serpent. With every advantage and provision in the Garden of Eden, the first Adam had succumbed. With no provisions except faith and the words of God for 40 days in the wilderness, Jesus remained resolute in the face of temptation. Redemption was clearly drawing near.

When Christ came into the world He came from the glory of heaven sinless, spotless, undefiled, and separated from sin. When He entered human society, He was met with sin’s power and presence. He lived among the carnage and wreckage of sin. When He went to the Cross, He assumed our sin and bore the wrath of God against our sin. Having come from an environment where sinlessness was normative to a situation where sin is pervasive and having taken on His sinless self the load of a race’s sin, it is no surprise that He cried from the Cross at the end of His ministry, “It is finished” and died. The nightmare of sin, the horrors of death and hell, the tyranny of sin’s hold on people had been dealt with, and He could go to the grave anticipating His Resurrection with joy and delight.

Jesus taught that redemption from the power of sin was humanity’s greatest need. In John 8:34, Jesus says that “Most assuredly, I say to you, whoever commits sin is a slave of sin.” Because death is the wages of sin, there was only one proof that man could be redeemed from sin’s penalty and power: the Redeemer would have to submit to death in order to be released from its grasp, which is what Jesus did. And all who believe in Jesus’ redemptive work can go down into death and be raised with Him by faith, free from the power and penalty of sin.

The past tense of the verbs in this passage are worth noting, especially the one that says, “We were buried.” The baptized person is given an assurance of the death of the former life and that sin no longer has power over his/her life. How can anyone die to sin? Paul is talking about something already done by another—namely Christ—not something people do. In the Greek language, the verb form of “died” often signifies summarizing a past event from an eternal perspective—an event that is already past, not an ongoing process.

The apostle Paul wrote of the ultimate consummation of God’s redemptive drama and the fulfillment of the promise of Genesis 3:15. Though Satan is still alive and active, creation and the Christian live in expectation of the day when Christ returns to permanently seal the Serpent’s fate. Our victory is certain; indeed, it has already been won.

In verses 3 and 4, Paul’s fundamental meaning is the identification of the believer with Christ as pictured through baptism into the body of Christ at the moment of conversion. Water baptism, the public mark of faith in God, is symbolic of personal, vital identification with Christ.

Christ’s death was the believer’s death; His burial the believer’s burial; His resurrection the believer’s resurrection. He not only died for them, but He died as them. Believers are united in Him in His death and burial and in His resurrection.

The phrase “old man” refers to the believer’s old self, the unregenerate sons of Adam. The phrase “body of sin” does not mean “a mass of sin,” or sin that resides in the body but that the body is the seat, or instrument, of sin. The phrase “done away with” does not mean “annihilated” but “reduced to a state of inaction or impotence.” It means defeated, disabled, deprived of power.

Only the most corrupt mind using the most perverted logic could argue that continuing in sin somehow honours the God who sacrificed His Son to save people in the first place. From Genesis to Revelation, a scarlet thread runs through Scripture. This idea of setting free or releasing from bondage is both the prevalent thesis of God’s Word and the reason why the Living Word, Jesus Christ, came to earth. The word “reckon” has to do with reality. It means acknowledging or acting on what is already true or has already happened. Christians need to reckon, conclude, and accept that they are no longer slaves to sin but have been set free.

Believers should no longer serve sin. Now that the “man of old” has been dealt with in Christ and the new man has been shown that the sin which previously controlled his physical body has been dealt with, he should recognize that he is no longer a slave to sin. Although our old selves are dead, sin retains a foothold in our temporal flesh or our unredeemed humanness, with its corrupted desires. The believer does not have two competing natures, the old and the new, but one new nature that is still in prison in unredeemed flesh, but the term “flesh” is not the same as the physical body, which can be an instrument of holiness.

Think of it this way. Sin put us in prison. Sin locked us behind the bars of guilt, shame, deception, and fear. Sin chained us to the wall of misery. Jesus came and paid our bail. He paid the penalty and set us free. Christ died, and when we cast our lot with Him, our old selves died too.

The only way to be set free from the prison of sin is to serve its penalty. In this case the penalty is death. Someone has to die-either us or a heaven-sent substitute. We can’t leave prison unless there is a death. That death happened at Calvary. When Jesus died, sin’s claim to our lives died. We are free.

Is there a sin in your life you’re trying to keep covered so others won’t see it? No matter how you try to hide a sin, it will keep popping back up. It needs to be pulled up by the roots, and the only way to do that is to confess it to Jesus. Even though you may continue to struggle with that sin, don’t let it stay covered up. Remember that Jesus has freed you from the power of sin and will always forgive you.

Bibliography

1. Jeremiah, David: The Jeremiah Study Bible: New King James Version (Nashville, TN: Worthy Publishing; 2013; pp. 1551-1552)
2. Briscoe, D.S., & Ogilvie, L.J.: The Preacher’s Commentary Series, Vol. 29: Romans (Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson Inc.; 1982; pp. 128-133)
3. Stanley, C.F.: The Charles F. Stanley Life Principles Bible: New King James Version (Nashville, TN: Nelson Bibles; 2005)
4. MacArthur, J.F. Jr.: The MacArthur Study Bible: New American Standard Bible (Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson Publishers; 2006)
5. Lucado, M.: The Lucado Life Lessons Study Bible (Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson; 2010; pp. 1567-1568)
6. A.W. Smith, “Roots and All.” Retrieved from info@keysforkids.org
7. Israel Kamudzandu, “Commentary on Romans 6:1b-11.” Retrieved from www.workingpreacher.com
8. Carla Pratt Keyes, “Romans 6:1b-11.” Retrieved from www.asermonforeverysunday.com