Transcript

The story is told about a hole in the road. It goes like this. Day one: I went for a walk and I fell into a hole. It wasn’t my fault. I didn’t see it. It took me a long time to get out.

Day two: I went for a walk down the same road and I fell in the same hole. It took me a long time to get out. Why did I do that?

Day three: I went for a walk down the same street and I fell in the same hole, again. I got out quickly. It was my fault.

Day four: I went for a walk down the same street. I saw the hole and walked around it.

Day five: I went for a walk down a different street.

We all have fallen and do fall in the hole of sin in life, and often find it hard to get out of sin’s consequences. But we don’t need to continue in sin and keep falling in that same hole habitually day after day.

That is Paul’s teaching in Romans 6. In this passage, Paul talks about change for the believer, and the different path we can take for our lives in our daily sanctification so that we walk down a different street.

Sanctification is the key word we will take a look in this episode.

Romans 6:1-2: “What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound? God forbid. How shall we, that are dead to sin, live any longer therein?”

Romans 6 is an explanation of the power in the believer to not live like 1:18-3:23. In those verses we learn about the sins of ingratitude, wickedness, covetousness, envy, deceit, backbiters, pride, disobedience to parents, cursing, bitterness, and so on.

Because we still have an old nature after we believe, every believer is still capable of doing these things, any and all of them. The believer can still live “unrighteous” and “ungodly” after we get saved. But Paul teaches here that the power of sin was broken by the Cross, and the believer can live “righteous” and “godly” by grace.

There is a sharp right turn between Romans 5 and Romans 6. Paul’s subject turns from justification to sanctification, or practical sanctification. Here are some differences between justification, or being declared righteous by God, and our practical sanctification, or the process of being set apart to God in our daily life and being more like our Savior.

Justification is that act whereby God declares you righteous in His eyes. Sanctification is that act whereby God works out Christ’s righteousness in our lives.

Justification happens at the moment you trust Christ as Savior and is never repeated. Sanctification happens moment-by-moment as you surrender your life to the Lord.

Justification is an event. Sanctification is a process. Justification happens once and only once. Sanctification is gradual and continuous. Justification removes the guilt and penalty of sin; sanctification removes the control and the power of sin.

Justification cannot be repeated. Sanctification must be repeated. Justification is the work and miracle of a moment. Sanctification is the work and miracle of a lifetime.

Justification gives you the merit of Christ. Sanctification gives you the character of Christ.

Now Paul had just said in Romans 5:20, “But where sin abounded, grace did much more abound.” In light of this, he now asks in 6:1, “What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound?”

God in His super abounding grace through Christ has paid for and forgiven ALL the believer’s sins, past, present and future, and we are secure in Christ, and nothing will ever change this fact.

Paul then asks, “What shall we say then,” in other words, about this super-abounding grace. Perhaps believers should not worry about sin in their lives, and we could continue in sin because this would only result in the manifestation of God’s abounding grace over sin and His greater glory?

Would not God’s abounding grace shine all the brighter if we kept on sinning? Since we’re righteous forever in God’s sight, can’t we just sin and live however we want?

This is the question Romans 6-8 is meant to answer. Paul’s emotional answer to this kind of thinking is clear: “God forbid,” or by no means. May it never be! Or Perish the thought! Justified believers in Christ should never continue in sin that grace may abound.

But why not? And how not? This is the issue Paul deals with. And Paul’s teaching is how God’s super-abounding grace not only justifies us, it sanctifies us, or sets us apart from sin. His grace doesn’t free us to sin, it frees us from sin and to have power over sin in life.

After Paul says, “God forbid,” he gives the basis of his answer in the form of a rhetorical question: “How shall we, that are dead to sin, live any longer therein?”

By the rhetorical question, Paul didn’t expect an answer. He expected the reader to see the answer already in the question, because rhetorical questions don’t expect answers; they make statements.

For example, if I went into my son or daughter’s room and asked them, as I could, “How are you going to keep your room neat if you throw your clothes on the floor and never hang them up or put them in your dresser?”

I’m not looking for an answer or for information. I’m making a statement: You won’t keep your room neat if you just throw your clothes on the floor and never hang them up.

That is the way Paul is using the rhetorical question in Romans 6:2. “How shall we that are dead to sin, live any longer therein?” In other words, you should not live in sin any longer when you are dead to sin.

Then he goes on to explain what he means by this in verses 3-14, that by the process of sanctification believers are to become in practice what we are in Christ: dead to sin and alive to God.

Romans 6:3-4: “Know ye not, that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into His death? Therefore we are buried with Him by baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life.”

Christian living depends on Christian learning. Duty is founded on doctrine. If Satan can keep a believer ignorant, he can keep them weak and powerless. Our sanctification is based on what we “know.” Paul asks, “KNOW ye not?”

This is something crucial for all of us to know, that when we believed the gospel that Christ died for our sins and rose again, before God, at that moment we were baptized into Christ by the Holy Spirit.

This is not talking about water baptism. When you read the word “baptism” in your Bible it does not always refer to water baptism. And there is no water in these verses. These are dry verses. To put water baptism in these verses is to rob us of the truth and power that God is intending to convey through His Word here.

Romans 5:8 states that “Christ died for us,” Romans 6:3 teaches that we died with Christ.

John Gregory Mantle wrote, “There is a great difference between realizing, ‘On that Cross He was crucified for me,’ and ‘On that Cross I am crucified with Him.’ The one aspect brings us deliverance from sin’s condemnation, the other from sin’s power.”

The word “baptism” here means to be placed into, united, joined, identified with. The moment we trusted Christ for our salvation, we were placed into Christ, united with Him, joined to Him eternally.

And this is an incredible reality, that a lost sinner is joined to God’s Son when they trust the gospel by faith alone. This is only possible by super-abounding grace.

This leads Paul into the second step in his logic. If believers were baptized into Christ and joined to Him completely, then we were also united with His death. And since we are united with His death, then we’ve been placed into and united with His burial.

And since we are united with His death and burial, we are joined to and united with His resurrection. That’s the logical sequence of thought.

The believer is united with Christ so that what happened to Christ is counted by God as happening to us. God establishes this union. We are in Christ, and His death is our death, His burial is our burial, His resurrection is our resurrection.

So when verse 2 asks, “How shall we, that are dead to sin, live any longer therein?” it is referring to our death with Christ when He died. Christ’s death is applied to us NOW, but since Christ died once for all in the past, and we were united to that, our death to sin happened, in God’s way of seeing things, on the day Christ died.

Thus, the instruction is not a present tense: “We are dying to sin”; or a future tense: “We will die to sin”; or an imperative: “Die to sin!” Nor is it an exhortation: “You should die to sin.” This is a simple past tense: “You died to sin.”

The simple truth is that if you are a believer, you have already died to sin in Christ. It’s a past event, an accomplished fact. It means that now and forever you have been set free from the ruling power of sin in your life by the Cross of Christ. Now we are to move forward with knowledge of this unchangeable truth, so we might not live in sin any longer.

Through our union and identification with Christ in His death, burial and resurrection, we died to sin and are alive to God, and have “newness of life” in Christ.

What Paul wanted believers to “know” is that when we believed the gospel, even though we didn’t see it, we didn’t hear it, and we didn’t feel it, before God, we were identified and made one with Christ and baptized into Him by the Spirit, and at the same time we were also united with Christ in His death, burial, and resurrection.

So now His death becomes my death and His resurrection becomes my resurrection. His victory over sin becomes my victory over sin, His triumph over death becomes my triumph over death, His life becomes my life, and His resurrection power becomes my power which He wants me to use to live a life that glorifies Him in my practical sanctification.

We are made one with Christ at the Cross, and by virtue of our union with Christ and His finished work, sin’s penalty and sin’s power has been forever broken for us.

Because we are united with Christ in His resurrection life, “even so we also should walk in newness of life” verse 4 teaches.

By God’s grace, now we “SHOULD” live a new life because we CAN live a new transformed life, because in Christ we are dead to sin and we share His life. And through our union with His resurrection, we can even appropriate the power of His resurrection, a power which enables us to turn from sin and live in righteousness.

Romans 6:5-7: “For if we have been planted together in the likeness of His death, we shall be also in the likeness of His resurrection:

“Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin. For he that is dead is freed from sin.”

In verse 5, Paul refers to the connection between our death with Christ and the certainty of our future resurrection with Him: “For if we have been planted together in the likeness of His death, we shall be also in the likeness of His resurrection.”

By the connecting word “For,” this verse is given as the basis of our walking in newness of life in verse 4, that we do so in His resurrection life, power, and in the security of our future resurrection.

It is crucial that we know that as we are united to Christ in His death that we are united with Christ in His resurrection and this guarantees our future resurrection. God’s grace and the security we have in Christ is to motivate the believer to live unto God.

We don’t need to live by fear hoping we are safe in Christ and that we will be raised one day. Instead, by grace, because we know we are justified by faith and joined to Christ, we live with certainty, knowing that being in Christ, “we shall be also in the likeness of His resurrection.”

The reason we “know” this, is because our death with Christ, being joined to His all-sufficient payment for sin at the Cross, secures our freedom from sin. Thus death cannot hold us, just like it could not and did not hold Christ, and He rose again.

Sin results in death. Because we died with Christ, and sin was defeated by Christ’s death, like Christ, we will be raised. Being in Christ, sin has no power over us.

So the certainty of our future resurrection shows that we are in fact dead to sin in Christ and free from its power over us.

As verse 6 says, our old man is crucified with Christ, that the body of sin might be destroyed, thus in Christ, “henceforth we should not serve sin [as a slave]” (v. 6). And “he that is dead [with Christ] is freed from sin” (v. 7).

Being in Christ and joined with His death and resurrection, we have freedom and power in Christ to not serve sin any longer.

We do each retain the old nature at salvation, but Paul teaches us here that the power of that old nature was broken, destroyed, and defeated at the cross.

The old man is like a chicken with its head cut off. Like a chicken with its head cut off, it’s dead, but it still flops around for a while. And that old nature is dead, but it still gives each of us trouble.

While the old man is still active within us experientially, before God, it’s dead and buried. And God wants us to live like it’s dead and buried and to live unto God in newness of life.

Without Christ, the old man holds us in bondage, but in Christ and identified with His death, we’ve been set free from sin and set free from that bondage.

The issue of this chapter is LIVING in sin. We’re not talking about sinless perfectionism, and that the believer can never and does never commit a sin. The issue Paul is talking about is that we have been enabled to not “LIVE any longer therein.”

In other words, Paul’s teaching is that we have been enabled for sin to not be the master of us, to sin habitually, for sin to reign in our lives as a constant lifestyle.

Paul writes about LIVING in sin in verse 2. He talks about CONTINUING in sin in verse 1. He teaches that we should “NOT SERVE” or be slaves to sin in verse 6. In verse 14, he writes about sin not having dominion or authority in your life.

We all fall into sinful attitudes, thoughts, and actions. But Paul’s teaching here is that when we place our faith in Christ as our Savior, at that precise moment we were joined to His death and thus, joined to His mastery over sin.

And now we, through Christ, can have mastery over sin in our lives, and we don’t need to be a slave to sin, or held down or held back by sin in life. God doesn’t want us to accept bondage to sin in life which pulls us down; He wants us to stand in our liberty from sin, and live on a higher plane unto God.

Our bodies are no longer helpless to sin. The power of sin is not to be the defining direction of our lives. Christ is to be that. We are crucified with Christ. The old man, our flesh, our body of sin, was destroyed in Christ. In Him, we are freed from slavery to sin and the body can now become the instrument of righteousness to the glory of God.

In our sanctification, God would have us live our lives manifesting Christ’s resurrection life and power, living a life of freedom from sin’s control. The believer has died to the old life of sin and has been raised to enjoy and live a new life of righteousness in Christ.

Romans 6:8-10: “Now if we be dead with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him: Knowing that Christ being raised from the dead dieth no more; death hath no more dominion over Him. For in that He died, He died unto sin once: but in that He liveth, He liveth unto God.”

In verse 8, Paul says that “we believe that we shall also live with him.” Verses 9 and 10 support this belief in 5 steps.

Verse 9a: We know that Christ rose from the dead. The work was done. Sin was dealt with completely. Death could not hold Him.

Verse 9b: We know that He “dieth no more.” He arose and lives forever. Jesus Christ is life and His finished work was all-sufficient, and He will never die again.

Verse 9c: We know that “death hath no more dominion over Him.” Christ is triumphant over death. Death is a defeated foe. Christ is master over death. Death has no dominion or final authority over Him. He is the Destroyer of death.

Verse 10a: We know that “in that He died, He died unto sin once.” He died unto sin once for all. He dealt with and paid for sin completely, powerfully, and perfectly, and the Father was satisfied. He took care of the sin problem for all who are in Him.

Verse 10b: We know that “in that He liveth, He liveth unto God.” He died and was raised and He lives, and He lives unto God.

Knowing and believing all this is how we experience the present power of Christ’s resurrection in your life.

God means for us to feel the firmness and truth of those five steps in our soul by faith. We have been baptized into and united with Christ’s death and resurrection. These things that are true of Christ are true of us in our complete identification with Him.

Because we are baptized into Christ, we rose again in Him. As death could not hold Christ because sin was paid for in full, death will not hold us and we will be raised.

When we are raised, we will die no more, and death will have no more dominion over us, because we have life eternal in Christ.

Having been crucified with Christ, we died unto sin once. Our sin problem and the power of sin has been dealt with completely in Christ. And now that we live in Christ, like Christ, we are to live unto God in our sanctification.

That is what Paul wants us to believe and to experience: that confidence, that power, that victory, that hope, that security, that grace.

And believing this is what makes our union with Christ a powerful experience now, so that we live in newness of life in Christ.

Because sin can’t enslave a person who has confidence in Christ and who puts their focus on their life and power in Christ now and in the future.

Romans 6:11-13: “Likewise reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord.

“Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, that ye should obey it in the lusts thereof. Neither yield ye your members as instruments of unrighteousness unto sin: but yield yourselves unto God, as those that are alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness unto God.”

These spiritual realities are to affect our lives by faith. And as Pastor C. R. Stam has said “what God has done for us by grace, we should appropriate by faith.”

Paul says in verse 11 to “reckon…yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin.” Reckon implies making a decision based on rock-solid reality.

We are “dead to sin” in Christ. We should constantly view ourselves this way. We should reckon ourselves to be what God has made us in Christ by grace.

If we fail to believe that sin no longer has power over us, we will be much more vulnerable to yield to temptation, to live in sin, and allow it to rule and direct our lives.

But knowing this truth that God says we are dead to sin in Christ and then by faith reckoning it to be true and applying it to our hearts, we can live “dead indeed” to sin in Christ, and we can live in victory over sin by grace in our sanctification.

Verses 12 says we do not have to live habitually in sin or let it “reign” in our lives, or “obey” the “lusts” of the old nature. Instead, we can let Christ reign in our lives.

Negatively in verse 13, Paul writes that we should not yield our members as instruments of unrighteousness to commit sin. Positively, Paul writes we should yield, present, offer ourselves unto God, as people who are alive from the dead in Christ.

Speaking of our “members,” with our eyes and what we look at, our ears and what we listen to, our mouths and what we say, and hands and what we do, our feet and where we go, our hearts and what we love, our minds and what we think about and the decisions we make, God wants these all to be instruments of righteousness.

He wants us to be people who allow Him to use all of us and who live alive unto God.

Someone once asked George Mueller the secret of his service. He replied, “There was a day when I died,” and as he spoke he bent down. Continuing, he said, “Died to George Mueller, his opinions, preferences, taste, and will; died to the world, its approval or censure, died to the approval or blame, even of my brethren and friends. And since then I have studied only to show myself approved unto God.”

That’s the testimony of one who lived “alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord.” And that’s what sanctification is all about. May that be our testimony.