Read Romans to get a background on this post: Listen to it on your bible app.

The walking dead

How did Jesus and Paul know we’d be watching Zombies today? There is a fascination with zombies that I frankly don’t understand. How is it that the dead/undead are so compelling and people have a fascination with trying to understand and track the behavior of such things? I can remember growing up, and watching old black and white movies of mummies, the undead, and classic horror films with Boris Karloff. I guess it probably is something inside us to try and figure out life, death, and resurrection without actually understanding it.

Here’s the interesting truth: You are already dead! If you haven’t accepted Jesus Christ as your savior and lord, then you are dead in your sins. You are under the law of sin and death. But – here’s another truth: If you have accepted Jesus, your old life and self have been put to death on the cross with Jesus, and you have been born again, in newness of life. Either way, YOU are dead!

What if, when we took a person through baptism, the old self was all dressed in black and was a zombie-like figure, coming to the waters of baptism, stepping into the water, and confessing the Lordship of Jesus and His atoning sacrifice on our behalf; Then, as the black-clad zombie with a wedding ring on went down into the water, never to be seen again, and what came back up out of the water was a baby, clean and pure with white swaddling clothes on and a different wedding ring on? If we could see that imagery, we would more clearly understand a number of key truths that I will outline now:

We are dead in our sin – Ephesians 2

We are married to the law – Romans 7

The only way to be free from the law of sin and death is not to do away with the law, because it is right and true. No – the only way to free you from this marriage to the law that you are “dead” in, is to kill you again. By killing you, you are no longer bound to this marriage. Now, you can be crucified with Christ and resurrected in the newness of life in The Spirit. You are now joined (married, in a sense) to your savior.

You are born again in Christ – John 3, 2 Corinthians 5

Jesus described this reality to Nicodemus in John 3. Now, begin to re-think what happens when someone goes through the waters of baptism?

If we stopped viewing someone who comes up out of the waters of baptism as simply a cleaned-up, wet, version of their former selves, and instead viewed them as they were, a newborn baby, maybe we would take to heart more seriously the admonition to train them up and teach them to obey all that Jesus commanded. We’d also be really intentional about making sure that this new creation grew into maturity. Instead, sometimes, we clap and hoot and holler for their salvation, take them up out of the water, and set them on a seat in the auditorium, and expect them to grow to maturity themselves. No, we would never do that with a real baby. Why do we mostly do that with former zombies who have been killed, and reborn as new creations in Christ?

The old law, the external system of keeping, confessing, sacrificing is over – replaced by a new covenant where the law becomes perfect, in Christ through the Spirit and lives within us – Ezekiel 36, Jeremiah 31, Hebrews 10

As well, we would not expect new babies to be able to take care of themself and think maturely enough to function in society. We’d work with them, teach them, bathe them, and care for them, while they matured. That is called parenting. In church, it is called discipleship. Instead, the easier way is to assume that they are just a cleaned-up version of their former selves and give them a new list of rules to follow. The law and our former zombie self does not like having no power (which comes with the crucifixion and the divorce). Quickly, if our old zombie self can re-implement the marriage to the law, it can continue to function as a zombie. Re-empowered. Many times, we in the church buy right back into that arrangement, because it is way easier to simply implement new sets of laws, and kind of clean up an old self than it is to truly train up and care for a newborn. So- many churches simply become focused on the initial salvation, and then implement a new kind of law/ledger system, re-empowering the old zombie and the law to accomplish what Jesus intended to do in The Spirit.

The new life is really led by The Spirit, in the person of the new creation believer – 2 Corinthians 5, Galatians 5

Unfortunately, because we let this old zombie and the old husband the external law come back up out of the water, we end up leaving the newly regenerated baby to starve and not thrive. The baby is re-tethered to the old zombie, who resumes living as a walking dead. All because we don’t see what really happens in Christ that is symbolized in Baptism.

We need to re-understand the truths that have always been right there in scripture, and as a church, embrace for the first time, the holy and glorious calling to raise up these babies into maturity. Leaving them to fend for themselves is like sending a newborn to an orphanage that is understaffed, underfunded, and has deplorable conditions. Yes, they MAY survive, but their life will forever be marked by the neglect they endured.

What to do:

First – take a look at your own life. Did you understand the death of living under the requirements of the law and never being able to be good enough? Did you understand that when you come to Christ, that the old self – the zombie of you was put to death? Do you understand that the new you is reborn, regenerated, and re-created as a new creature in Christ? Did you know that the new you was a baby, in need of teaching and discipleship? Did you realize that discipleship was not simply picking up a new set of laws that you were supposed to follow, but instead was learning a way of walking with Christ in new life under the Spirit, empowered to live by Him? Do you realize that the old zombie and the old husband, the law are going to hang around and try to get you to go back to their way of living? Do you have someone or a group of people in your life that are walking in newness of life in the Spirit, studying and loving one another into the identity God has created them for? How does God see you? How do the people you are around see you? Is there a difference? If you are a new creature and are growing in your connection to The Father, and in your following of the Lordship of The Son, then The Spirit is doing His work in you. Find a group of people who will commit to seeing you as The Father sees you. Commit to knowing the Father and asking Him to help you see others as He sees them. Then- LOVE. LOVE, LOVE, LOVE, with those eyes from The Father, under the Son, empowered and led by The Spirit.

Amen