In the last two weeks, our church witnessed several baptisms where people professed their faith in Jesus and shared their testimonies of how Jesus saved them from their sins and gave them new life.
During baptisms, I often read Scripture from Romans 6, which says, “Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.”
This “newness of life” is sometimes understood as a second chance at life. When we experience the brokenness of our sins and the hurt that comes from sins of others in the world, we desperately want a second chance—a do-over. However, this newness of life that Jesus offers is so much more than just a do-over; it’s not merely a clean slate upon which you can try again, because if it were so, it most certainly would lead us to need a third chance, a fourth, and so forth. No, what God promises is that he would give us a newness of life—this time with him at the helm; leading us and guiding us. Jesus not only provides a new life but an opportunity to abide in him and follow him. This time, he is our Lord and Saviour. We don’t have to walk through life alone.
If you continue reading in Romans 6, you’ll find these words: “For the death [Jesus] died he died to sin, once for all, but the life he lives he lives to God, so you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.”
