Romans Week 20, January 15, 2023

Introduction

OK today we're heading back to Romans chapter six. And as you put your Romans 6 hats on I wanted to remind you all that a good chunk of this chapter is going to be an answer to the wrong theological idea of antinomianism. And again antinomianism is the idea that if you want to experience more of God's grace than sin more. If God's grace increases with our sin then why not sin more to experience more of that grace? That's the question that people have asked throughout history and Paul wants us to understand the answer is an obvious no.

This is the kind of question that someone who has not experienced God's grace at all might be tempted to ask. But someone who has experienced God's grace would know that it makes no sense.

We finished last Sunday by exploring the subject of baptism. God is giving us baptism to be this event that coincides with salvation. We don't get baptized to earn salvation. We get baptized at the same time as us getting saved. And so baptism is that moment when we join representatively with what Jesus did. We die to the power of sin and we rise with Jesus from the dead out of the water in victory over sin. Baptism should represent a past moment where our lives changed.

And because of that moment of change we should find a return to sin nonsensical.

And yet the reality is you and I struggle with sin. Even though it's a pastor event in our lives that we should be moved past we still struggle with pride jealousy envy and many other aspects of our past sinful nature. Why is that and what do we need to continue to understand in order to live in freedom over sin?

Let’s continue unpacking Paul’s argument on how we can be moving away from sin in our lives.

Let’s start by reading the first six verses of Romans 6 together

Romans 6:1–6 ESV

1 What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? 2 By no means! How can we who died to sin still live in it? 3 Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? 4 We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life. 5 For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his. 6 We know that our old self was crucified with him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing, so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin.

Again we will work backwards through the three verses from Romans 6:5-7.

We are free from sin because of death!

Romans 6:7 ESV

7 For one who has died has been set free from sin.

This is a simple statement with atomic power.

Speaking of atomically powerful statement. Here is another statement:

Romans B. The Death of Christ Was a Death to Sin (6:3–7)

E=mc2

This simple statement is one of the things that put Einstein on the map. he argued with this simple statement that you can convert mass into energy. And not just a little bit of energy you can convert mass into a whole lot of energy.

This principle keeps the sun going along with fusion.

This contributed to the atomic bomb.

This is a simple statement with atomic ramifications.

And so is this one

Romans 6:7 ESV

7 For one who has died has been set free from sin.

Joke about golfers watching the funeral procession for his wife go by.

Have you wondered why we don't have double fences, barbed wires, and canine units guarding the perimeters of our cemeteries? Why don’t cemeteries look like the Terre Haute federal penitentiary? The answer to all this is the simple reality of this statement. Those who have died do not sin.

I love how one commentator puts it:

Romans B. The Death of Christ Was a Death to Sin (6:3–7)

the dead have been freed from sin. They are free from the temptation of it. They are freed from the committing of it. They are freed from the guilt of it. And they are freed from punishment for it

So dead people are free from the power of sin right. Death is a high cost to pay and if we literally die we can't go on living. So how do we join in what Jesus did without literally dying? How do we allow what Jesus did to change us? How did Jesus dying change us?

Let’s continue with Paul’s argument moving up through the passage.

Romans 6:6 ESV

6 We know that our old self was crucified with him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing, so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin.

We're gonna take a look in Romans Chapter 7 in the few weeks at the struggle that Paul feels. And at the end of Romans chapter seven he expresses the desperation that comes from living in a human body that struggles with sin. Because the only way to escape the pole and power of sin is through death and that's a a scary thought. It's a thought that Paul expresses at the end of Chapter 7 in this verse:

Romans 7:24 ESV

24 Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?

Sin has been described as a fast trip or ticket to death. You either let it run its course or you get rescued. We can't make any mistake the end result of sin in our lives is death. We all have felt the desperation and pain that Paul expresses in verse 24. And many of us have also felt the hope that Paul expresses in the very next verse.

Romans 7:25 ESV

25 Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I myself serve the law of God with my mind, but with my flesh I serve the law of sin.

Jesus rescues us!

Colossians 1:13 ESV

13 He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son,

We are united with the death of Jesus and that is our ticket to freedom from sin.

Romans 6:5 ESV

5 For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his.

Paul wants us to understand that the benefit of being united with the death of Christ is the reality that we are united with the life of Christ as well. The resurrection of Jesus.

We also share in the resurrection of Jesus

We get to experience the victory over sin that Jesus demonstrated in His resurrection from the dead.

The problem with this whole dead to sin analogy is quite simply people who are in the cemetery don't have the capacity to sin they can't. We, however, may be dead to sin with the death of Jesus but we sure can still sin.

We are freed from the Obligation to sin but not the Potential to sin.

Paul wants us to understand that the death of Jesus and the reality that we are joined with the death of Jesus does not take away our capacity to sin but instead it takes away our obligation to sin. Is going to get into that further but in short it means you and I don't have to sin. And I know I seem to be restating the obvious but I think it's only because we underestimate the power of sin that this seems like a redundant statement. We need to understand that sin has a narcotic in slaving deadly power. And without the work of Jesus we live as slaves to this deadly power. Before Jesus we were unknowingly subject to the power of sin.

I love how one commentator puts it:

Romans B. The Death of Christ Was a Death to Sin (6:3–7)

Identifying with Christ through faith and baptism does not free the believer from the possibility of sin, but it does free the believer from the obligation to sin.

Remember back to what Paul said in verse 6?

Romans 6:6 ESV

6 We know that our old self was crucified with him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing, so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin.

This verse has three different sections that define the point that Paul is trying to make about sin and our nature.

Our old self died with Christ; not our capacity to sin

This verse has three different sections that define the point that Paul is trying to make about sin and our nature.

First of all, our old self is crucified with Jesus. We still have the capacity to sin, that is not crucified. But our old self and our old nature is crucified and dies with Christ.

Our nature is what drives the deepest part of who we are. It is something that changes when we join with what Christ has done.

The Body of Sin = Our proclivity to sin

Our proclivity or bent towards sin has been “brought to nothing”

OK So what does this mean? We obviously still have the capacity to sin. And we obviously still to desire to sin. But this means that when we walk in the power that God gives to us. When we walk in relationship with God sin has lost its power. Previously before we were followers of Jesus sin had great power to control us. Because of our death with Jesus sin has its power stripped away from it. Sin no longer rises out of our fundamental nature and therefore cannot demand that we follow what it tells us.

So our old cell is crucified with Christ in order that sin would no longer have power over us to control us in order that we would no longer be a slave to sin.

We are no longer slaves to sin!

I love this quote:

Romans B. The Death of Christ Was a Death to Sin (6:3–7)

A freed slave can stand directly in the presence of his or her former master, look the master in the eye, and ignore every command.

Because of what Jesus has done for us and because we've joined with Jesus in his death and resurrection we don't have to obey when sin comes knocking at our heart. We have a new master.

Colossians 1:13 ESV

13 He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son,

So the most significant truth that Paul is trying to say here is that we are free from sin! But the reality is you and I still struggle with it. The reality is you and I still feel the power of sin influencing our lives. So we find ourselves as believers slaves freed from an old master but needing somewhere new and better to go. The problem is if we are simply freed from sin it only solves half of our problem. We need something to walk towards.

Jesus was resurrected to life and this changes our lives.

Romans 6:8–10 ESV

8 Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. 9 We know that Christ, being raised from the dead, will never die again; death no longer has dominion over him. 10 For the death he died he died to sin, once for all, but the life he lives he lives to God.

Let's walk through these verses one at a time. If we died with Christ we will also live with him. What happened with the disciples who lived with Jesus and heard his teachings? Peter, James, John, and the other disciples experienced a life transformation. They were changed from simply working in their family businesses do you seeing the world in a totally different way. Life they received was so precious there were willing to die for it.

Their lives were changed by living with Jesus.

The idea of sanctification means being made more like Jesus. It means falling so greatly in love with Jesus and his teachings that we desire to do nothing that would dishonor Jesus or what he taught. And many times we wonder how do I live more like Jesus? How do I live free from envy and greed and lust? How do I live free from the sin nature that I fight? And the answer to really all of this is living with Jesus.

So Paul in verse eight is saying that if we have died with Christ and accepted what he did on the cross for us then we will also live with him. Live with the one who is a friend a protector a teacher a shepherd.

And we see in verse nine that since Christ was raised from the dead and will never die again and death no longer has dominion or mastery over him the same can be said for us. Because of what Jesus has done.

Verse 10 reminds us that Jesus death is a completed action once for all time. And the life he's living he continues to live to God.

Hebrews 7:27 ESV

27 He has no need, like those high priests, to offer sacrifices daily, first for his own sins and then for those of the people, since he did this once for all when he offered up himself.

Hebrews 9:12 ESV

12 he entered once for all into the holy places, not by means of the blood of goats and calves but by means of his own blood, thus securing an eternal redemption.

to summarize these last three verses Jesus was raised to life and he shares that resurrection power with us. He shares this new durable eternal life with us. Both in the sense that we can live forever with him in heaven and also in the reality that we can live free from sin.

All he asks for us to do is to live in the same faith that Abraham did

Genesis 15:6 ESV

6 And he believed the Lord, and he counted it to him as righteousness.

Conclusion

OK, we've covered 5 verses today and in these verses we've seen that we are free from sin because of the death of Jesus this is a simple statement with atomic ramifications. Because we've died with Christ sin can't control us any longer. But we also share in the resurrection of Jesus meaning we aren't just dead people we are freed to live differently.

We have to remember from verse three that we still have an old nature or rather a bent or proclivity towards sin. It's still there. But we don't have to obey it. Instead we are called to live with Jesus to walk and talk with Jesus to allow his teachings to infiltrate our everyday life period to celebrate his teachings and as we live with Jesus we will experience the life transformation that he gives.

Jesus was resurrected to a new life he offers that freedom and that newness of life to us. And we have only to accept and believe as Abraham did. But I remind you the Abraham coupled great faith with an inclination to act. He walked and talked with God and was willing to obey when God said go. Are you willing to say yes when God leads you? Are you willing to set idols and distractions away so that you can more clearly hear God? God only asks belief of us but he never divorces belief from action. Let's be people that actively believe and obey and live with Jesus today