Alive to God

You may recall that, last week, I talked about why I’m not a great piano player. I told you about the six years of piano lessons I took as a child, and I told you how my piano teacher, who MUST have been unbiased, said I had a lot of talent.

But I also told you that I hated practicing the piano. And I said that, as an adult, I’ve come to realize I really just never BELIEVED I could be a pianist. I didn’t identify as a pianist, so that was a reality I’d never embrace.

This week, I want to talk about something on the opposite end of the spectrum. I want to tell you about how I came to embrace the identity of a newspaper reporter.

When I was growing up, I rarely read newspapers, except for the comics. I just never really had much interest in the news.

But I wrote well throughout my school years. Then, a couple of months after I’d dropped out of college, my father made it clear I couldn’t keep living at home without earning my keep.

So, as I scanned the help-wanted ads, I saw one for a part-time reporter for a newspaper in Franklin.

I had no education in journalism, no experience writing news stories, and no previous interest in newspapers. But since I knew I could write well, I decided to apply for the job. How could I possibly fail?

Now, most of y’all have heard that story before, so I’ll give you the short version. The publisher had one exacting standard for his reporters: They had to be willing to work cheap. And since I didn’t walk out of the interview when he said the pay was $25 a day, he hired me. Seriously, what did he have to lose?

My first day on the job, he assigned me a light story about a young lady from the area who’d earned a prestigious scholarship.

I interviewed her over the phone and then spent three hours writing the story — about five times longer than it should have taken me.

When my publisher got the typewritten pages and began reading, he reached into his desk drawer and pulled out a pair of scissors and a jar of rubber cement.

I watched in horror as he began to cut paragraphs apart and paste them to a clean sheet of paper, completely rearranging them, cursing the whole time.

When he finished, he took a fresh sheet of paper, rolled it into his typewriter and banged out a new lead paragraph, then took the whole lot into the composing room for the typesetters to prepare for the newspaper.

As he left that room, heading for his office, he was still cursing. But he hadn’t fired me yet.

An hour or so later, I was preparing to leave for the day, and one of the other reporters said, “Aren’t you going to stay and wait for the paper to come off the press?”

Well, I hadn’t even thought about that. So, I waited, and soon enough, one of the pressmen brought copies to the newsroom — literally hot off the presses.

And that’s when I saw it: Right under the headline for my story, were these words: “BY Res Spears, Staff Reporter.”

It was right there in black and white, for me and all the rest of the world to see. I was a newspaper reporter.

And from that day, that’s exactly how I identified. I was a newspaper reporter. I clearly needed a lot of work to be any good at it, but that’s what I was.

And in the years that followed I DID a lot of work to get better. I read about the craft of journalism. I read other newspapers to see how stories were structured. I read journalism textbooks and talked to seasoned reporters about how they did their jobs.

I studied the changes my publisher made to my stories. And in the brief periods of time when he wasn’t cursing at me or one of the other reporters, I’d ask him for advice on how to be a better reporter.

It took a few years for me to become a good journalist. But from that very first day on the job, I WAS a newspaper reporter. I embraced that identity, and I loved it.

Now, today, as we continue our mini-series on Romans, chapter 6, we’re going to once again see the Apostle Paul talk about how the believer’s identity with Christ Jesus changes things.

Last week, we talked about how our identity with Christ in His death at the cross affects the problem we have with sin.

This week, as we look at verses 8-11 of this chapter, we’ll see how our identity with Him in His resurrection affects the problem we have with death.

Last week, we saw that His death to sin provides freedom from slavery to sin for all who follow Him in faith. Today, we’l see that His resurrection from the dead frees His followers from any reason to FEAR death.

We’ll see that both believers and non-believers will be raised from the dead, but that the experience will be vastly different for both sets of people. And we’ll see consider how truly understanding these things can change the way we live TODAY.

Turn with me to Romans, chapter 6, and let’s read this passage together, beginning in verse 8.

Romans 6:8–11 NASB95

8 Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him, 9 knowing that Christ, having been raised from the dead, is never to die again; death no longer is master over Him. 10 For the death that He died, He died to sin once for all; but the life that He lives, He lives to God. 11 Even so consider yourselves to be dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus.

Now, in verse 8, the word translated as “if” is what’s called a first-class condition in Greek. That means it represents a condition genuinely true to reality. We might say it better as “since” or “because.” In other words, “SINCE we’ve died with Christ, we believe we’ll also live with Him.”

Remember that Paul is writing to a group of believers in Rome. He’s assuming his readers have already turned their lives over to Jesus in faith. And in this portion of his letter, he wants them understand their new relationship to sin and death.

So, here he’s saying that what’s true of Christ — that He died and that He rose again — will be true of His followers, as well.

We have the present reality of real life because of the Holy Spirit’s regenerating work within us. He’s exchanged our hearts of stone for hearts of flesh. He’s made we who were dead in our trespasses ALIVE in Christ Jesus.

But we’ll also have the future reality of eternal life because of God’s promise to us.

That’s what Paul’s getting at in verse 9. We know that Jesus, having been raised from the dead, has conquered death itself. He is “never to die again.” In the Greek, this literally means He “no longer dies.”

There’s an obvious physical component to what Paul is saying here. Now that Jesus has been raised into His glorified body, He’s no longer subject to the corruption and decay that sin released into the world. His body is immortal, even as His soul is eternal.

And that should be a comfort to us, to know that OUR glorified bodies, when our souls have been reunited to them in the Rapture, will be immortal, just as His body is.

There’ll be no more corruption or decay, no more sickness or pain, no more steady decline toward death, because when the follower of Jesus dies, he is released from his enslavement to death.

Death no longer is master over believers, any more than it’s the master over the risen Jesus. In the resurrection, we are no longer under the dominion of death.

But there’s also a spiritual sense in play here, and we see it referred to in chapter 20 of the Book of Revelation.

Now, the Book of Revelation can be hard to understand. It’s a bit of a puzzle, frankly. But one strategy that’s helpful when studying it is to treat it like you would any puzzle.

When you’re putting a puzzle together, what do you do first? You find all the edge pieces and put them together, so you now have the frame for everything else.

Once you’ve created the frame, you know all the other pieces have to fit together somewhere within that frame.

When we’re trying to interpret Scripture, it’s important to do the same kind of thing. It’s important to identify some ground rules for interpretation.

This is called — and here’s a seminary word for you — hermeneutics. Hermeneutics is simply the set of ground rules we use to interpret Scripture.

You can think of it like a lens that you look through to bring Scripture into focus or the frame of the puzzle that everything else fits into.

So, let’s talk about a couple of the ground rules we set for interpreting Scripture.

It’s inspired by the Holy Spirit, by God Himself. This means that even though God used a variety of different men from a variety of different backgrounds, writing with a variety of different styles, to bring us God’s Word, the very words themselves were God-breathed.

Therefore, we know the words are true, since God cannot lie. And we know that they can’t contradict themselves, since God is perfect and since He’s not a God of confusion.

Another ground rule to remember is that the Holy Spirit inspired the writers of Scripture to write in a particular time and culture, for a particular people living in that time and culture.

Therefore, our first job when interpreting Scripture should be to understand — to the best of our ability — the historical and cultural situation of the original audience. This includes understanding — to the best of our ability — the grammar and syntax of the original language.

And when we better understand the history and culture of the original audience, including the language they used, we can begin to see the places where figures of speech come into play and recognize the richness of illustrations.

Psalm 23, where David writes that the Lord is his shepherd, is a good example. The words of that psalm are already comforting to us, but when we study the life and work of shepherds in David’s time, this psalm begins to take on new life.

So, once we’ve established ground rules for interpreting Scripture, the next step, just like when we’re putting together a puzzle, is to begin to put blocks of pieces together, within the frame.

Certain color groups or pieces with parts of an object from the final picture will go together. And once you’ve got enough of a particular block, you can connect that block to the frame or to other blocks, eventually forming the whole picture that the puzzle depicts.

Now, this isn’t a study of the Book of Revelation, but what I’ve just told you will be helpful as we look at the spiritual sense of what Paul is saying in Romans. And that’s because one of the principles of orthodox Christian doctrine is that death is not the end.

Physical death doesn’t mean we simply cease to be. And we know this, among other reasons, because of what the Apostle John wrote in what might seem a confusing passage in Revelation, chapter 20.

Now, what he records in this chapter takes place after the Rapture, at the end of the Great Tribulation, when Jesus has returned from heaven on a white horse.

With the armies of heaven behind Him, He vanquishes the armies of the unrighteous who’ve assembled themselves against Him with a word from His mouth.

And then, He casts into the fires of hell the beast and the false prophet. Satan is chained and thrown into the bottomless pit. And Jesus begins His thousand-year reign here on earth.

We who’ve followed Him in faith will join Him here for this age of righteousness and peace, having received our own glorified bodies in the Rapture.

And those who’ve been martyred or turned to Him in faith during the Great Tribulation will be raised from the dead to reign over the earth with Christ and with us.

Now, look at verse 5.

Revelation 20:5–6 NASB95

5 The rest of the dead did not come to life until the thousand years were completed. This is the first resurrection. 6 Blessed and holy is the one who has a part in the first resurrection; over these the second death has no power, but they will be priests of God and of Christ and will reign with Him for a thousand years.

So, in these verses, we see John write about the second death and the first resurrection, which implies that there’s a first death and a second resurrection.

Let’s deal with the two deaths first. The first death is clearly physical death. It’s the death that we’ll all experience, unless Jesus returns first. John explains the second death in verse 14 of this chapter.

Revelation 20:14–15 NASB95

14 Then death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. This is the second death, the lake of fire. 15 And if anyone’s name was not found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire.

So, the second death is to be cast into the lake of fire. This is the destiny of all whose names aren’t written in the book of life, of all who don’t turn to Jesus in faith.

This is spiritual death, eternal separation from the presence of God, of Jesus, and of the Holy Spirit. This is hell, and hell is real, just as heaven is real.

Unless Jesus returns first, we’ll all experience the first death, because we live in a sin-cursed world, a world that’s under the dominion of sin and earns the wages of sin.

For followers of Jesus, our souls have been freed from slavery to sin, but our bodies are still subject to its curse. But our physical death releases our bodies from sin’s claim on them.

So, when we, like Jesus, are raised from the dead into glorified bodies, our bodies and souls will be reunited. And neither will any longer be subject to sin’s curse, which is death. We’ll be immortal, just as Jesus is.

And this is what John refers to as the first resurrection. In Luke, chapter 14, Jesus calls it the resurrection of the righteous.

That’s one of the pieces that helps us to complete this block of the puzzle that is the Book of Revelation. This is the resurrection into glorified bodies of all who’ve followed Jesus in faith.

But the fact that there is a “first resurrection” implies that there’ll be a second one. And John confirms that in verse 12 of this same chapter.

Revelation 20:12 NASB95

12 And I saw the dead, the great and the small, standing before the throne, and books were opened; and another book was opened, which is the book of life; and the dead were judged from the things which were written in the books, according to their deeds.

How will the dead be standing before the throne? Because they’ve been raised from the dead. They’ve been resurrected here. This is the second resurrection.

And if the first resurrection was for the righteous, for those who’ve trusted in Jesus for their salvation, who is the second resurrection for? For the UNrighteous. For all who’ve rejected Jesus, for all who’ve chosen to stand in their own righteousness before God.

Instead of standing on God’s grace through faith in Jesus and His finished work at the cross, they’ve trusted in themselves.

Instead of standing before Him in HIS righteousness, they’ll be standing in their OWN righteousness. Their deeds will be judged.

And because ALL have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God, they will ALL be condemned to the second death, the lake of fire, hell.

For them, death will still be master over them. And they will continue to die forever, away from the presence of God, outside of of God’s grace, for all eternity.

But for those of us who are “in Christ” — for we who’ve turned to Him in faith that He is who He said He is and He’ll do what He said He’ll do — we have no reason to fear this second death because of what Jesus did at the cross.

Now, go back to our Romans passage and look at verse 10.

Romans 6:10 NASB95

10 For the death that He died, He died to sin once for all; but the life that He lives, He lives to God.

In other words, in His death, Jesus’ relationship to sin changed forever. HE was sinless, but He bore our sins and their guilt at the cross. So, God treated Him as if He were sinful for our sakes, pouring upon Him the punishment that WE deserve for our sins against Him.

Because He was a man, He could represent mankind before God at the cross, and because He was sinless, He could bear OUR condemnation without being condemned Himself.

Please understand that, when Jesus cried out, “My God, My God, why have you forsaken Me?” at the end of those three hours of darkness at the cross, the condemnation He felt there was OURS.

But suffering our condemnation in the righteous perfection of God meant that what He did at the cross had to be done only once. He needed to die to sin only once for all to free all who’d follow Him in faith from their slavery to sin.

And when He rose from the dead, His victory over sin was complete, because He’d overcome sin’s greatest weapon, death itself.

“The cross was sin’s final move; the resurrection was God’s checkmate. The game is over. Sin is forever in defeat. Christ the victor died to sin “once for all” and lives now in unbroken fellowship with God.” [Robert H. Mounce, Romans, vol. 27, The New American Commentary (Nashville: Broadman & Holman Publishers, 1995), 152.]

He who KNEW no sin DIED to sin so that we who LIVE to sin can now, through faith in Him, be DEAD to sin and ALIVE to God in Him.

Because we followers of Jesus are now identified with Him in faith, we should consider ourselves to have died to sin WITH Him. And having died to sin, we should also consider ourselves alive to God in Christ Jesus.

In other words, since we’re no longer enslaved to sin and subject to its wages, we are now free to serve God. We’re free to have fellowship with Him.

We’re free to have the PRESENT experience of eternal life — life in relationship with Father, Son, and Holy Spirit — even though our mortal bodies will someday die. And this PRESENT experience of eternal life should be for us a taste of what eternity promises.

And we can have confidence in this promise, because Jesus is the firstfruits of the resurrection.

When God raised Him from the dead, He showed that He’d accepted Jesus’ sacrificial death as full payment of the debt owed by all those sinners who’d turn to Jesus in faith. And He also proved He has the power to KEEP His promise of eternal life for believers.

Therefore, we who’ve trusted in Jesus’ sacrificial death and supernatural resurrection can now know that our physical death is only the prelude to being raised from the dead in the first resurrection.

We can know that we may well face the first, physical death, but since sin no longer has a claim on us, we have no reason to fear the second death.

We can trust that, since Jesus conquered death itself, then for us, physical death is only a next step toward glorification, toward becoming more like Jesus, toward eternity with Him in bodies no longer subject to death.

So, let me ask you this: If you no longer saw your physical death as something to fear, how would it change the way you’re alive to God?

How would it change the way you serve Him? How would it change the way you live as an ambassador for the kingdom of God in this fallen world?

If you no longer feared death because of your confidence in the reality of the resurrection of the righteous, what OTHER fears could you let go of that interfere with serving God?

How would identifying as one who was dead to sin and its greatest weapon change the way you live to God?

Would you the be more willing to share the gospel with others? Would you be able to lay aside your fear of rejection and ridicule to proclaim the good news of salvation by grace through faith?

Would you allow yourself to be the light of Christ in the midst of this divided culture without succumbing to the fear that’s at the heart of all the divisions?

This week, I want to encourage you to consider what it really means to be “alive to God in Christ Jesus.” Think about what it really looks like to live without fear of death.

Ponder on the reality of Jesus’ victory over sin AND death and on the promise of the resurrection of the righteous.

How SHALL we live in light of these things?