I CAN DO WHAT I LIKE BECAUSE GOD FORGIVES ALL SIN
ROMANS 6.1-23
The story is told of a man who had heard of a church where they believed in sinless perfection after you had come to Christ and were baptised. He joined the church, professed faith and was baptised in a freezing cold river in the middle of January. When he left the water he told the elders he was so delighted he did not even feel the cold. Whereupon one elder said to another “He is lying, it didn’t work. We need to do it again.” That is not a true story but it illustrates that perennial problem for all Christians: How are we forgiven for sin and yet keep on sinning? There have been those in the history of the church who taught that Christians could live as they pleased because Christ had forgiven all sin. It was called Antinomianism. In fact it is still around today within the church. You don’t have to go far to meet Christians who think it is acceptable to live as the world lives and still claim to follow Christ. So you have bishops teaching all sorts of immoral behaviours are acceptable for Christians. You have churches accepting lottery money as if Scripture says nothing about gambling. Antinomianism is alive and well in the 21st century church. Yet it is not such overt sinfulness that I wish to address this morning. It is the daily struggle you and I have in our lives to live free from sin. It is a daily struggle, isn’t it? This is probably one of the most important sermons that I will preach this year in Holy Trinity.
Turn with me to Romans 6. I am only going to deal with verses 1-14 this morning and not the whole chapter.
CONTEXT – Paul’s letter to the Romans. Paul had never been to Rome before he wrote this letter. He had not planted or established this church. Paul most likely wrote this letter whilst in Corinth around 56-57AD. The book of Romans is the great theological work of the NT on the doctrine and application of salvation. Many believe it to be Paul’s finest letter to the early churches.
Look at chapter 5 verse 20 – this is the background to what Paul seeks to answer in chapter 6. It is just possible that some in Rome were starting to teach that since the grace of God covered all sin then Christians could continue in sin to show the power of God’s grace at work in forgiving sin. I know to you and I it seems illogical but actually how often do we justify our sinful choices and behaviour by just such a reason?
Paul is presenting a balance in chapter 6 – on one side is that we are saved by grace and by grace alone. On the other side of the balance is the working out of our salvation, of living out a life of holiness unto God. This balance is hard for us to grasp and maintain in our lives.
Chapter 6 verses 1-14 Shall we continue to sin so that Grace may abound?
Verses 1- 2 – read – it seems like a foolish question and yet it would appear that some in the church had begun to argue that we should go on sinning to allow grace to increase. The NIV translation does not do justice to what Paul says in the Greek. Literally he asks: “shall we remain in sin?” Paul is thinking of sinners staying where they are after they have come to saving faith in Christ. Shall we just drift along in our sin because it covered by God’s grace? Paul speaks of Christians who decline to move from habitual sin. We have his immediate answer in verse 2: “By no means!” Paul will have none of it. He refutes the very idea that as a Christian you can continue to walk in the way of sin and remain wedded to sin after knowing the grace of Christ. He then asks them to reflect on the fact that they have died to sin. Once they were dead in their sins (Ephesians 2.1) but now they are dead to sin. This is an action rrather than a state – ‘we who died to sin’ and not ‘we who are dead in sin.’ Becoming a Christian is a decisive step. It means the beginning of faith and the end of sin. Here Paul is referring to the dying to sin which is the characteristic mark of the beginning of the Christian life. It is the end of the reign of sin and the beginning of the reign of grace (5.21) in our lives when we come to Christ. Since we have died to sin it is a reasonable question to ask how we can continue to live a life of sin? John Knox, the Scottish reformer, translated this as “We have died, once for all, to sin; can we breathe its air again?”
Verses 3-5 Paul then uses the illustration of baptism to signify the depth of union with Christ. The union of the Christian with Christ in his death, though baptism does not accomplish that per se. Paul is here describing a spiritual reality and not a ceremony or sacrament. The importance of the burial is that it happens only at death. It attests to the finality of the life governed by sin. We have died to that old life, to the old Adam and have come under a new reign – that of God’s grace in Christ. We are no longer ruled over by sin but by Christ. In dying with Christ – by faith being united to him on the cross where our sins were atoned for – we have moved from the dominion of sin and darkness to the dominion of Christ by grace. You see it is the death of Christ that makes you and I Christians, and without identification with that death we are not Christians. Christ’s death alone is the justification for our salvation. It is by grace through faith that we are united with Christ in his death on the cross. Being united with him in his death, we are united with him in his burial. Being united with him in his burial we are united with him in his resurrection and in the resurrection life. There is no turning back (verse 5) from this. We have died to sin and been buried with Christ and raised with Christ and therefore we now live for Christ. Paul is emphasising that having been buried with Christ and having risen with Christ we are now living the resurrection life and therefore we cannot, we should not, may not continue to live a life of sin. We now live in resurrection power. The resurrection life is not something yet to come – it began the moment you came to faith in Christ. In that moment the old Adam was buried with Christ in the tomb and the new Adam rose with Christ – with sin and death no longer having power and dominion over you – 1 Corinthians 15.55-56. Verse 4 we now walk in newness of life in Christ – a life of grace in which Christ sustains and empowers us to walk in the ways of holiness and righteousness. This new life transforms you and makes you into a new person. Yes we still have contact with the old man, the old life which battles with us daily and keeps us frustrated daily.
It is coming near that time of year when you will plant seeds in the garden. You will bury them in the cold earth and over time you will watch for them to spring forth into life. The shoots will appear and then full grown the will bear the likeness of the plant from which the seeds were harvested. Having been buried with Christ, and now raised with Christ we are to bear the likeness of Christ in our daily lives. When you plant a seed you hope new life comes. We have been planted in the likeness of Christ’s death but we shall also be in the likeness of his resurrection – a new kind of life which comes from the indwelling of the Holy Spirit – a new life within. This means we are not alone in this struggle and battle. We are given an internal source of power – the Holy Spirit supplying us grace and spiritual power – making us a new person in Christ daily. We are not just an old person made better, we are a new creation. A ‘you’ who is made new to live for God and the things of God. The lost have no such life within. There is inside you a new man made in the image of the Lord Jesus Christ. It is not yet complete but daily we grow in Christlikeness.
Verses 6-7 Paul restates again what he has taught in verses 3-5. Paul wants his readers, and us, to understand that in the sight of God we were crucified with Christ. We were not physically there but the spiritual reality is that our sin was placed on Christ and crucified with him – hence Paul says we were crucified with him. The old you is now in the place of death, crucified with Christ. The old way of living for sin and self is gone – the nails are driven into the old nature. That is why you have such a battle in your life daily – the new nature says ‘No’ to the old ways of life. There is a path to travel that is not the old ways but is different by the grace of God. There is a new life growing within you which is destroying the old you. The Lord is destroying you a piece at a time, the old self is being destroyed a piece at a time so that daily you might become more like Christ. The new nature of desiring to please God and desiring the things of God are growing daily in your life.
Just as we were not in the Garden of Eden with Adam when he sinned but we are identified with him in the Fall – so we are identified, united, with Christ in the crucifixion, burial and resurrection. If we died with Christ then we should be dead to sin. We should not be living in sin, not enticed by it nor should we be travelling as far down the road of sin as we can. We are going a different direction. We are facing Christ and we are going upwards to a new home. The pathway is hard and step and we need grace to travel that direction.
Paul wants the believers at Rome, and us, to understand that the power of sin is dead in our lives when we are united with Christ. We are freed from the power of sin, even though we remain in the presence of sin. Please listen carefully here. It is not that we are no longer troubled by sin but that we are freed from the power and dominion of sin in and over our lives. We are not fighting this battle alone, he is with us and we have his grace to aid us.
Verses 8-11 – Paul now follows his argument on pointing out that there can be no separation from the union with Christ in his death which atones for our sins and justifies us before God and being raised to new life in Christ – which leads to a life of obedience, holiness and sanctification. The death of Christ (v8) is the basis of the whole experience of salvation for us sinners and yet our death in Christ is not an end in itself. By faith we go on to life with Christ. There is death to the old man, to the old way of life and an entering into new life in Christ. There was once a time (v9) when death had dominion over Christ, and us, but that is all past. There is no more death for Christ – the resurrection defeated death, once for all. Jesus rose triumphant and rose to glory – death defeated. The resurrection of Christ is the victory over death. Therefore if we are united with Christ, by grace through faith, then death no longer rules over us. In verse 10 the NIV has left out the word ‘For’ which keeps Paul’s argument flowing. Paul says that the death which Christ died, on the cross, was all to do with sin and death, and the resurrection life he lives has all to do with God. Therefore, the logical conclusion is that the same should be true for us who are united by with Christ. We died to the dominion of sin and death in our lives and rose with Christ to new life which we now live to God (v11). You see you are to ‘reckon’ or ‘count’ yourself dead to sin but alive to God. One side is that we are to see ourselves as dead to sin but the other side is that we are to be alive to God. When temptation comes you are to remind yourself that sin no longer has power over your life. You no longer fear the power of sin because it does not have power in your life. The first part of verse 11 removes the penalty of sin and the second part gives us power over sin (alive to God).
Verses 12-14 Therefore live in the knowledge of this truth. In verse 12 Paul states that it is the duty of those who know the redeeming power of Christ to live according to that truth. Sin is still a force, but Paul has pointed out, and continues to point out, it is not supreme. It no longer has dominion or power over the believer and therefore the believer is not to allow it to reign within. Instead the believer is to yield himself to God. There is union with Christ and yielding to God – both are important. The believer who stumbles into sin should get out of it immediately and do everything he can do get out of sin. You don’t lie there and wallow in the mess, get out of it. God has the power to deliver you from the sin and the grace to redeem you from it. Call on him to deliver you and he has the power to deliver you from sin. Constant yielding to God is vital. We must constantly be putting Christ on the throne of our lives. We must keep yielding ourselves to Christ. Little by little we give over our lives to Christ.That is a stated fact of the Word of God – the thing is will you believe it to be true? Not do you feel it to be true? Not do you experience it to be true? But do you believe what the Word of God teaches on this matter? You see sometimes my little daughter does not feel like I love her and she does not experience my love for her but the fact is that I do love her. Now which of those is the truth: The fact or the feeling? The same thing happens when it comes to the dominion of sin in your life as a believer. Do you believe your own feelings and experience or the Word of God? Paul warns us not to allow sin to reign any longer in our mortal bodies (v12). It is not that he is saying the body itself is sinful but that it is in the body, the flesh, that sin reigns and that we surrender to the evil lusts and desires of our hearts. You see we are men and women who have moved from death to life by Christ and we no longer belong to ourselves but to him and therefore we are to live for him. We are not to allow sin to reign in our lives by giving our lives, our bodies, over to sinful desires and lusts. Paul makes it clear that the decision is ours. We decide what we do with our bodies – whether it is to give it up to sin or to live for God. Sin has no longer any power over us because in Christ Jesus we died to the power of sin (v14). It is precisely because sin has no dominion over us that we can present our lives as instruments of righteousness to God. If you have a besetting sin that constantly traps you then you need to bring it before Christ – his grace is sufficient to deal with all sin. We are not in the clutches of a sin that is stronger than Christ. It may be stronger than us but it is not stronger than Christ. Sin shall not rule over you – Christ rules over you – you must lay hold of that truth of the Word of God. It is under grace and not law. God commands us to do what is right and inside he supplies the grace to obey.
APPLICATION.
Paul’s discussion of union with Christ may appear to you to be quite and abstract thing and yet it holds an important truth for us today. Paul is describing a transforming reality that is ours in Christ Jesus. God’s promise is that we have died with Christ that we might no longer be slaves to sin but be freed from its dominion and power so having been raised with Christ we might live to and for God. Faiths response to this is to be threefold;
1. We are to consider it true – verse 11.
2. We are to reject the sinful desires that stir within us – verse 12.
3. We are to continually offer ourselves to God to serve him – verse 13.
It is as we daily respond to this promise God’s grace that He works in us to experience freedom from sin so that we can live righteously to and for him. Grace is not an open door to sin but an open door to obedience to God’s will.
Amen.
