Polycarp was a disciple of the apostle John and later bishop of Smyrna. He was burned at the stake for his faith when he was eighty six years old. What could an 86-year-old man do to hurt the Roman Empire? What made him such a threat? Actually it was what he believed and preached that made him so dangerous. He was absorbed with the gospel of Jesus the Christ.

I was listening recently to a "gospel sermon" by a contemporary preacher. He talked of knowing for sure that if you died tonight you would go to heaven. He spoke of being free from the self-conflicting doubts. He offered personal freedom from guilt, and a better self-image. I wonder if that is what got Polycarp burned at the stake. That wouldn’t have threatened any religious or political system. Almost any tyrant would want the people to have this kind of solace. What about the gospel infuriated both the Jews and the Romans?

You can’t read the New Testament without seeing the conflict. As Paul and his companions traveled around the Mediterranean they were constantly buffeted by the Jewish legalist who believed Paul was preaching a law-free gospel. They were sure it was blasphemy. Even those who had transitioned toward being Christian were afraid that law-free gospel would turn into moral disaster. The Jews and/or the Judaizers kept stirring up trouble in every city for the gospel preachers. Then the Romans were afraid of the gospel because it proclaimed the existence of a new and better kingdom. It demanded allegiance to a king who had been raised from the dead and vowed to rule eternally. The preaching of the gospel was an attack on both the religious and civil systems that depended on fear for survival. It majored on what God had done in Jesus’ death and resurrection. The invitation was to participate in a new creation that would consummate history in the name of Jesus. It was a life so superior to that which the Law of Israel and the luxury of Rome produced that it threatened both.

This is the gospel Paul wrote about to the church at Rome. They had never met him and he sought to describe for them what had captured him so completely that he was willing to die for it. As he develops his thought in the treatise he comes to what we call chapters 6 through 8. It seems to be the high point of the letter as it relates to the life we can expect to live when we have believed the gospel. Paul goes back to the greatest event in the history of Israel—the Exodus—and uses it as type of the journey we make as we come to faith in Jesus our ultimate deliverer. Generally chapter six tells of the deliverance of the baptism that occurred at the Red Sea; chapter seven speaks of the Law given at Sinai and Chapter eight of the land of inheritance. Paul saw Christ as the ultimate fulfillment of what God had foreshadowed in these events. Sure, they were real historical events that were meaningful in the life of Israel, but they pointed to a greater experience in God. As they were delivered through the waters of the Sea by the mighty hand of God, they were "baptized" into Moses. Today we can be delivered from the greater slave-master, Sin, by being baptized into Jesus. Identifying with Moses who had met with God on their behalf got them across the sea. Identifying with Jesus who died, was buried, and was raised from the dead would get us out of slavery and into freedom. Later they were given the Law that ordered life after the righteousness of God. They were dignified by the gift. No nation had such detailed and effective instructions about every aspect of life on earth. But they were not able to submit to it. It brought out the flesh—hostility to God’s rule they weren’t even aware of. It awakened their recognition that it was right, but they found a power working inside that wouldn’t keep it. This prepared them for the Deliverer who would lead them into the land of full inheritance. But the inheritance that God had in mind was not of land and buildings. It was the whole earth redeemed to normalcy. It began with His people as living temples indwelt by the Holy Spirit. Chapter eight is the land of Promise. The Spirit fulfilled every shadow of the Law and enabled the living temples to display the glory of God throughout the whole earth until the day that He consummates it with full restoration.

We have a new status. Just as the slaves of Egypt became the son of God,

We have been declared the sons of God by virtue of our identification with Jesus in His death and resurrection. Some ask, "Is baptism necessary for salvation?" The answer is unequivocally, yes. But it is not the water and the method that is the issue. It is the identification. Every man is either "in Adam" or "in Christ". But before mankind could move to the ultimate status of liberty, there had to be the baptism "in Moses".

Israel was "in Moses" when they were delivered from Pharaoh. Later the Jews refused to embrace the God of Moses and tried to identify with Moses alone.

Trying to identify with any covenant except the one God sees as viable is useless and damning. Moses and his covenant of Law could never take the flesh out of the people. Identifying with him and his economy would only expose the need of a deliverer. It could never deliver. To get out of Adam there would have to come one who could pay the penalty of death but live again. Only Jesus can make a new creation. Those who are baptized (identified) with Him are now on the other side of the Law’s death and Sin’s slavery. Notice that in the New Testament we are said to be "in Christ" or "in Messiah". It is our inclusion in Messiah that enables us to fulfill the purpose of God. Jesus as the last Adam and the ultimate Israelite died and was raised. Adam failed. Israel failed. Jesus the Messiah fulfilled the purpose of both—and we get the benefit. We are "in Christ" people. We are the sons of Abraham; the nation of priests, the peculiar people of God.

Because of our new status we have a new liberty. It is already granted. It is part of the inheritance. It is as much ours as it can ever be. The lingering problem is that we are accustomed to living with a slavery mentality and have trouble believing on a daily basis that we have been set free.

Maggie lived for 28 years as Horace’s wife. She had learned to survive a tense and unpleasant situation. Horace evidently had not learned at the knee of a gentle father/husband himself. He was, to say the least, emotionally abusive. His expectations of a wife were off the chart ridiculous. For these reasons, Maggie lived in constant fear of his erupting temper and exacting demands. Her every conscious thought included ways to appease Horace or to avoid irritating him. Then one day he died. She grieved. She missed him a lot. After three years she met Jeff. He seemed to delight in treating her as a queen. After several months he asked her to marry him. She cautiously said yes. After the ceremony she expected him to emerge as a Horace. He didn’t. He continued to treat her with the utmost dignity. She was the star of his universe and he couldn’t do enough to show her how much she deserved being loved. Maggie began having a crisis. She was waiting for the other shoe to fall. She had programmed her soul to respond to Horace and now she had a new relationship that was nothing like the one with Horace. It took time and conscious effort to acclimate her emotions and thoughts to her new status. It was a daily reprogramming of her soul. Before it was too late she began enjoying the benefits or her new status and its new relationship.

Romans chapter 7 gives us a similar picture. Married to the Law we expect the relationship to consist of rules, expectations, performances, and failure. In Paul’s story, instead of the Law dying, we die, but because we are made alive again in Christ, we are married this time to Messiah. He has fulfilled all the expectations of the Law and paid all penalties outstanding against us. We are now free to explore the riches that are ours because we have been brought out of slavery and into the liberty of the Spirit.

But it starts with being baptized into Jesus the Messiah. Without that we have no status; no new identity; no new relationship; no new creation.

So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.

This is the heart of a gospel that threatens the status quo. It transforms people who transform cultures who topple empires built on fear instead of love. It is about more than assurance of going to heaven and feeling better about ourselves. It is about God acting in history to redeem history for the glory of His Son. We are recruited to join His kingdom by being baptized into Jesus and rising to walk in a new way.