The Living Dead... to Sin

This Sunday's reading from Romans 6:1-11 contains Paul's logical approach to the problem of sin in the context of those who have been baptized.

What then are we to say? Should we continue in sin in order that grace may abound? By no means! How can we who died to sin go on living in it? Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? Therefore we have been buried with him by baptism into death, so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life.

 For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we will certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his. We know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body of sin might be destroyed, and we might no longer be enslaved to sin. For whoever has died is freed from sin. But if we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. We know that Christ, being raised from the dead, will never die again; death no longer has dominion over him. The death he 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.

The accusation of many non-church goers is that we who regularly attend are a bunch of hypocrites who live sinful lives during the week while pretending to be alive in Christ on Sundays. 

Putting sin to death was Jesus' job. For most of us it is an ongoing process of accepting what He has done and trying to be living examples of what it means to be alive in Christ. Those of us who are church goers in the Anglican tradition confess our sins before we present ourselves for communion. 

Even hypocrites are forgiven by the grace of God when they confess.