NOTES for Rm 6:8

According to the apostle Paul's thought, our union with Christ happens not in life, but in death. Because what we call life, from God's point of view, is dying. And Christ, by His divine nature having no part in death, voluntarily enters our dying in order to meet us "on our territory." This is a completely unimaginable self-emptying of the Son of God for us, "kenosis" in Greek, a vast path traveled from God to us. But for a meeting to take place, our movement toward Him is also necessary. It happens when we take a very small step, agreeing that Christ did not die for no reason, but out of love for us and for our sake, and that in our baptism we experience His death as a fact of our personal biography, radically changing the direction of our movement, because dying ends there. Having met Christ in this way in death, we are not separated from Him in resurrection either. The word here is very precise: "we believe." This is not scientific knowledge, but trust in God, hope in His saving power of love for us.