Becoming a Means of Righteousness

Introduction: Does the grace of God give us a license to sin? If justification is by grace through faith alone then it doesn’t matter how I live, right? If I am eternally secure in my salvation then why should I care about the sin in my life? Why is grace not a license to sin? Let’s be honest for a moment. Because the truth is that these are not the kind of questions that a genuinely saved person asks or at the very least they are not the questions that someone walking with Christ asks. When you are more concerned about what you can get away with than the glory of God then I have questions.

What do you want us to say now? (v. 1a) This connects us back to Paul’s previous arguments from chapters 1-5

I desire to minister to you and to be ministered to by you.

The gentiles are sinners

The Jews are sinners

We are all sinners

God’s judgement is righteous

No one is righteous for all have sinned and come short of God’s glory.

The righteousness of God has been manifested in Jesus Christ and imputed to those who by faith believe in Him.

We are justified by His grace as a gift through the redemption of Christ Jesus.

Why is grace not a license to sin? It is almost as though Paul is trying to get ahead of a question he knows is coming.

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We Have Been Baptized Into the Death of Christ (v. 1-4)

This begins the “Do you not know...” passages of Romans. Paul is implying that these truths are something that we should know and don’t or that we do know but live like we don’t. Notice how this section begins with a series of four questions.

Romans 6:3 “Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death?”

Romans 6:16 “Do you not know that if you present yourselves to anyone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin, which leads to death, or of obedience, which leads to righteousness?”

Romans 7:1 “Or do you not know, brothers—for I am speaking to those who know the law—that the law is binding on a person only as long as he lives?”

What does it mean to be baptized into His death?

To be baptized means to be fully immersed.

So we are fully immersed into His death.

This is communicating the concept of Christ’s death being substitutionary.

When He died it was as if we died.

The theological concept of substitution began essentially the moment sin entered into the world.

When Adam and Eve sinned an animal died as a substitution.

Every Old Testament sacrifice was a substitution. They just didn’t work judicially. They only worked symbolically.

Old Testament sacrifices had no effect if they were not done in faith.

If we are dead to sin, how can we keep on living in it?

There is a big difference between dying in our sins and being dead to sin.

Being dead to sin means it has not control over us. It means we no longer have to respond to its promptings.

We Will Be United in the Resurrection of Christ (v. 5-10)

The greatest means of control that sin had over you was death. Death is the product of sin, but when Christ was raised death was defeated.

Therefore because of the resurrection sin no longer has control.

We have been made positionally righteous before God.

We are practically growing in our righteousness.

Sin not longer has control because our old self was crucified with Christ and the body of sin that we have produced over a lifetime which enslaved us has lost control.

But it is not as though we are now in control.

We were baptized into Christ’s death

We have been united in His resurrection

Our old self was crucified with Christ

We also live with Christ.

We Are Dead to Sin and Alive to God (v. 11-14)

How we view ourselves plays a big part in how much control sin has over us.

Negative: Consider yourself dead to sin.

Positive: Consider yourself alive to God in Christ Jesus

Sins control over the believer is a matter of choice.

Negative:Do not let sin reign in your mortal body.

Negative: Do not offer any part of your body as a means of unrighteousness.

Positive: Offer yourself to God as one who has been brought from death to life.

Positive: Offer yourself as a means of righteousness.