The following is the fifteenth week’s lesson. We died with Christ in Baptism and rose with him. We share in the benefits of his death (justification) and his resurrection (a new life). Our lives are shaped around that truth.

Romans 6:1 What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound? ^2 Certainly not! How shall we who died to sin live any longer in it? ^3 Or do you not know that as many of us as were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death? ^4 Therefore we were buried with Him through baptism into death, that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life.

^5 For if we have been united together in the likeness of His death, certainly we also shall be in the likeness of His resurrection, ^6 knowing this, that our old man was crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves of sin. ^7 For he who has died has been freed from sin. ^8 Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him, ^9 knowing that Christ, having been raised from the dead, dies no more. Death no longer has dominion over Him. ^10 For the death that He died, He died to sin once for all; but the life that He lives, He lives to God. ^11 Likewise you also, reckon yourselves to be dead indeed to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

^12 Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body, that you should obey it in its lusts. ^13 And do not present your members as instruments of unrighteousness to sin, but present yourselves to God as being alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness to God. ^14 For sin shall not have dominion over you, for you are not under law but under grace.

The following is the fourteenth week’s lesson. For a brief interlude, we considered the Christian life according to St. Paul in Romans chapters 6-8. Luther famously coined the phrase simul justus et peccator to describe our life as the Baptized. We are “simultaneously justified and sinner.” This will set the conversation as we move into the chapter 6 and following. Apologies for the audio quality. It should improve in the future.

Here is a brief definition:

“Simultaneously” is a crucial word in Christian theology; it describes life and reality in “the time between”—between Jesus’ first and second coming; the time after the announcement that “the kingdom of God is at hand” (Mark 1:15) and yet the time during which we pray “thy kingdom come” (Matthew 6:10); the time after Jesus’ bodily resurrection yet before our bodily resurrection; the time after God’s judgment against sin on the cross and yet the time when we confess that Christ “will come again to judge the living and the dead.” “Simultaneously” points to this time between the times—the co-existence of two “times” at the same time: the old age and the new creation are both present realities. This means that the Christian lives in two times: in themselves, they remain the old Adam in the old age; in Christ, they share the status of the second Adam (Jesus) in the age to come. Simul iustus et peccator is a way of identifying this double existence. It means, literally, “simultaneously just and sinner.” The point is not that everyone’s a little of each—that the line between good and evil runs through all people as the saying has it. “Just” and “sinner” are total rather than partial realities. The Christian, in him or herself, is totally a sinner while at the same time being, in Christ, totally righteous before God. In other words, Christians are fully human—real people with real problems and real pain. But Christians, at the same time they’re sinners, are fully and savingly loved (Rom 5:6-10).