ROMANS 6:1-7
DYING TO LIVE
[Galatians 2:20]
[We now begin a new section of Romans that deal with the doctrine of sanctification or the Christlike growth of disciples.] The Bible has just declared that where sin abounded, God's grace super abounded. What wonderful news this is! It means that no matter how deep the stain of man's sin, the grace of God is greater. Thus there is hope for all, and men should praise God for His amazing grace!
Yet this great truth about the gospel is liable to grievous distortion by deceived men. For even the saved man cannot be turned over to his own wisdom and his own understanding. We are not perfect nor sanctified after we are saved but need to be discipled to mature into Christlikeness. The lack of Christian growth or discipleship in the early church exposed Paul to misrepresentation by his critics and misinterpretation by the self-justifiers. The self-justifiers were those who refused to die to the old man by the power of the cross and be raised to walk in new life by the power of the resurrection. They continued on in their life of sin. Thus they must justify their way of self-life to continue their claim of salvation.
No Christian continues in habitual sin who has by faith died to self and received the new life of Christ (CIT). Those who have died to sin are alive to God & it becomes possible for them to live for Christ. Self-justifiers though want to indulge themselves freely in this world, without any fear of forfeiting the next.
I. DEAD or ALIVE TO SIN, 1-2.
II. DEAD and BURIED, 3-4.
III. DEAD, BURIED, AND RAISED, 5-7.
Our first thought is are you DEAD OR ALIVE TO SIN (6:1-2).
Verse 1 poses questions concerning God's amazing grace and forgiveness. "What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace might increase?"
If grace received gives "much more" triumph over sin "what shall we say then?" ...concerning the results from the exultant victory of grace over sin. Paul sees the possible perversion of this glorious grace into an opening for those who want no law or no restraint. Are we "to continue in sin" without remorse or repentance since there is grace? Paul raises the question of practicing sin as a continuous action here. There are people who actually think that God's pardon gives them liberty to live life as they please without penalty. These individuals turn the doctrine of salvation by the grace of God into a license for immoral living (Jude 4).
Every age produces its quota of such deceivers. An example is the Russian Monk RASPUTIN. For a while he was a very influential favorite of Emperor Nicholas II. His doctrine seems to have been, "The more a person sins, the more grace he will receive. So sin with gusto."
The point of 5:20 though is not "to excuse sin but to glorify divine grace" [Martin Luther. Epistle to the Romans, p 83]. Each Christian faces the temptation to take advantage of grace. Who of us has not presumed on God's grace? Though Paul understood the temptation he could not tolerate its motive. Grace is indeed freedom, but God's grace is freedom from sin, not freedom to sin (Gal. 5:13). Whoever uses grace as a pretext to sin shows contempt for the Christ who died for sin. [James Edward. New International Biblical Com. Romans. Hendrickson Publ. 1992. p 158].
In Romans chapter 5 Christ dies for sinners. In chapter 6 believers themselves must die sin. The first of the 16 times in chapter 6 believers are called on to die to sin is in verse 2. "May it never be! How shall we who died to sin still live in it?"
Paul recoiled in horror at the very idea of continuing in sin! We must have a definite conscious break with the old way of life. It is a terrible thing to trade on the mercy of God by making it an excuse for sinning. Think of it in human terms. How despicable it would be for a child to consider himself free to sin because he knew his father would forgive.
Paul reminds us that something decisive has taken place in his and our lives. By the grace of God we have "died to" sinful selves and to the allurements and enticements of this sinful world (Col. 3:3). For a Christian, continuing to live in sin is not only impermissible, it is impossible! To be sure Paul teaches believers will commit acts of sin until the day they are released from this earthly existence (7:14ff). But the notion that a child of God should continue in voluntary sin and even encourage it produces a revulsion in Paul's heart.
Truth cannot lead to unholiness. If a doctrine encourages sin it must be false! There can be no greater contradiction and absurdity than for one who lives in sin to claim to be a Christian.
[It's possible to begin a discussion by talking about or even defending what God has said, and yet end up with beliefs that allow us to disobey Him. At the dawn of creation, for example, Satan slithered up to Eve and drew her into a religious discussion. He simply asked what God had commanded regarding the forbidden tree - but he led her to A DEADLY CONCLUSION (Gen. 3:1-6).
The apostle Paul feared that we might repeat Eve's mistake. So here he cautioned believers against coming to the wrong conclusions. He wanted believers to rejoice in God's grace and the free and unmerited gift of salvation (Rom. 5:12-21). But Paul knew that some might wrongly suggest that since God is so gracious we don't have to follow any rules, and we can do anything we want (6:1-2, 15-16).
In contrast to what happened to Eve and many others, Jesus Christ gave us an example of how to avoid being led to the wrong conclusions. He responded to Satan's temptations by referring to Scripture and at each point affirming His commitment to God (Mt. 4:1-11).
In every religious discussion, keep God's Word at the center, and you won't arrive at wrong conclusions. Nothing weakens the truth more than twisting it.]
William James, Harvard University's famous professor of philosophy and psychology, once stated that after age 30 we become set like plaster and never change. But he was wrong. We can and do change.
JOHN D. ROCKEFELLER had become the world's only billionaire. But he was a miserable man who couldn't sleep, who was unloved, and who needed bodyguards.
Then at age 53 he was stricken with a rare disease. He lost all his hair, and his body became shrunken. He was given a year or so to live.
Rockefeller started thinking about eternal issues, and suddenly he beg to change. He gave away his money to help churches and the poor. He established the Rockefeller Foundation, which has under written critical health research. His health improved, and contrary to the doctor's prediction, he lived to be 98.
If a man could undergo such a physical and emotional change, can transform us spiritually'? The Bible says that anyone who believes in Jesus Christ and His sin-atoning, guilt cleansing death will become a new creation (2 Cor. 5:17).
II. DEAD AND BURIED (3-4).
The symbolic depiction of our real death in Christ is depicted by baptism in verse 3. "Or do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus have been baptized into His death?"
Baptism in Scriptures is associated with salvation (Mk. 16:16). Paul is speaking of being baptized into the body of Christ by the Holy Spirit (1 Cor.12:13), or salvation here. To be saved is to die to this world's system and move into God's (Gal. 6:14) or into the body of Christ. This baptism into Christ occurs because of the formation of an initial inward spiritual relationship with Christ ... even before the public act of water baptism. But those who experience the new spiritual birth have no difficulty being baptized, or immersed, to proclaim it.
The Cross is not only Christ's personal "individual" Cross. It is also an inclusive cross, a "corporate" cross, a cross that includes you and me. God has put all of us into His Son and crucified us in Him. In the last Adam He put away all that was of the first Adam.
God must, for "In me there dwells no good thing." "You are dead in your trespasses and sin," and your old man needs to die. You only bury people you believe are dead. Only when you see your "old man" or old earthy nature as dead by the power of Christ's death on the cross will you allow God to put him to death!
In China there are two emergency services, the "Red Cross" and the "Blue Cross." The Red Cross deals with those who are wounded in battle but still alive to bring relief and healing. The Blue Cross deals with those already dead due to famine, flood, or war, to give them a burial. God's dealings with us in the Cross of Christ are more drastic than those of the "Red Cross." God doesn't patch up the old creation. He crucifies the old creation. We must submit to the work of the "Blue Cross" and see our old man as dead, needing to be buried. Baptism symbolized that burial.
We were baptized "into His death" ending one creation. But we were also "baptized into Christ" having in view our becoming a new creation (Gal. 3:27; 2 Cor. 5:17). We were baptized into Christ by the Holy Spirit; He incorporates us into the body of Christ and we become members of His body (1 Cor. 12:13). And thus by this grace-faith established union we share in His bodily crucifixion and burial, His resurrection and exaltation.
Paul proceeds to explain the symbolism of the ordinance of believers baptism in verse 4. "Therefore we were buried with Him through the Baptism into death so that just as Christ was raised out of death, through the glory of the Father, so even we might walk in newness of life."
Who qualifies for burial? Only the dead. When one asks for baptism they are proclaiming their old life without Jesus Christ dead and fit only for the grave. Unless your eyes have been opened by God to see that we have died in Christ and been buried with Him, we have no right to be baptized. Only when we see ourselves as dead without Christ will we be willing to be buried into Christ's death that we might have life in Christ's life. We must die to the old life of sin and be raised to the new life of grace. Burial sets the seal of death. Christian baptism is a symbolic burial in which the old order of living comes to an end, to be replaced by the new order of life in Christ.
"Baptism" or immersion (Gk. baptismo, ยต ) vividly portrays the believer's uniting with Christ in His death, burial and resurrection. Lowered into the water we illustrate that we are immersed into His death; we are buried with Him. When we are raised from the water, we enter into the new life of Christ's resurrection.
The picture in baptism points two ways, backwards and forwards. Baptism points backward to Christ's death and burial, and to our death to sin with Him, and forward to Christ's resurrection from the dead, and to our new life pledge by our coming out of the water grave to walk on the other side of the baptismal grave. There is the further picture of our own resurrection from the grave when Christ returns for His own.
God's glorious power is displayed in the act of raising Christ from the dead and if we are members of His body, He raised us also with Him. Since the Savior's beloved ones are "in Him" the relationship is a very close and inseparable one. The power of His resurrection enables us here and now "to walk in the newness of life" (Rom. 8:34; Eph. 1:20-23; Heb. 7:25).
[Remember believers baptism is symbolism. It is not the reality but the picture of the reality. It is a shame that so many people, because of prejudice against water baptism, blur this majestic picture.]
At the risk of sounding weird, let me ask a question. If you buried someone yesterday, would you expect him to be walking in old haunts today? Obviously not! Why then, having buried your unredeemed life, do you continue to walk in its ways?
In Christian baptism we symbolize what Jesus did for our salvation (death, burial, resurrection) and what He does in us when we receive Him as Savior. We die to the old life, bury it, and are raised to a new life in Christ. We do not bury live people to kill them. We bury those who are already dead. In this case, dead to the old life. "Into death" may read better "with respect to" or "because of" death. Because in Christ you have died to your unredeemed way of life, you should bury it .
Evidence of this is that you "walk in newness of life." The term "walk" describes direction, conduct, and denotes manner of life. Profession and practice, talk and walk should be in agreement. Only thus can you live an effective Christian life.
A PIRATE was returning home from a long journey. He had spent many years lying, stealing, and cheating in a far away land, storing up a great chest of treasure for himself. The pirate held on tightly to that chest because he saw in it something of much more value than just jewels and gold. He saw in that chest, the fulfillment of all his dreams, hopes and aspirations. That treasure he knew was his key to the "good life."
The pirate having made his fortune decided it was time to return home and after boarding the ship and having traveled a great distance from the shore, a storm arose. It did not take long for the storm to overtake the ship and soon the ship began to break into pieces. Eventually the pirate and his treasure plunged into the cold sea. He began to sink holding on desperately to that chest. As the pirate was sinking, all that raced through his mind was – "how can I get my treasure to the surface?" Slowly the pirate began to realize that life was not in the chest, but on the surface and that holding onto the chest would cause him to lose his life. Reluctantly the pirate let go of that chest and began to swim upwards toward the surface.
We are a lot like that pirate, holding onto our agenda's, ego's and fleshly desires, thinking all the while that they will bring us life. But in reality, they are pulling us down toward death. For growing in intimacy with God occurs as we die to ourselves (let go of our treasure), that we may begin to swim upward toward Christ who is the way, the truth and the life.
III. DEAD, BURIED, AND RAISED (5-7).
Verse 5 concludes that if we have been united with Christ in His death we have become united with Him in His resurrection. "For if we have become united with Him in the likeness of His death, certainly we shall also be in the likeness of His resurrection."
The reward for dying with Christ is to be also raised with Him. We shall walk in newness of life, if we by faith in Christ's death on the Cross die to the old spiritually dead man. Union in Christ's death precedes union in His resurrection life.
The greatest negator in the universe is the Cross, for with it God wiped out everything that was not of Himself. The greatest positive in the universe is the resurrection, for through it God brought into being all He will have in a new sphere. The resurrection stands at the threshold of the new creation (2 Cor. 5:17). It is a blessed thing to see that the Cross ends all that belongs to the first regime, and the resurrection introduces us to all that pertains to the second.
If an earthly surgeon can take a piece of skin from one human body and graft it on another, cannot the divine Surgeon implant the life of His Son into me? This is the new birth; the reception of a life into the inner man that didn't exist before which causes you to become altogether new, a new creation.
God cut off the old creation by the Cross of Christ in order to bring in the new creation in Christ by His resurrection. O, the intimacy of this union. What happens when you stir a lump of sugar into your coffee? You have put them together and the one has become lost in the other; they cannot now be separated. If you have allowed God to put you on the Cross with Christ by your accepting His death as your own, then God has put you into an intimate union with Christ that cannot be reversed. This union states that His death on the Cross and our death to our old self become so closely identified that it is impossible to decide between them.
To summerize - there is a necessary condition between life and death. If we unite in His death, we are united in His life; if we die with Him we will live with Him. If We will live with Him we are becoming like Him here and now, and thus we will live with Him eternally in His Heaven!
In the early years of the 20th century southern California's SONORAN DESERT was a desolate wasteland. Only a meager population of plants and creatures specially equipped for desert living could survive in its arid sands.
But today the Sonoran Desert embraces the Imperial Valley, hundred of thousands of acres of the world's richest farmland. This farmer's paradise yields more than $200 million in produce annually - lettuce, carrots, tomatoes, and many of the other vegetables that find their way to family tables all over the country.
That desert land took on new life when millions of gallons of water, channeled from the Colorado River flooded the valley. The once fruitless land now flourishes with life.
When Christ floods one's being with the living water of the Spirit, barrenness gives way to fruitfulness, death to life abundant. But those who have been blessed with newness of life must walk in it every day. A fruitful valley requires cultivation.
Pray that your life in Christ will produce an abundant harvest today.
Verse 6 continues proving the point that the nature of the union with Christ is such that it is impossible for anyone to share in the benefits of Christ's death, without being conformed to His life. "Knowing this, this our old man was crucified with Him so that the body of sin might be made powerless that we should no longer be slaves to sin."
What in verse five is presented as a matter of doctrine, is here presented as a matter of experience. We are united with our head, Christ, so that we (His body) might be partakers of His death and resurrection as a matter of law or right. And our inner spiritual experience agrees with this doctrinal statement.
The born again man's death is not only doctrine it is experience. Our old man was crucified with Christ. This old self is the person we once were, our human nature before we received grace. Our old self was present "in Christ". When He died on the Cross, we died. Paul says in Gal. 2:20- quote.
Christ has consigned me - us to death and the grave. God has done the crucifying. God is saying that you were hopeless and deserved to die.
The reason is sin, seen in the personification of sin in the statement "the body of sin." [The body of sin is not the human body but our rebellious sin-loving nature inherited form Adam.] We have given sin life and we are slaves to it. The body of sin cannot be tamed. It must be put to death. For it is only through this death with Christ to our old man that sin is made powerless. No believer continues to wallow in sin, in the old pig nature, only unbelievers do.
Also notice the conditions here; "might be made powerless," and "should no longer be slaves to sin." Only when we by faith in the power of the Cross allow Christ's death for sin to be our death to sin can we break sin's chains. We must put off the old man and put on the new man (Eph. 4:22, 24; Col 3:8f).
Verse 7 again confirms that dying with Christ frees us from sin. "For he who has died is freed (is justified) from sin." ["Freed" is literally "has been justified" - , perf. pass ind.]. This verse is a confirmation ( ) of the previous. A dead man is no longer answerable for his sin or his debts in the world in which he once lived. The man who has died with Christ has his slate wiped clean in God's new order. They may still be recorded in the old order but not in God's new eternal order.
When do we free a criminal from the responsibility for his crime? When he has paid the penalty assessed by the judge. The penalty for our sin is death (Rom 6:23), when we die with Christ we are freed from both the judicial penalty (hell) and delivered from the life style of enslavement to sin.
Death (or separation) from the old man is the penalty for sin. If you have sins that are still dominating your life then you are refusing to die. You are refusing to let the power of the Cross of Christ put your old self, your unchristlike self, to death.
IN CONCLUSION
Christian, what have you to do with sin? Has it not cost you enough already? Burnt child, will you continue to play with fire? When you have already been between the jaws of the lion, will you step into his den a second time? Have you not had enough of the old serpent? He poisoned you once.
Will you play near the hole of the viper and put your hand upon the cobra's den a second time? Oh, do not be so foolish! Did sin ever give you any real pleasure? Did you find solid satisfaction in it? If so, go back to your old drudgery and wear the chain again. But sin never did give you what it promised to bestow. Rather, it deluded you with lies. Do not be snared again. Be free and let the remembrance of your ancient bondage forbid you to enter the net again. Sin is contrary to the designs of eternal love. God desires your purity and holiness. Do not oppose the purposes of your Lord.
Christians can never sin cheaply. Transgression destroys peace of mind, obscures fellowship with Jesus, hinders prayer, and brings darkness over the soul. Therefore, do not be the slave of sin. Each time you serve sin, you "crucify. . .the Son of God afresh, and put Him to an open shame" (Hebrews 6:6). Can you bear that thought?
If you have fallen into any sin during this week, the Master has sent this admonition this evening to bring you back before you have backslidden very far. Turn to Jesus anew. He has not forgotten His love for you. His grace is still the same. With weeping and repentance, come to His footstool. You will be received once more into His fellowship.
The power and penalty of sin died with Christ on the Cross. Our old self, our sinful nature, was put to death with Christ so that we are freed from its power. We can now choose to live for Christ!
Because of Christ's death and resurrection, His followers can enjoy fellowship with Him and do His will. Are you experiencing the vigor of His new life in the Spirit or are you still living a life dominated by your old nature? You come tonight and be set free by the power of Christ's Cross and resurrection.
