Believers Are Dead to Sin, Alive to GodRomans 6
Notes
Transcript
Romans 6
Romans 6
Definitions of key words in Romans
Justification—the process by which sinful human beings are made acceptable to a holy God. It is based on the work of Christ, accomplished through His blood. . .
Much more then, having now been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from the wrath of God through Him.
. . . and brought to His people through His resurrection.
He who was delivered over because of our transgressions, and was raised because of our justification.
When God justifies, He charges the sin of man to Christ and credits the righteousness of Christ to the believer.
He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.
Sanctification—the process of God’s grace by which the believer is separated from sin and becomes dedicated to God’s righteousness, accomplished by the Word of God . . .
“Now they have come to know that everything You have given Me is from You;
. . . and the Holy Spirit.
For what the Law could not do, weak as it was through the flesh, God did: sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and as an offering for sin, He condemned sin in the flesh,
so that the requirement of the Law might be fulfilled in us, who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.
Sanctification results in holiness, or purification from the guilt and the power of sin.
Sanctification is separation from the world and setting apart for God’s service.
I am speaking in human terms because of the weakness of your flesh. For just as you presented your members as slaves to impurity and to lawlessness, resulting in further lawlessness, so now present your members as slaves to righteousness, resulting in sanctification.
God sanctifies a person in that He breaks the power of the indwelling sinful nature and imparts His divine nature, thus freeing the individual from the power of sin and enabling him to live a life pleasing to God, doing this at the moment the sinner puts his faith in the Lord Jesus as Savior.
Redemption—deliverance by payment of a price. It is salvation from sin, death and the wrath of God by Christ’s sacrifice.
being justified as a gift by His grace through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus;
a release secured by the payment of a ransom, setting free, deliverance through Christ from evil and the penalty of sin. The price paid to purchase that liberation was His shed blood.
Propitiation—the appeasement of divine wrath by a sacrificial offering.
whom God displayed publicly as a propitiation in His blood through faith. This was to demonstrate His righteousness, because in the forbearance of God He passed over the sins previously committed;
The only saving solution to the fact of God’s wrath against sin. At the heart of the gospel is the fact that if Christ did not bear the wrath of God that we deserved, then tat wrath is still stored up for us.
Now back to the text:
In chapter 6 Paul describes in detail how Christ Jesus entered into death through His “baptism” on the cross in order to render death powerless, thereby reversing Adam’s fall and ascending into life through His resurrection.
May it never be! How shall we who died to sin still live in it?
Or do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus have been baptized into His death?
Believers are baptized into Christ Jesus. We descend with Him in His death. We have been buried with Him and have died to sin.
We don’t take this grace for granted for a license to sin. This is simply missing the point of what union with Christ means.
Water Baptism:
When we descend through baptism into the water, we are signifying death to sin through Jesus’ death on the cross, and going under the water, symbolizes burial with Him. But when we re raised out of the water, we give evidence that “just as Christ was raised from the dead to the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life.
Although the act of baptism is not required for salvation, by identifying ourselves with Christ’s death and resurrection through baptism, we can experience victory over sin as we allow Him to live through us.
for with the heart a person believes, resulting in righteousness, and with the mouth he confesses, resulting in salvation.
Therefore we have been buried with Him through baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life.
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,
Paul tells us that if we have been identified with Christ in His death, then we will be identified with Him in life.
that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death;
When it comes to baptism in Him, the next step in the process is that appropriate and holy behaviors begin to be evident in our lives.
We must live out our own salvation to Him with fear and trembling.
So then, my beloved, just as you have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your salvation with fear and trembling;
for it is God who is at work in you, both to will and to work for His good pleasure.
knowing that Christ, having been raised from the dead, is never to die again; death no longer is master over Him.
For the death that He died, He died to sin once for all; but the life that He lives, He lives to God.
For now we aren’t dead in sin, but we are alive to God.
We have been washed white as snow.
“Come now, and let us reason together,” Says the Lord, “Though your sins are as scarlet, They will be as white as snow; Though they are red like crimson, They will be like wool.
Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its lusts,
We do not offer our bodies to sin.
Let no one say when he is tempted, “I am being tempted by God”; for God cannot be tempted by evil, and He Himself does not tempt anyone.
But each one is tempted when he is carried away and enticed by his own lust.
Then when lust has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and when sin is accomplished, it brings forth death.
Since we are in Christ, we believers are potentially masters over death and sin.
For sin shall not be master over you, for you are not under law but under grace.
Therefore I urge you, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship.
We are not under law but under grace.
What Paul means by not being under the law but under grace is that we don’t have to work from a fallen nature, but by grace we have been given a new nature.
The call to holiness:
What then? Shall we sin because we are not under law but under grace? May it never be!
Do you not know that when you present yourselves to someone as slaves for obedience, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin resulting in death, or of obedience resulting in righteousness?
But thanks be to God that though you were slaves of sin, you became obedient from the heart to that form of teaching to which you were committed,
and having been freed from sin, you became slaves of righteousness.
I am speaking in human terms because of the weakness of your flesh. For just as you presented your members as slaves to impurity and to lawlessness, resulting in further lawlessness, so now present your members as slaves to righteousness, resulting in sanctification.
For when you were slaves of sin, you were free in regard to righteousness.
Therefore what benefit were you then deriving from the things of which you are now ashamed? For the outcome of those things is death.
But now having been freed from sin and enslaved to God, you derive your benefit, resulting in sanctification, and the outcome, eternal life.
For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
When we come to recognize what grace really is, we desire to be holy because we know we would be guilty if it wasn’t for grace.
Paul recognizes that the old nature, though in principle was put to death on the cross, lingers on in the life of the believer and can be overcome by the decisive will of the Christian. We must choose to live according to the new nature, not the old.
We are no longer slaves to sin, but slaves to Christ.
It is crucial for us to walk in whole-hearted obedience to Christ.
If we do get weak, we must have a renewing of faithfulness.
Why if we died to the flesh, would we want to go back?
“Absence makes the heart grow fonder,” the saying goes. Unfortunately this applies to looking back on past sins. I know this is true in my own life. I tend to forget the consequences and remember the appeal.
We are redeemed believers in Christ, and we need to leave sin behind and squash any fond feelings from reemerging.
Jesus paid all our debt.
Even as redeemed believers in Jesus, we must still contend with the ongoing presence of sin in our bodies.
I don’t agree with once an alcoholic, always an alcoholic or it’s a disease. Same with drugs. I believe the Lord delivers us.
God’s indwelling Spirit not only redeems us, but also empowers us to live free from the bondage of sin.
Even though believers have been set free from the slavery to sin, we must still contend with our mortal body’s inclination towards sin until Jesus returns to complete the redemption of creation.
And not only this, but also we ourselves, having the first fruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our body.
For in hope we have been saved, but hope that is seen is not hope; for who hopes for what he already sees?
We have a choice to make about whom we will serve.