For a description of the (Y2) reading plan, see the “About” page.
Rom. 6
What does it mean practically for you to consider yourself dead to sin but alive to God today? “For we know that our old self was crucified with Him so that the body ruled by sin might be done away with” (Rom. 6:6a). There is a note in the NIV saying that “done away with” can also be translated as “rendered powerless”. I like that because clearly we still struggle with sin even after being given a new life in Christ. So the old self doesn’t really seem gone. But to know that it is powerless…that is encouraging!
I have noted repeatedly that each of us really only has two choices. The story of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden clearly illustrates this. The Garden contained one forbidden tree. The choices, then, were to avoid that tree and live or to eat of it and die. That’s it. Two opposing options; two opposite outcomes. Paul covers that clearly here. “[Either] you are slaves to sin, which leads to death, or to obedience, which leads to righteousness”, that is, life. (Rom. 6:16b).
The Old Testament shows us that we are naturally slaves to sin. You might say that we were born that way. However, when we, by faith, die to sin with Christ and are resurrected into His life, our sin nature loses its power over us. We no longer have to serve it because the only power it has is the power we give it. When we choose instead to serve our new Master, it is we who receive the power to overcome.
Lev. 25-26
What happened in the year of Jubilee and what was God’s purpose in it? God’s Sabbath rest is a fractal thing. The simplified definition of “fractal” is a pattern that repeats itself across different scales. So we see God’s Sabbath rest repeated on a daily, yearly, and multi-year scale. Interesting. The Jubilee is the multi-year Sabbath. It actually occurs after the seventh Sabbath year, starting after the Day of Atonement in that year. “Consecrate the fiftieth year and proclaim liberty throughout the land to all its inhabitants.” (Lev. 25:10a).
Once again, God is showing us His redemption plan. With the Sabbath year, God shows us that everything that exists is His. He shows us that even the land, which became cursed with the sin of humanity, will also one day be redeemed and enter into His rest. And He even shows us that redemption requires trust. Obedience to the Sabbath year and the Jubilee required the people to trust Him to provide for them. Furthermore, with the year of Jubilee, God shows us that liberty comes when we enter into His ultimate rest after our atonement, which we know is in Christ. God will redeem all of His people because we “belong to [Him] as servants” (Lev. 25:55a). He bought us with a price, and we are His. And, as we just saw in Romans, being a servant of God gives us life.