Focal Passage: Romans 6:5-14
“A picture is worth a thousand words.” While some have attributed this saying to Napoleon and some to Einstein, we don’t really know for sure who originally coined this phrase.
Regardless of who said it first the meaning remains the same. Pictures can communicate multiple and complex ideas in a single snapshot while it would take many words to accomplish the same thing.
I’m pretty sure printing a picture here in place of written content breaks the B&R rules, so I’m going to do my best to describe an image to you. The main point of our passage is for believers to live out the reality that we are dead to sin and alive to God.
Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead and calling him out of the tomb (John 11:1-44) is a powerful picture that relates to Romans 6:5-14 in a profound way. My hope is to get us to see this relation clearly. And just so you know I don’t have a thousand words to do so.
Notice that the passage we are considering speaks about the power of sin in the past tense. Believers have been set free from the dominion of sin in their lives. One of the ways Christians can overcome sin is to be reminded how significant a work salvation is. We were not just good people made better by Jesus, we were dead people made alive.
When we read John 11 we find that Lazarus was dead. It sounds overly simple but there was a belief in ancient Jewish culture that when someone died their spirit would hover over their body for three days hoping to reenter it. While untrue, this is why it is so significant that Lazarus had been dead for four days (John 11:17, 39).
A teenager today might describe Lazarus as being “like super-dead.” In a spiritual sense that was us. A rotting corpse of unrighteousness. When we are willing to recognize what we were (dead), we will appreciate what we are (alive), and we will celebrate what it took to make that happen (Jesus).
If it was not for Jesus, Lazarus would have stayed in the tomb, as would we. Romans 6:8-11 tells us that we are united to Christ in His death and resurrection. In John 11:43 Jesus called Lazarus out of the grave. Based upon the power of Jesus, Lazarus lived again! Romans 6:12-14 shows us that based upon our new life we should not allow sin to rule over us. Romans 6:6-7 describes this reality as being freed from the slavery of sin.
In the last verse of the Lazarus narrative, Jesus says something that otherwise might be easy for us to miss. Jesus told the people to help Lazarus, “unbind him and let him go” (John 11:44).
Lazarus was wrapped head to toe in grave clothes. Imagine this newly resurrected man making his way out of the grave still wrapped up in these linen strips. It was probably a rather mummy-ish sight. We should see our sin like the strips of cloth that once bound up a dead body. We are called, as Lazarus was, to be freed from what once held us in bondage. Grave clothes are for the dead, not the living.
