You Dead

Intro

Where sin did abound, grace did much more abound.

Death reigned. Grace through righteousness can reign unto eternal life through Jesus Christ

Sanctification

Verse 1

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?

The inclination and carnal desire to abuse the grace of God is not new.

Paul is disarming the believers, before they get a chance to exploit a possible loophole in Paul’s words.

Trying to exploit loopholes in God’s Word never works and is never a good thing.

When Scripture declares a truth and someone decides to bend it to their liking one way or the other, it never ends well.

The pharisees bent it one way.

They argued with Christ saying the law said such and such but Christ on many occasions pointed out they they were misinterpreting scripture and that it was saying something completely contrary to what they were teaching and doing.

Others would use the grace of Christ as a license to sin.

Should we sin even more, because the more we commit sin the more gloriously the grace of God will be magnified in our pardon.

Reminds of many believers who are sometimes bashful to share their testimony.

They are bashful because they grew up in a great independent new testament baptist church with a great family, great mom and dad.

Could be considered a goody two shoes

Didn’t get mixed up in the wrong crowd

Didn’t sow their wild oats.

These believers don’t think it is a powerful testimony because they don’t think God had showed them a lot of grace in comparison to someone who may have lived a hard life of sin and later in life put their faith in Christ

People have the mentality that if I sin, God gets more glory when I get right.

Yet Paul said, “God forbid”

How could we volitionally continue in sin when we are dead to it now.

How can we live any longer in something we are dead to???

It doesn’t make sense

These two verses show that believers are no longer under the penalty of sin but also the power of sin

We who were once dead in our sin and trespasses are now dead to sin

Verses 3-7

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. 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.

Something is wrong when a “believer” desires freedom to sin after he has been granted freedom from sin (verse 7)

The expression “free from sin” occurs 3 times in Romans 6 (vv 7, 18, 22)

The contrast of death that Paul uses is awesome

Chapter five he was hitting hard that because of sin death has passed to all men.

But now in chapter 6 he is saying that the believer is dead with Christ

The believer has died…wait what?

I thought the gift of God was eternal and salvation from death brought about by sin

But now the believer is dead?

Lets break it down slowly

Nothing can be more unresponsive than a person who is dead.

Imagine someone trying to evoke a reaction from a corpse!

It can be caressed, commanded, or kicked and no response will come, for the simple reason that it is dead to all such stimuli.

God reckons the believer to be dead to the promptings of sin.

Illustration

In a certain church was a narrow, bigoted old deacon, wedded to the old paths and suspicious of anything new. A dried up old die-hard was he, sitting in judgment on all who refused to be ruled by his view of Scripture, acid of temperament and barren of soul. Although that was not his real name, we shall call him Macadam. To this church came a young man with the fresh dew of God’s anointing upon him, a young man of vision, gift, charm and possessed of an unusual grasp of Scripture and a distinct measure of wisdom. This young man’s ministry was singularly blessed of God to the salvation of souls and the quickening of many of God’s people. But, inevitably perhaps, some of his views did not coincide with those of the dour old Scot who ruled the deaconate. For years the deacon did all in his power to discourage, oppose and criticize the younger man. One day another member of this church asked the younger man how he managed to put up with this deacon. "William," was the startling reply, "I died to Macadam five years ago."

This young man had grasped the secret of the believer’s death with Christ. Let us grasp the truth of it—"How shall we that are dead to sin, live any longer therein?" There should be in our lives such an experience of the reality of our death with Christ that sin can evoke no response from us at all.

Verse 4

We are buried with him by baptism into death;

That word baptize is exactly what many of us think of when you hear the word baptize.

It is simply a transliteration of the greek word baptizo.

Here some ways it was used during this time period.

The word is used of a smith who dips a piece of hot iron in water, tempering it; also of Greek soldiers placing the points of their swords, and barbarians, the points of their spears, in a bowl of blood... The usage of the word as seen in the above examples resolves itself into the following definition of the word baptizō, ’the introduction or placing of a person or thing into a new environment or into union with someone else so as to alter its condition or its relationship to its previous environment or condition.’

When a believer is buried with him by baptism into death, it is literally altering the condition and relationship of that sinner with regard to his previous state and environment, bringing him into a new environment.

Verse 5 then furthers this though saying we are not even the same creature, person.

Our old man is crucified, that body of sin is destroyed.

And just as we were buried by baptism into death, even Christ was raised up from the dead so should we walk in newness of life

Verse five uses a phrase planted together

Has a connotation of being closely united

We have been closely united in the likeness of his death and his resurrection

The word exactly expresses the process by which a graft becomes united with the life of a tree. So the Christian becomes ’grafted into’ Christ." We become vitally united to Him. We share His very life.

Paul is seeking to convey the remarkable truth that Christ’s death was our death; His burial was our burial; His resurrection was our resurrection. He not only died for me; He died as me!

Positionally, our old man has been crucified

But practically, according to Ephesians 4 and Colossians 3 the believer is exhorted to put off the old man and put on the new.

It is crazy how even though we know our old man has been crucified many still keep it around

Illustration

A certain man was accustomed to rising at six o’clock to catch a train each morning at seven. His wife usually saw him off to work; but one night the little ones had been particularly restless and his wife was just settling down to a deep sleep when the alarm clock went off. "Oh, dear," she groaned, "is that six o’clock?" When her husband told her it was, she said, "It doesn’t feel like six o’clock." Now here’s the point. It didn’t feel like six o’clock but the sun, the moon, and the stars, the earth on its orbit, and the whole machinery of the heavens declared that it was six o’clock. But it didn’t feel like six o’clock! It is the same with this great biblical truth that the believer is dead with Christ. He may not feel very dead, but that is beside the point. God says that he is, and the whole machinery of redemption declares it to be a fact.

Illustration

How slow we are to believe this great, basic fact which opens for us the door to victorious Christian living! The story is told of two Irishmen, Pat and Mike, who found a most unusual turtle. The animal’s head had been completely severed from its body, but the turtle was still running around as though nothing had happened. Pat maintained that it was dead, but Mike denied it stoutly and the argument waxed louder and louder until presently along came O’Brien. They decided that O’Brien should arbitrate the matter and that his verdict would be final. O’Brien took one look at this remarkable turtle and said, "It’s dead—but it don’t believe it!”

That is exactly the problem with many Christians: they are dead but they do not believe it. This is a tragedy, for it is the truth of this verse fully and unreservedly believed that breaks sin’s stranglehold in the life once it is believed.