“Reading Romans: Dying and Rising with Christ”

Dying and rising is the shared experience that Paul wants to build on in this letter.

[1] Painting in the Grotto of St. Paul, Ephesus, late 5th century

Romans 6:1-11

July 5, 2026

Dr. Todd R. Wright

Consider with me for a moment not the audience or the author, but the purpose of this letter.

This is Paul’s attempt to introduce himself to the believers living in far-away Rome, people who do not know his face or his voice… yet.

Perhaps they have heard rumors, but they can be distortions, exaggerations, lies.

He wants to establish a relationship based on the truth; a relationship that links them.

So he writes using images and phrases to capture their attention… and keep it!

He also draws on familiar stories and practices… to establish common ground.

He crafts this letter hoping to wrangle an invitation to visit.

But to accomplish that, he has to give them a reason to hear what he has to say.

So, in today’s passage he reminds them of the power of baptism.

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We Presbyterians say that baptism… “holds a deep reservoir of theological meaning, including: dying and rising with Jesus Christ; pardon, cleansing, and renewal; the gift of the Holy Spirit; incorporation into the body of Christ; and a sign of the realm of God.”[1]

I find it interesting that the description of baptism in our Book of Order – “a sign and seal of our incorporation into Christ” – makes reference to one verse, our final verse today, “You must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to Christ.”

Interesting, because while we baptize with “a visible and generous use of water,”[2] it’s usually applied with a cupped hand, not by immersion.

But immersion was common in the early church, and it symbolically replicates going down into the grave and being raised to new life. (Howard can tell you what that’s like!)

Dying and rising is the shared experience that Paul wants to build on in this letter.

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In the early 1920s, archeologists exploring the desert ruins of Dura-Europos, a Roman border city in modern-day Syria, uncovered frescos surrounding a bathing pool – the baptistry of an ordinary house converted to a place of worship, the oldest known church building in the world.[3]

Here’s how one scholar describes what a baptism taking place there would have looked like:

“On Easter morning, just before the sun rose, flickering lamplight would have illuminated the drawings as new converts to Christianity kneeled, stark naked, in the water. One by one, each publicly affirmed the tenets of the faith and renounced Satan and his demons before being submerged three times in the cold water – in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

After baptism, converts were given white robes to signify their new life in Christ and anointed with oil, marking them as members of the [body of Christ]. They then joined their fellow believers to celebrate the eucharistic meal for the first time.

Christian life began with the acknowledgement of two uncomfortable realities – evil and death – and in baptism, the Christian makes the audacious claim that neither one gets the final word!”[4]

So whether the members of the Christian community in Rome had Jewish roots or Gentile ones, they would have all experienced baptism by immersion.

Still, they may not have fully understood the implications for sin and salvation, death and life.

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Rachel Held Evans thinks she knows what Paul was getting at. She writes,

“Our sins – hate, fear, greed, jealousy, lust, materialism, pride – can at times take such distinct forms that we recognize them in the faces of the gargoyles that guard cathedral doors. And these sins join in a chorus – you might even say a legion – of voices locked in an ongoing battle with God to lay claim over our identity, to convince us that we belong to them, that they have the right to name us.

Where God calls the baptized ‘beloved’, demons call her addict, slut, sinner, failure, fat, worthless, faker, screwup. Where God calls her ‘child’, demons beckon with [tempting labels:]

rich, powerful, pretty, important, esteemed, accomplished, right.

In baptism, the Christian stands naked and unashamed before all these demons – all these impulses and temptations, sins and failures, empty sales pitches and screwy labels – and says, ‘I am a beloved child of God and I renounce anything or anyone who says otherwise.’”[5]

That is what is going on when you baptize, Paul says to the believers in Rome and to us!

You are claiming your identity “in Christ”. Don’t let anything undermine that that!

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But there is more. Eugene Peterson paraphrases Paul’s words this way in the Message:

“If we’ve left the country where sin is sovereign, how can we still live in our old house there? Or didn’t you realize we packed up and left there for good? That is what happened in baptism. When we went under the water, we left the old country of sin behind; when we came up out of the water, we entered into the new country of grace — a new life in a new land!”[6]

Almost everybody in the Roman congregation came from somewhere else. They would have understood about leaving the old country behind and making a home in a new land!

And yet, as the presence of little Italys and Chinatowns all over the world testify, people don’t easily give up their old ways. We cling. We cluster. We can’t imagine anything else, as if that is all we can ever be.

Paul says, “Nonsense!” We Christians have left a land of sin and now grace is our address!

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Finally, Paul stresses one more thing – baptism is about dying and rising with Christ.

Evans tries to explain what he means, and what it implies:

“Baptism declares that God is in the business of bringing dead things back to life, so if you want in on God’s business, you better follow God to all the rock-bottom, scorched-earth, dead-on-arrival corners of this world – including those in your own heart – because that’s where God works, where God gardens. Baptism reminds us that there is no ladder to holiness to climb, no self-improvement plan to follow. It’s just death and resurrection, over and over again, day after day, as God reaches down into our deepest graves and with the same power that raised Jesus from the dead, wrests us from our pride, our apathy, our fear, our prejudice, our anger, our hurt, and our despair.”[7]

God does that! Remember that every time you see the water poured into the baptismal font following the prayer of confession, every time sin shames you, every time you wish for grace.

Claim Paul’s words to the Romans, as paraphrased in the Message: “Sin speaks a dead language that means nothing to you; God speaks your mother tongue, and you hang on every word. You are dead to sin and alive to God. That’s what Jesus did.”[8]

If I were the Romans, I’d want to hear more from this guy. So we’ll continue next week. Amen

[1] Here and following from W-3.0402 in the Book of Order

[2] From W-3.0407 in the Book of Order

[3] See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dura-Europos_church

[4] From Searching for Sunday by Rachel Held Evans, pages 17-18

[5] Ibid, pages 19-20

[6] Romans 6:1-3

[7] From Searching for Sunday by Rachel Held Evans, page 21

[8] Romans 6:11