Life of the New Man
Romans 6:11-14
Life of a new man
Romans 6:11-14, Likewise you also, reckon yourselves to be dead indeed to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus our Lord. 12 Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body, that you should obey it in its lusts. 13 And do not present your members as instruments of unrighteousness to sin, but present yourselves to God as being alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness to God. 14 For sin shall not have dominion over you, for you are not under law but under grace.
Romans 1:17 introduction.
Romans 1:18-3:20 the sinfulness of man. That truth helped us to understand how utterly sinful, guilty, hopeless and hell bound.
Romans 3:21- 5:21, the doctrine of salvation by grace through faith and the substitutionary work of Jesus Christ.
What we have seen so far in the book of Romans two major
themes
1. Man’s sinfulness and
2. God’s salvation. Paul has presented to us the wonderful forgiving mercy and grace of God, which reaches down to this unworthy man and offers to him full pardon, full acquittal through the perfect and finished work of Jesus Christ.
The work of Christ regarding man is so full, complete, merciful, gracious, comprehensive, abundant, and magnanimous.
Romans 5:20-21, Moreover the law entered that the offense might abound. But where sin abounded, grace abounded much more, 21 so that as sin reigned in death, even so grace might reign through righteousness to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.
The magnanimity of God’s grace is shown there in verse 20 in that the greater the sin was, the greater the grace was to cover that sin. ➢ Great is man’s sinfulness and ➢ Greater is God’s forgiving grace infinitely.
Third major discussion in the epistle to the Romans is the believer’s holiness or sanctification. When we have taken out of sin into salvation then the inevitable result is sanctification. If there’s anything that God wants from His people, it is that they be holy.
1 Peter 1:15-16, but as He who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct, 16 because it is written, “Be holy, for I am holy.”
God wants us to do is be holy. And that’s what we’re going to find out about in our study tonight. Our Lord’s raising of Lazarus from the dead shows the God’s resurrection power. Lazarus was four days dead. When Jesus approached the tomb and asked that it be unsealed.
Lazarus’ sister in horror said, “Lord, by this time he stinks.” But Jesus came and demanded that, in spite of her protest, the grave be open.
Jesus spoke the word, and Lazarus rose from the grave and walked out. When Lazarus came out where everyone could see him with grave clothes. Lord said, “Loose him lose and let him go.” Many people who have been lifted out of the deadness of being separated from God, who have been redeemed, and yet they still have on the grave clothes.
Like Lazarus, we need to shed the grave clothes. We have been raised from the dead. We walk in newness of life. We need to get rid of that which remains of our deadness. We know by the time we reach verse 11 that we have died and risen again.
Having been raised from the dead and having experienced in our position victory over death as to its penalty and its power, we are now ready to move on, take off the grave clothes, and live to the fullness of life. Christians want to know real victory over their conquered enemy sin.
Romans7:15, For what I am doing, I do not understand. For what I will to do, that I do not practice; but what I hate, that I do.
As a believer he has a desire to do what’s right. He has a desire to see victory in his life. He has a desire to conquer sin.
Romans 7:18-19, For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh) nothing good dwells; for to will is present with me, but how to perform what is good I do not find. 19 For the good that I will to do, I do not do; but the evil I will not to do, that I practice. 20 Now if I do what I will not to do, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells in me. A man struggling with sin. He, like other believers, desires the victory. Yet in Romans 7, he may not know the secret to that victory. He not only to go into chapter 8, but to go back to chapter 6, he would find that reality! How do we get off the grave clothes?
1 Peter 2:1-2, Therefore, laying aside all malice, all deceit, hypocrisy, envy, and all evil speaking, 2 as new born babes, desire the pure milk of the word, that you may grow thereby, How do we put off that which shouldn’t be there in our lives? Paul is speaking of the great theme of justification by faith.
The effect of redemption is to produce holiness. Holiness in our position before God, and then holiness in our practice. The three words
1. Know, (Mind)
2. Think, (Heart)and
3. Give in (Action)
1. Know (Intellectual)
V 3, Or do you not know that as many of us as were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death? V 9, knowing that Christ, having been raised from the dead, dies no more. Death no longer has dominion over Him.
The first ten verses of Romans 6 are doctrinal. They are rational. They’re presenting to us foundational data, substantive truth upon which we can build. V 11, Likewise you also, reckon yourselves to be dead indeed to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Likewise takes us back pulling us all the way through the first ten verses again. The term “likewise” simply means “now after all of that is well in mind and in hand, we pursue the next truth.” You cannot come to verse 11 without the first ten verses.
Exhortation never comes in a vacuum. It always comes built on a precept, built on a divine truth. Because this is true, this is how you are to behave.
What has that doctrine been? The believer is one with Christ. ✓ When He died, we died. ✓ When He was buried, we were buried. ✓ When He rose, we rose. ✓ As He walks in newness of life, so we walk in newness of life. Paul has been saying that we are united with Jesus Christ in His death, therefore we, too, have fulfilled the penalty for sin.
We have risen with Christ in His resurrection therefore we walk in newness of life.
- Every demand of the law was met.
- Every demand of sin was met.
- The power of sin has been conquered.
- Christ will never die again.
Because He will never die again, we will never die again. Because His death so effectively conquered sin, we are dying in Him effectively conquer sin as well. So, when you become a Christian, and you place your faith at that moment in Jesus Christ, by a divine miracle you enter into His death and resurrection, your old life dies, and you rise to walk in newness of life.
In dying in Christ, the believer pays the penalty for sin so that sin and death make no more claim on that believer. Not only is the penalty paid, but the power of sin is broken. Sin has no more dominion over Him. ➢ We now live in new life.
➢ We are a new creation, a new man, a new nature. ➢ We are not what we used to be. Romans 5 from verse 12 onwards. When we were in Adam, we all died. But when we come to Christ and in Him, we all are made alive. So, it is that the whole human race can be identified as being either in Adam or in Christ.
- If they are in Adam, when Adam sinned, they sinned.
- When Adam fell, they fell.
- When Adam died, they died. ✓ When Christ dies, we die. ✓ When He rises, we rise.
If we are, by faith then in Christ That’s the essence of the theological solidarity of the Apostle Paul. If we are to live out the fullness of the new life in Christ, if we are to really live as new creations, then it begins with the knowledge of that fact that I am not what I used to be. I am new.
What is the essence of that newness? I am no longer under the dictatorship of sin. A basic principle of the Word of God that people must know what’s true.
Hosea 4:6, My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge. Because you have rejected knowledge, I also will reject you from being priest for Me; Because you have forgotten the law of your God, I also will forget your children.
The prophet Hosea said of the people of God that they were destroyed because of a lack of knowledge,
- not a lack of dedication,
- not a lack of consecration,
- not a lack of commitment,
- not a lack of worship activity,
- not a lack of religion,
- not a lack of revelation
but a lack of knowledge. They didn’t know so they couldn’t function. You will never be able to live out what you don’t know.
Isaiah 1:2-3, Hear, O heavens, and give ear, O earth! For the Lord has spoken: “I have nourished and brought up children, And they have rebelled against Me; 3 The ox knows its owner And the donkey its master’s crib; But Israel does not know, My people do not consider.” Israel does not know.
Philippians 4:8, “Finally, brethren, whatever things are true, whatever things are honest, whatever things are just and pure and lovely, whatever things are of good report, if there be any virtue, if there be any praise, think on these things.” Count on what you know to be true.
Colossians 3:8, But now you yourselves are to put off all these: anger, wrath, malice, blasphemy, filthy language out of your mouth. Since you have put off the old man with his deeds, the old man’s been put off. “And you have put on the new man which is renewed in knowledge.” It is renewed in knowledge. You can’t function on what you don’t know. So, we begin by knowing.
We know that the power of sin to oppresses us has been broken. We know that we do not have to be prey to sin’s power. We know that we do not have to fall victim to it. We do know for certain that it cannot force us to do that which is against God.
Once you know that then you are on your way to victory because it puts confidence in your heart, the doubt, the fear is gone. You know you are dealing with a defeated enemy. You know you are dealing with a monarch who has been dethroned.
The tomb is open, we have come out of the grave, and we can get off the grave clothes and get on with the victory. So, it begins with knowing.
2. Think (Heart)
V 11-12, Likewise you also, reckon yourselves to be dead indeed to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus our Lord. 12 Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body, that you should obey it in its lusts. The word “know” dealt with the mind.
The word “reckon” deals with the heart. You know it to be so intellectually, and now you believe it to be so, you reckon. The word has many translation possibilities. It is used of a mathematical kind of expression. In its literal sense, it means to number something, or to count something, or to account something, or to estimate something.
But it is also used in a figurative way. We could translate it simply “affirm.” The genuine Christian term that is all encompassing, “believe that it’s true.” You know it is because the data says it is, now believe it with a heart belief. Come to that settled confidence.
Somebody might say,
It’s hard for me to believe that I am a person who no longer possesses a sin nature. It’s hard for me to believe that I am a person who no longer is a victim of the old man. It’s hard for me to believe that I have died, and nevertheless I live, and yet not I but Christ lives in me.
It’s hard for me to believe that I possess the divine nature. It’s hard for me to believe that planted within me is an incorruptible seed. It’s hard for me to believe that I’m a new creation and behold, all things are new.
It’s hard for me to believe that I am already fit for eternity, and that translation into glory for me will be less of a change than salvation was. It’s hard for me to believe that the life of God lives in my soul. It’s hard for me to believe that Jesus Christ dwells within me.
It’s hard for me to accept that. I know that’s what it says there, but for me to affirm it is difficult.
Do you want to know why it’s difficult? Never been taught that before. Nobody ever told them that.
There are a lot of people who believe when you get saved, all the Lord does is save you transactionally and leaves you in the same mess you have been in all along. They don’t know any different. A tragic thing to tell people.
Or else they are told that when you become a Christian, it isn’t transformation, it’s addition. You were an old man, an old nature, you just get a new one added to it and now you have got a big war going on inside of you.
No, it may well be that you have never been taught what the foundation is. And now you’re just sort of getting it taught to you, and maybe it’s coming slowly. Sin is not your dictator. Sin does not have power to utterly control you is simply because Satan doesn’t want you to believe that.
I don’t think Satan wants you to believe that he and his forces and sin are defeated in terms of their ultimate ability to control you. Satan always shows up as the accuser of the believers.
He not only accuses the brethren before God, but he accuses the brethren before the brethren. Satan will do everything he can to put Christians on a tremendous guilt binge. Some Christians kill themselves because of it. Christian people who commit suicide. Lot of Christians are under tremendous anxiety. Satan doesn’t want us to believe that sin is a defeated enemy.
This was non-experiential. It was a divine transaction. It was not experiential. When you were saved, there was not a real death, and a real burial, and a real resurrection, it spiritually occurred. But all that truth was non-experiential. We know that because there are people who have been saved for a while and they still don’t know that even happened.
Salvation in its purest essence is non-experiential. You can’t define a person’s salvation by some kind of external experience. You can’t experience dying in Christ, actually. You can’t experience your burial. You can’t experience being raised. You must take it by faith.
The people who are always running around looking for signs don’t have great faith they just have little faith.
The people with the great faith can accept the fact of the Word of God without having to have some external proof. People who are running around looking for external verifying phenomena to the reality of Christ in their life don’t have great faith but a doubt looking for proof. But we have not objective external verifiable things that we can see as our evidence of death, burial, and resurrection in Christ.
We can’t see the fact that sin is a defeated enemy. God doesn’t give us this vision of sin lying down having been knocked out. We don’t have that. Sin has no more dominion. I am in Christ and Christ is in me. A marvellous thought.
What does it mean when you affirm that you are dead to sin and alive to God through Jesus Christ?
- a) Facing the temptation.
If we can affirm this in our hearts, we know then that we have confidence in temptation. We can be confident in temptation.
1 Corinthians 10:13, No temptation has overtaken you except such as is common to man; but God is faithful, who will not
allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation will also make the way of escape, that you may be able to bear it. There never will be a tyrannizing temptation that you cannot in the power of God know the victory over, never.
Because sin is not your boss, lord, and dictator. So, to know that and affirm that means that we can be confident in temptation. Maybe it would be the one that you could never be able to handle. But you can be confident in temptation.
- b) False confidence in Salvation.
You can even be confident in your sinning. You can be confident that when you sin, you are not going to lose your salvation. Sin may rear its ugly head and because you to obey it even though you don’t have to. But the one thing it can’t do is take you back from God. It can’t.
You will never have to pay the penalty again. Christ died once and He will never die again. Because the one death provided the one penalty and broke the power of sin, so
that even in our sinning, when we fall, and we fail we can have confidence in that that we have not forfeited our redemption. So, when you can reckon yourself to really be dead, then you have confidence in temptation, and you have confidence even in sin.
- c) You have confidence in death.
John 5:24, “Most assuredly, I say to you, he who hears My word and believes in Him who sent Me has everlasting life, and shall not come into judgment, but has passed from death into life. You have confidence in facing death that death has no hold on me. You can have that confidence when you know this to be true, and you affirm it so in your heart.
When you are freed from fearing temptation, and ultimate disaster from your failures and your sins, and you are freed from fearing death, you can enjoy the fullness of the blessedness of your walk with God. That is what comes when you learn to affirm or to reckon or to count these things to be true.
3. Give in (Action)
V 13, And do not present your members as instruments of unrighteousness to sin, but present yourselves to God as being alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness to God. Present has to do with the will.
John 13:17, If you know these things, blessed are you if you do them. V 12, Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body, that you should obey it in its lusts. V 13, but present yourselves to God as being alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness to God. Because we are dead indeed to sin, and we are alive to God, then therefore let not sin reign in your mortal body.” First 10 verses that sin has no dictatorship over us, that sin is not our master.
We have never said that sin is not a force still to be reckoned with. It just isn’t our lord anymore.
It isn’t our master. It’s still a force to be reckoned with. Though sin is a dethroned monarch, it’s still around giving orders that don’t have to be obeyed, but sometimes are. It wants to pull us back under its control, even though it has no right to that.
Here you see sin personified, and sin is personified as a king. A king who rules over the lives of people. Before we were Christians, indeed sin was our king. Sin was our sovereign. We were its slaves. V 17, But God be thanked that though you were slaves of sin, yet you obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine to which you were delivered.
V 12, “Let not sin therefore reign.” If sin is no longer the monarch, then don’t let it act like it was. If it doesn’t have any right to do that, then don’t give it any right. Sin has no dominion. Don’t let it act like it does. Its power is broken. Don’t let it act like it still has any right at all.
1 Peter 2:9-10, But you are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, His own special people, that you may proclaim the praises of Him who called you out of darkness into His marvellous light; 10 who once were not a people but are now the people of God, who had not obtained mercy but now have obtained mercy.
Do you want to know what a Christian is? ✓ A chosen generation, ✓ Royal priesthood, ✓ Holy nation, ✓ People of His own, ✓ Called to give praises, ✓ Taken out of darkness into light, ✓ Now the people of God, ✓ Now the recipients of mercy.
1 Peter 2:11, Beloved, I beg you as sojourners and pilgrims, abstain from fleshly lusts which war against the soul, Look at who you are, you see. Very important truth. “Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body.”
Do you know where sin wants to reign? In your mortal body.
What does mortal mean? Corruptive. Is our mortal body that which will dwell eternally with God? No! What lives with God is our glorified body. It’s this earthly, cursed, physical organism which encompasses the physical body with all its members and organs as well as the brain and all of its functions. It is the physical body which sin seeks to rule.
Before you were saved, sin reigned not only in your body but in your soul as well. When you were redeemed, the new creation is the soul, and sin is only left with the physical body to rule. It is a very specific term. This is not our old nature. We are not talking about the nature, the real man inside. That was the soul, the inward man.
It is not the new man, the new nature sharing residence with the old vile, sin-ruled soul. No, no, that is dead, and we have a new soul, the real me, the real self. The inward man is holy and pure and set for heaven.
The only foothold for sin is the body. Our flesh, our humanness. We are new souls. We are new creations. But sin is still left in our bodies. If we could just get rid of these bodies, we would have instant holiness.
Romans 8:21-23, because the creation itself also will be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God. 22 For we know that the whole creation groans and labors with birth pangs together until now. 23 Not only that, but we also who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, eagerly waiting for the adoption, the redemption of our body.
We are waiting for a redeemed body. We want to get rid of the one we’ve got.
Philippians 3:20-21, “Our citizenship is in heaven, from which also we look for the Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ.” 21 who will transform our lowly body that it may be conformed to His glorious body, according to the working by which He is able even to subdue all things to Himself.
The soul.
➢ We are heavenly citizens. ➢ We are new creations. ➢ We are partakers in the divine nature. ➢ We are indwelt by the living Spirit of God. When He comes, He is going to change our vile body, our lowly body, it might be fashioned like His glorious body.
We are waiting for that.
1 Corinthians 15:50-52, Now this I say, brethren, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God; nor does corruption inherit incorruption. 51 Behold, I tell you a mystery: We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed— 52 in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed.
When they come out of that grave, are they going to have mortal bodies?
Are they going to have corruptible bodies? No, they are going to have immortal incorruptible bodies.
1 Corinthians 15:53-54, For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality. 54 So when this corruptible has put on incorruption, and this mortal
has put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written: “Death is swallowed up in victory.” Romans 6.
What Paul doesn’t say? Let not sin therefore reign in your soul. Let not sin therefore reign in your spirit. Let not sin therefore reign in you.
What does Paul say? Don’t let sin reign in your body. The only place sin can operate.
Why? Because the real you, the real self is holy now. This is the reason why you have this struggle in Romans 7 where you say, I want the right things. That’s coming from the real me, but my body is a problem to me. Romans 7.
Romans 7:15-16, For what I am doing, I do not understand. For what I will to do, that I do not practice; but what I hate, that I do. 16 If, then, I do what I will not to do, I agree with the law that it is good.
Something in me says I don’t want to do that, but my body wants to do that.
Romans 7:17, But now, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells in me.
Who is it? He says it is not I.
What I?
Galatians 2:20, “I am crucified with Christ, nevertheless I live, yet not I but Christ lives in me.” New incorruptible eternally prepared, and holy new soul that
God made, it’s not that that’s doing it, “But it is sin that dwells in me.” It is the sin that dwells in you.
Where does it dwell?
Romans 7:20-22, Now if I do what I will not to do, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells in me. 21 I find then a law, that evil is present with me, the one who wills to do good. 22 For I delight in the law of God according to the inward man.
The real me, the new me, the new creation.
Romans 7:23-25, But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members. 24 O wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? 25 I thank God—through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, with the mind I myself serve the law of God, but with the flesh the law of sin. Just get me out of this body! it’s killing me. Because you are a new creation, and all you have got to do is get out of this body. You know the glorious liberty of the child of God. So, the problems come through the body.
Romans 12:1, I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service.
1 Corinthians 9:27, But I discipline my body and bring it into subjection, lest, when I have preached to others, I myself should become disqualified.
The body is lusting, the body has its desires, the body lusts cry out for fulfilment. They demand obedience.
Your brain and your thinking processes are part of that body.
What does this tell us? V 12, Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body, that you should obey it in its lusts. If you pamper the body, and you feed the body, and if you entertain the body, and if you expose the body to temptation, you are going to have a problem.
Because it’s the body and all the sensory factors that are exposed to this world become channels through which temptation can draw you into sin and sin can reign over you. So, sin will dominate you if you don’t deal with it.
What else this tells me? It doesn’t have to dominate you because the very fact that he says, “don’t let it” indicates that it doesn’t have to! It would like to, but I don’t have to let it. The commands in the Bible are not to God, they are to you. The implication here is that your will has to be activated.
Your will is involved.
Sin would like to rule you and it will dominate you if you let it. You don’t have to let it!
Philippians 2:12-13, Therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling; 13 for it is God who works in you both to will and to do for His good pleasure. Holiness in behaviour is not a sudden instantaneous thing.
It is a way of life, and you fight it all the way along to be holy. Because as long as you are in this body, you are going to have problems. Sanctification is a process, and that’s why we don’t know the fullness of sanctification until we get to be with God.
There is nothing wrong with your bodily parts. God looked on the creation He made and said, “It’s good.” You can use your hands and feet and every part of your body for His glory!
Romans 12:1, I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service.
Your body is acceptable to God. Your body is neutral in that sense. You can use it as an instrument to sin or you can use it as an instrument of righteousness, and you decide. You decide. Yield to God as those that are alive from the dead.
God wants to use your body as a weapon of righteousness, cutting through the sinful world. Here’s My man. Here’s My woman. Here’s My young person. A weapon of righteousness. V 14, “For sin shall not have dominion over you.”
We are no longer under its constant incessant control. A statement of our position.