“I believe in…the resurrection of the body” says the Third Article of the Apostles’ Creed. Martin Luther explains: “On the Last Day He will raise me and all the dead, and give eternal life to me and all believers in Christ. This is most certainly true” (Small Catechism).
That eternal future, that God will speak life into your dead body on the Last Day, means you live differently here-and-now. Think about the differences between a body that is dead and a body that is alive. You can list many differences but here’s one you may not have thought about. A dead body doesn’t sin. When you go to a visitation in a funeral home, you remember that person and perhaps think about some of his or her sins, but that deceased person in front of you is not sinning. “One who has died has been set free from sin” (Romans 6:7). As you have been united by faith and baptism in the death of Christ and are promised new and imperishable life with Him in His resurrection, you can’t help but live a new life here-and-now. “Oh, that day when freed from sinning, I shall see Thy lovely face” (Lutheran Service Book, 686, 4). You anticipate that tomorrow with newness of life today.
“How can we who died to sin still live in it? 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…. So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus. Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, to make you obey its passions” (Romans 6:2-4, 11-12).
Martin Luther: “If we look at sin in our heart, it will be much too strong for us and will live on forever. But if we see that it rests on Christ and is overcome by resurrection, and then boldly believe this, then sin is dead and nullified” (A Sermon on the Meditation of Christ’s Passion)
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