Freedom For
Christianity has two ordinances, and they deal with the same concern: the sin problem. Both ordinances derive from the same event: Christ’s death to solve that problem. We can revisit that connection by reading Romans 6:1-13:
“So should we say, ‘Let’s keep sinning so there’ll be more grace’? 2Goodness, no! How can we who died to sin keep living in it? 3Don’t you know that we who were baptized into Christ Jesus, were baptized into his death? 4Baptism buried us with him into death. As the Father gloriously raised Christ from the dead, we too can live in a new life. 5If we’ve participated in what’s like his death, we’ll participate in what’s like his resurrection. 6Know this: our old self was crucified with him to destroy the sinful body so we wouldn’t serve sin anymore. 7Whoever dies is justified from sin. 8If we’ve died with Christ, we believe we’ll live with him. 9We know that since Christ arose from the dead, he won’t die again, and death doesn’t have control over him. 10The death he died, he died to sin once and for all; the life he lives now, he keeps living to God. 11We consider ourselves dead to sin too, but alive to God in Christ Jesus.”
12“So don’t let sin prevail in your mortal body by yielding to its drives. 13Don’t keep offering your members as tools for unrighteousness. Offer yourselves to God as alive from the dead, and offer your members to him as tools for righteousness.”
In that text the apostle refers several times to what our baptism into identity with Christ freed us from and committed us to: not living any longer in sin (2), walking in a newness of life (4), living with Christ (8), being alive to God (11), presenting ourselves to God and our members to him as tools of righteousness (13).
Observing the loaf and cup reminds us to carry through on what we commit ourselves to in our baptism. Both ordinances grow out of what the Lord in his death made possible for us: freedom for living a new life made possible by the death that these emblems remind us of.