Can church membership, baptism, or sacraments justify a person or put the old Adam to death?
No. Church membership, baptism, sacraments, elements, or any other human endeavor cannot justify a person or put the old Adam to death. What Paul teaches as justification by faith and the putting to death of old Adam is accomplished only by the work of the Creator God Himself, not by works.
Les explains that no kind of human endeavor can accomplish what is being taught in these chapters. No amount of works, church memberships, baptisms, sacraments, elements, or anything else can do what Paul is teaching in justification by faith and in putting old Adam to death. Works cannot do that; it has to be the work of the Creator God Himself. Les also notes that most people still think they must do something, but that thinking is totally foreign to Paul's teaching. He contrasts serving old Adam, which brings spiritual death, with obedience to God's invitation of grace, which brings righteousness and right standing with God now and for all eternity.