Ransomed: liberty to choose what we ought
Revd Kenneth Padley
21st June 2026
‘Liberty to choose what we ought’
Today is the summer solstice. Almost unbelievably, we are halfway through the year. Earlier this morning, colleagues of a different tradition will have greeted the dawn at Stonehenge. By contrast, Christians at this time are invited to reflect on Baptism. Let me explain. Next Wednesday, June 24th, we will celebrate the nativity of John the Baptist. The third gospel tells us this cousin of Jesus was born six months before the Lord. So if we mark the nativity of Christ in late December, it is appropriate to celebrate the birth of John towards the end of June. More significantly, Jesus and John are what might be described as astral opposites. In the fourth gospel, John the Baptist directed his followers to transfer their loyalties to Jesus, famously remarking that ‘he must increase, but I must decrease’ (John 3.30). So, as we pass the midpoint of the solar year, we are reminded that even the greatest stars in the firmament are eclipsed by the uncreated and undying sun. He must increase, but we must decrease.
The four gospels and the Acts of the Apostles offer much narrative about John the Baptist and early Christian rituals of baptism. But they do not explore the consequences or significance of these ceremonies. They attempt no theology of baptism. For such interpretative thinking, we need to turn to St Paul.
In one his earliest letters, Paul taught that baptism is a bit like putting on a new garment over our mortal identity. He told the Galatians that ‘as many of you as were baptised into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ’ (Gal 3.27).
In today’s reading from Romans chapter 6, Paul offers an alternative and even more dramatic metaphor:
Do you not know that all of us who have been baptised into Christ Jesus were baptised into his death? Therefore we have been buried with him by baptism into death, so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life.
In Galatians, Paul thinks that baptism is akin to putting on a new identity like a piece of clothing. Now, a few years later, he tells the Romans that Baptism is nothing less than an obliteration of the old self so that a new life may begin.
There was a particular need in Rome which drove Paul to accentuate his message in this way. He was responding to a line of thought in the Roman Church which he did not like. He rehearses this line in the first verse of today’s reading: ‘should we continue in sin in order that grace may abound?’ Some in the Roman Church clearly thought that their liberation through Christ meant that ethical conduct no longer mattered. More than that, they thought that if Christ could save them from their mistakes, why not become even more naughty? Surely this would give Jesus further occasions to demonstrate his forgiveness! ‘Should we continue in sin in order that grace may abound?’ they rhetorically quip. ‘By no means’, Paul replies. This, he says, is because Christian liberty is not libertarianism, the freedom to do exactly as we please.
Confronted by the heretical Roman argument, Paul could not recycle the metaphor which he had given the Galatians about baptism being like new clothing. Indeed, such an argument might have played into the heretics’ hands. They would have thought ‘Aha, yes, faith and baptism disguise my identity before God like a tunic. My old sinful self can carry on because God looks not at my corrupt flesh but on my shiny, Christian exterior.’ They even might have concluded that God is disinterested in their inner identity.
Paul rejected any such misinterpretation. Baptism, he said, is as if you had died. It does not cover up your old self. Rather, your old self has been obliterated. Your baptism is a symbolic descent and rising with Jesus. You have left the past behind. You haven’t disguised it. You have got rid of it. That is what faith in Christ achieves. That is what baptism symbolises.
Therefore – Paul continues – because the old self has died, we must strive to avoid sin rather than wallow in it. As we heard,
We know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body of sin might be destroyed, and we might no longer be enslaved to sin… Christ, being raised from the dead, will never die again; death no longer has dominion over him. The death he died, he died to sin, once for all; but the life he lives, he lives to God. So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.
Down the ages some Christians have slid into the same amoral conclusions as Paul’s opponents in Rome. In the western tradition it has been a notable temptation for followers of Saint Augustine with a strong doctrine of election. Such thinkers might argue that, if God has irresistibly and eternally willed my salvation, then surely it doesn’t matter how I live my life. If I have got a get-out-of-jail-free card, I’m safe. I’m in. This line of thought has proved a particular challenge among some radical Protestants who have misunderstood Christian salvation as meaning emancipation from law and order.
One mainstream Protestant, John Calvin, took issue with these radicals. He denounced their ‘antinomian’ – lawless – lifestyles. Calvin followed Augustine in saying that God wills an individual’s salvation, but qualified this by expecting to see change in how that person lives their life. ‘Should we continue in sin in order that grace may abound?’ ask the antinominans with relish. ‘By no means’, reply Paul, Augustine and Calvin in unison.
This is the truth and framework for Christian life that we celebrate at every baptism. Baptism goes to the heart of our purpose and identity as a community. It is not just a ritual for candidates and their immediate family, because it is the duty of every member of this congregation to support each new Christian in their faith. We do this because we too have died and been reborn in Christ.
Paul’s words in Romans chapter 6 are worthy of particular consideration in our twenty-first century context. Ours is a society which is atomised and individualistic. Choice and freedom are much prized. For some this is grounded in the great lie of post-modernism, the notion that I am the centre of my own values and determination. Echoes of this have even crept into the churches. A good example is the modern translation of the Benedictus, the words of Zechariah often recited during Morning Prayer. ‘Blessed be the Lord the God of Israel, who has come to his people and set them free’ trips the modern Church of England version. However, as William Tyndale knew five hundred years ago, this was not what Zechariah said – or, at least, only part of what he said. Tyndale’s words, preserved in the Book of Common Prayer assert a rather more nuanced dependency. ‘Blessed be the Lord God of Israel; for he hath visited and redeemed his people’. ‘Redeemed’ is a more accurate rendering of the underlying Greek than ‘set free’. In Christ we are ransomed, redeemed, exchanged. The chains of sin are broken, only to be replaced by the stronger bonds of God’s love. We are liberated from our old self into a yet more profound captivity to Christ. Through Jesus’ sacrifice for us, we become bound in gratitude to him – such that, as today’s Collect puts it, our prayer is that God would give us grace to dedicate our freedom to his service.
Christ does not set us free to do what we want. He ransoms us to choose what we ought. Let me say that again. Christians are not set us free to do what we want. We are ransomed so that we might choose what we ought. That is the basis of all Christian ethics. It invites a lifestyle profoundly different from the chimera of post-modernist freedom, and is the reality symbolised in the deep waters of baptism.
Amen.