Union with Jesus Christ
Notes
Transcript
Introduction
Introduction
Hook: Who are you? What’s your name? Whom do you belong to? At the core—where do you find your identity?
Need: We need to remember our Baptism, all that is proclaims, and all that is calls us to as we follow Jesus Christ our Lord.
Title: Union with Jesus Christ
Purpose: To know who are we in our spiritual union with Christ and how we ought to live in Him!
Murray: “Nothing is more central or basic [to the Christian life] than union and communion with [Jesus] Christ.”
Text: Rom. 6:5-11 ESV
PRAY - PRAY - PRAY - PRAY - PRAY - PRAY - PRAY
(1) United with Jesus Christ, You are Dead to Sin - v. 5-7
(1) United with Jesus Christ, You are Dead to Sin - v. 5-7
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. 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. For one who has died has been set free from sin.
(1) United with Jesus Christ, You are Dead to Sin - v. 5-7
(1) United with Jesus Christ, You are Dead to Sin - v. 5-7
The Apostle Paul has just spent the past 4 verses speaking about baptism. All of us have been baptized into Christ Jesus! Some argue on whether or not Paul is talking about water baptism or Spirit baptism. In some ways it doesn’t matter. Though we separate the sign from that which is signifies, we never separate them.
The reality that water baptism points to is salvation, when we are united to Jesus Christ by the washing and regeneration of the Spirit. The physical sign proclaims the spiritual reality. This is Paul’s main point in Romans 6—what does your Baptism proclaim? And how does it obligate you to live? Who are you, and how then shall you live?
Paul says: if we have been united with him. Union with Christ. If we have been spiritually knit to Him. If we have been savingly connected to Christ. If we have been united with him—then we partake of all that is in Him. He died, and so we died with him. He rose from the dead, and so we both have, and shall, rise with Him! Do you see the glory of this, Christian?
Christianity is not primarily about making a decision for Christ—it’s about believing into Christ, and becoming one with Christ. Sharing in His benefits! Partaking of every spiritual blessing that is in Him. He is our Head and Representative. As goes the Lord Jesus Christ, the Head, so goes the Church, his Body. And Paul is saying that this is what your Baptism signs and seals to you who believe! Through faith, and by the Spirit—you are united to the One who died to sin, and who rose from the dead! If we grasp this—this precious gem of a doctrine—then it will have life-changing consequences for us! Because we will finally know who we are, and how we ought to live in Christ!
Paul says that our old self, our old man—that fleshly and sinful part of us, united to Adam—that he was crucified with Christ in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing, so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin. You see? In Adam, and partaking of Adam’s fallen & sinful nature, we were enslaved to sin. Dead in sin. Lost in sin. Ruled by sin. Dominated by sin. And the wages of sin was death. But we have been united to the One who died to sin, who bore our sins on the Cross, who has forgiven us, washed us, cleansed us, renewed us, and has freed us from the lordship of sin and death in Adam—and transferred us to the lordship of grace and life in Christ. After all, we have been Baptized into Christ. We have been transferred from being in Adam, to being in Christ. What we once were, HAS DIED, once for all. Hallelujah! We have been crucified with Christ!
I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.
And so when Satan and sin comes knocking on the door of your heart: saying that you must obey their desires, now you can remind them: NO! I have been freed from your tyranny! I have been freed from your rule over me. I have died with Christ. I have been set free from sin. I have been united to the Lord Jesus Christ, who savingly reigns over me in grace and truth! I am free, free indeed.
Ferguson: “Paul speaks about this body of sin as being brought to nothing or again, in older translations, being destroyed. …The body of the Christian is no longer the fruitful soil for sin that it once was. His or her whole person, body and soul, is now under the lordship of Jesus Christ. Sin no longer reigns over the body; Jesus Christ does!”
(1) United with Jesus Christ, You are Dead to Sin - v. 5-7
A dead man can’t serve his master. We have died to the mastery of sin. But we didn’t stay dead. Because Christ didn’t stay dead! Yes, we died with Christ—but we also have been raised with Christ! So secondly,
(2) United with Jesus Christ, You are Alive to God - v. 8-10
(2) United with Jesus Christ, You are Alive to God - v. 8-10
Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. We know that Christ, being raised from the dead, will never die again; death no longer has dominion over him. For the death he died he died to sin, once for all, but the life he lives he lives to God.
(2) United with Jesus Christ, You are Alive to God - v. 8-10
(2) United with Jesus Christ, You are Alive to God - v. 8-10
If you are one with Christ, you share in all of Christ—all of the benefits of salvation that comes through Jesus Himself. His death becomes your death, but also, His resurrection becomes your resurrection! You partake in the newness of life that is in Him! Paul has just told us that our Baptisms’ don’t just symbolize our union with Christ who died for us, but also, our union in newness of life with Jesus our King. He arose, He arose! Hallelujah, Christ arose! And so we having living hope, that we will be physically resurrection with Christ when he returns, but also, we live with him now! We reign with him now! We spiritually partake in his new life, having been spiritually raised from the dead!
having been buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with him through faith in the powerful working of God, who raised him from the dead.
We have been born again, never to spiritually die again, because we are united to Christ—over whom death no longer has dominion! Christ has the keys of Death and Hades in his right hand. He died, but behold, is the Living One! And in Him, we have been raised to new life by the power of the Holy Spirit. And if anyone is in Christ, He is a new creation! The old has gone, and the new has come. You are alive in and through the resurrected Lord. And you live, with Christ … not for yourself, but unto God. For the glory of God! For the kingdom of God! For the name of God! For the honour of God our Father who is in heaven.
Calvin: The meaning is, that Christ, who now vivifies the faithful by his Spirit, or breathes his own life into them by his secret power from heaven, was freed from the dominion of death when he arose, that by virtue of the same dominion he might render free all his people.
(2) United with Jesus Christ, You are Alive to God - v. 8-10
You have died to sin, and now you are alive to God—you were ruled by death, and now you are ruled by life! You have a new heartbeat—through Christ—that beats with faith, hope, and love, in the power of the Holy Spirit! You are a new man, a new woman, who lives for the glory of God. And so, all of this leads Paul to give one imperative, one command, to us baptized Christians:
(3) United with Jesus Christ, You must Know Yourself - v. 11
(3) United with Jesus Christ, You must Know Yourself - v. 11
So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.
(3) United with Jesus Christ, You must Know Yourself - v. 11
(3) United with Jesus Christ, You must Know Yourself - v. 11
Notice that Paul is not saying that you need to become dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus. No. If you are a Christian, if you are savingly united to Jesus Christ, then you already are dead to sin and alive to God in Christ! And so he says: remember that! reckon it true! consider it as fact! You have died to the dominion of sin—and you are alive in the dominion of Christ—finally set free, to live for God alone! But notice that last phrase……….. all of this comes, in Christ Jesus. ἐν Χριστῷ Ἰησοῦ. The only way that you can die to sin is if you are united to the One who did. The only way you can find new life unto God is if you are united to the One who is risen.
Do you see? Everything flows out of our union with Jesus Christ. Faith is just an instrument. Repentance is just a response. It is being baptized by the Spirit, into union with Christ, being washed and regenerated and born from above—this is what changes everything.
I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing.
Poole: Through Jesus Christ our Lord; or, in Jesus Christ our Lord; … Jesus Christ is the root of our spiritual life; even as the [branch] lives in [connection with] the [vine], so believers are alive unto God in Jesus Christ, receiving from him that virtue whereby their spiritual life is begun, maintained, and perfected.
For we ourselves were once foolish, disobedient, led astray, slaves to various passions and pleasures, passing our days in malice and envy, hated by others and hating one another. But when the goodness and loving kindness of God our Savior appeared, he saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit, whom he poured out on us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that being justified by his grace we might become heirs according to the hope of eternal life.
(3) United with Jesus Christ, You must Know Yourself - v. 11
This is who you are, dear Christian! So hear this final conclusion for this evening, people of God:
(C) In Union with Christ we are Dead to Sin and Alive to God—So Know Who You Are, and How You Ought to Live!
(C) In Union with Christ we are Dead to Sin and Alive to God—So Know Who You Are, and How You Ought to Live!
Who are you? What’s your name? Whom do you belong to? What’s you ridentity?
Ferguson: Q. Baptized Christian—What do you believe about yourself? A. I believe that since I have been baptized into Christ Jesus, by His Spirit and through faith, I have been united to the Lord Jesus Christ in His death and resurrection. I believe that in Christ I have died to sin. I believe that although sin is still present in me, it no longer reigns over me. Therefore, I now commit myself to resisting sin. And knowing that I am no longer what I used to be, I look forward to the day when I will be all that I not yet am, not only delivered from the guilt and reign of sin, but set free at last even from its presence in me. Thanks be to God!
We’ve been baptized into Christ, into his death and resurrection—so let’s remember that:
(C) In Union with Christ we are Dead to Sin and Alive to God—So Know Who You Are, and How You Ought to Live!
(C) In Union with Christ we are Dead to Sin and Alive to God—So Know Who You Are, and How You Ought to Live!
Murray: “Nothing is more central or basic [to the Christian life] than union and communion with [Jesus] Christ.”
And if Baptism proclaims our once for all, union with Jesus Christ, the Lord’s Table proclaims our ongoing communion with Jesus Christ! As we grow deeper and deeper in fellowship with the one who gave himself to save us, that we might be set apart to serve Him forevermore.
Amen? Let’s pray.
