Romans 6:1-14
Introduction It has been a few months since we last looked at RomansSo let's go back a few steps… And like good students, let's do a bit of revision… The Irving Jensen chart is as follows…R… Ruin (Romans 1:17-3:20 ) … Utter sinfulness of mankind O… Offer (Romans 3:21-31 ) … God’s offer of justification by grace alone M… Model (Romans 4:1-25 ) ... Abraham as the model for saving faith A… Access (Romans 5:1-11 ) ... The benefits of justification N… New Adam (Romans 5:12-21 ) …We are all children of two Adams S… Struggle (Romans 6:1-8:39 ) … Struggle, sanctification and victoryAnd the struggle is where we are going over the next 2 months. Paul assures us that he is in no way ashamed of the Gospel… Romans 1:16-17 Because it is firmly based in God’s omniscient power… And therein God delivers the righteousness that is of God…To all mankind… Jew and Gentile. And most importantly it comes to us not thru works of righteousness But simply by God’s grace and mercy thru faith in Christ Jesus.The power of God enables us to live by faith each daySo achieving the victory we will see in chapter 8 . Having been justified by faith we, who once were enemies of God, now have peace with God thru our Lord Jesus Christ… Romans 5:1 We have done nothing in return to deserve any grace or mercy It is important to recognise that these three chapters belong together…Chapter 6 is foundational for living a life of freedom and growth in Christ-likeness but we need all three chapters to really progress in sanctification which is the entire purpose of this section… Notice the logical pattern in Paul's thinking…Romans 6 deals with the believer being dead to sinRomans 7 deals with the believer being dead to the lawRomans 8 explains how the indwelling Spirit empowers us to achieve victory in our Christian experience. So chapters 1-5 deal with justification and 6-8 deal with the next step which is sanctification.Developing Christ-likeness Reading Dead to sin, Alive to in Christ This passage of scripture is split into two parts…Allegorical and practical… An allegorical explanation… Romans 6:2-7 Here it speaks of death and baptism in an allegorical sense…Clearly water baptism does not deliver salvation. Baptism is a picture of the salvation process where I am united with Christ in his death and resurrection… Romans 6:3 So I go under the water where I die to sin but thru faith in Christ I am raised up in newness of life to live for God. And when we request water baptism this is the statement that I am making to the world.I am now united with Christ,and I live for him… Romans 6:10 For me to live is Christ… Philippians 1:21 Christ is in every part of my life…Home, business, social, sports, entertainment, church. So that answers the question… can I carry on in sin…Not if I am united with the sinless Christ.I cannot drag him into my sinful life. My lifestyle must change… Paul now proceeds and deals with that change… Sanctification Meaning…It is God’s will that you should be sanctified… 1 Thessalonians 4:3 It is to make a person holy To set it apart for special use So it is God’s purpose that each believer should be living for him and his purposes.God's purpose in your life goes way beyond just being forgiven… Shall we (Continue in) sin that grace may abound…To those of us who have been in the faith for many years this sounds like a silly question with an obvious answer… NO.It goes directly against God’s purposes… But to some and maybe many today, continuing in sin is in fact a way of life… Jude was confronted with this very problem…Godless men who change the grace of our God into a license for immorality and deny Jesus Christ our only sovereign Lord… Jude 1:4 And in many churches today Godless men are still teaching that lie.Carry on in sin because all is forgiven… Rasputin was a famous Russian monk who said…I’ll sin more to earn more forgiveness…This was very convenient theology which allowed him to live a totally immoral life… And it is still being taught in some churches today. But it misses the entire point of the death of Jesus and God's plan of salvation. Shall we continue in sin…For many Christians salvation is about forgiveness of sin and access to heaven…If we commit sins it does not really matter…All my sins past, present and future are covered by the death of Jesus. But forgiveness is just a start to God's plan for us so in the these chapters he deals with “Progressive sanctification” Sanctification is written in the present tense and therefore speaks to a continuous state of change.The reality is that it only stops when I die or Jesus returns to take the church to be with himself. Context shows…Chapters 3-5 dealing with the need for justification by faith thru grace… Past tense I have become a believer. My sin was forgiven … history. Now we must progress on to sanctification… Present continuous tense …Justification saves us from sin and its penalty… Sanctification saves us for Christ-likeness… and eternity. The death He died ,he died to sin, once for all… In the same way count yourselves dead to sin… Romans 6:11 That is God’s ultimate purpose for us. The logical outcome of the life of the Christian is holiness.To have fellowship with God and Christ there must be holiness. So shall we continue in sin Continue… Epimeno… Abide, endure, stay or remain, persistThis term speaks to a commitment to sin… Continuous perseverance in the will and actions. This is not the one off sin or sins… Every sin, big or small, is offensive to GodAnd is a total disregard for God's offence at any level of sin. The purpose of our salvation is not just reactive but preventative…To argue we sin so that grace may abound would suggest that we sin as a favour to God allowing him to show more grace and mercy. That is an absolute misunderstanding of the character of God. The only reason why we sin is because of self indulgence.And this argument encourages further self indulgence. The term born again suggests death and new life…That is exactly what we are as believers…We have died in Christ and are raised in newness of life…We are united with him… Romans 6:5 In his death… dead to sin Resurrected… Alive to him… That new life is the sinless life of Christ in us. And we must reckon ourselves dead to sin… Romans 6:11 And dead people do not commit sin. So… how then can we continue in sin any longer…The logical and correct answer is NO…We must not permit ourselves to do it… Do not let sin reign… Romans 6:12 The sinful nature Let's take a few steps back at this stage…Why is it that we do not have to teach people to sin…The reason is we do what comes naturally We are all born with Adams sinful nature And outside of Jesus ‘salvation we are all slaves to sin. Our old self… Romans 6:6 This is a reference to the sinful nature that all men are born with.It is the sinful nature that causes us to sin…We are not sinners because we sin… We are sinners by nature and therefore sin. The old self refers to the person we once were… past tense.It refers to the old way of life that could in no way please God… It involved rotten temper, evil thief, corrupt mouth, bitterness, wrath, anger, unforgiving spirit… Ephesians 4:25-31 The old man is characterized as having a nature that is opposed to God… So the old self identifies the unsaved person dominated by the totally depraved nature inherited from Adam… Romans 5:12 , 18 , 19 The new man But in Christ Jesus we undergo a very real and dramatic change…No longer in Adam now in Christ… Paul says the old self is crucified with Christ… Romans 6:6 It is no longer I that lives but Christ who lives in me… Galatians 2:20 And it is Christ in me that enables me to put to death the deeds of the flesh. If anyone is in Christ he is a new creation, the old has gone, the new has come… 2 Corinthians 5:17 Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the sinful nature with its passions and desires… Galatians 5:24 As believers we undergo a tremendous change of nature…Thru the power of God our old nature is put to death and we receive the new nature of Christ who now lives in me…My desires change as do my behaviours and values. Conclusion We are now dead to sin… but alive to God in Christ Jesus…Therefore we are no longer slaves to sin… Therefore this is what must happen…Shall we continue in sin… God forbid… Romans 6:2 So we must not permit sin to reign… Romans 6:12 If you do, you will succumb to its evil desires… Do not offer the parts of your bodies to sin as instruments of wickedness… Romans 6:13 But offer yourselves to God… All of this is very possible in the strength that Christ by his Spirit affords us. The entire process of crucifying self and living for God is what we call the sanctifying process…And is a process that all Christians must undergo.
