Resurrected to live

Romans 6:6-10

Sin is not your master

Romans 6:1-5, What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound? ² Certainly not! How shall we who died to sin live any longer in it? ³ Or do you not know that as many of us as were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death? ⁴ Therefore we were buried with Him through baptism into death, that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life. ⁵ For if we have been united together in the likeness of His death, certainly we also shall be in the likeness of His resurrection, ⁶ knowing this, that our old man was crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves of sin. ⁷ For he who has died has been freed from sin. ⁸ Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him, 9 knowing that Christ, having been raised from the dead, dies no more. Death no longer has dominion 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.

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 been stressing

• the dire situation of man,
• the inevitable doom that man faces because of his sin
• the rebellion of man against holy God.
• man’s love of his own sinfulness,
• man’s wilful refusal to understand the God who has been clearly revealed to him inwardly and outwardly.

In response to that, 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. ✓ Man’s sin.

✓ God’s salvation. 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. We are going to see that in chapter 6, 7 and 8.

What changes a man powerfully and dramatically?

How did it happen to Paul?

1 Timothy 1:13-14, although I was formerly a blasphemer, a persecutor, and an insolent man; but I obtained mercy because I did it ignorantly in unbelief. ¹⁴ And the grace of our Lord was exceedingly abundant, with faith and love which are in Christ Jesus.

1 Corinthians 6:9-11, Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived. Neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor homosexuals, nor sodomites, ¹⁰ nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor reviles, nor extortioners will inherit the kingdom of God. ¹¹ And such were some of you. But you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of our God.

What is it that can so dramatically change a life? The answer to that question is found in this sixth chapter of Romans which tells us about the total transformation of a life through the salvation offered in Jesus Christ.

Jesus Christ can totally change a person from the inside out.

Galatians 2:20, I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me.

The moment we believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, by a divine miracle, we are crucified with Him. We are buried with Him. We die in His death, and then we rise in newness of life. We are transformed! Paul is developing this theme in Romans 6, 7, and 8.

The result of sanctification. Romans Chapter 5, the result of justification is security. Romans Chapter 6, the second one is holiness. When we are redeemed, we become a whole new person. The Lord who saves makes the one He saves holy.

1 Corinthians 1:2, To the church of God which is at Corinth, to those who are sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints, with all who in every place call on the name of Jesus Christ our

Lord, both theirs and ours

Amazing that the Corinthians in the church be called “holy ones.” But even the Corinthians, with all their problems and their sins, were nonetheless called “holy ones,” having been made holy in the act of redemption and salvation.

God's marvellous saving grace overrules the atrocity of sin. Paul knows this question will come. V 1, What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound? Someone's going to come along and accuse Paul saying that he leads to lawlessness.

Paul is anticipating there will be criticism from some who think this is too libertine a teaching. Anybody who truly preaches the gospel of Jesus Christ is bound to be accused of this because indeed grace is grace. Can a person be a Christian and go on living in the same relationship to sin he had before he was saved?

Does salvation change you? Some people believe that salvation is just a transaction. God just writes it down and changes your ultimate destiny but doesn't necessarily change you. Paul's answers. V 2, Certainly not! How shall we who died to sin live any longer in it?

It's an indignant thought.

It outrages. The thought that we could go on in sin creates disgust. A believer cannot go on in the same relationship to sin. He cannot live in the same bondage to sin that he had. He cannot go on continuing to sin at the same level, to the same degree that he did before he was saved.

There must be a basic transformation!

John 8:34, Jesus answered them, “Most assuredly, I say to you, whoever commits sin is a slave of sin. lave Are you as a Christian still the slave to sin? Are you still in the same relationship to sin that you were?

Romans 6:18, And having been set free from sin, you became slaves of righteousness. In salvation your bondage changes from being bound to sin you become bound to righteousness. From the unceasing continual pattern of sin, you are transformed into one who responds to righteousness. You have died to sin.

This principle is repeated in the Scripture. We have overcome the world it says in 1 John. We are delivered from the incessant unceasing, unending bondage of Satan, Ephesians 2. We were under the direct sovereignty of the ruler of the darkness of this world but have been set free from that.

Only two monarchs.

• Sin.
• Grace.

Everybody in the world is under one or the other and not both at the same time. You are either dominated by sin, or God's grace. It's either sin that directs you or grace which works righteousness and eternal life. Sin working death or grace working righteousness and life.

➢ When you were lost, before you knew Christ, it was sin. ➢ When you are saved, it is grace working righteousness and life. We have died to the reign of sin. We have died to the dominion of sin.

We are no longer in the same relationship to sin that we were in the past. Our citizenship is in heaven. We have a new master.

Romans 6:14, For sin shall not have dominion over you, for you are not under law but under grace. So, sin is no longer your master.

When a person is saved, there is a very great transaction that takes place on the legal aspect. God declares you righteous, but there also is a great transformation that takes place. You are taken out of the dominion of sin and placed in the dominion of God's grace working righteousness and life.

Now, in order to show the validity of this point, we have the argument in verses 3 to 14. V 3, Or do you not know that as many of us as were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death? We are baptized into Christ.

When you are saved you were literally immersed into Jesus Christ. It is obviously symbolized outwardly by the baptism of immersion.

The reality of an intimate living union with Jesus Christ. You were immersed into Christ.

For example

In His virgin birth because He was born of the Spirit, and we are born of the Spirit. We can identify with Him in His circumcision. He was circumcised on the eighth day, and when He was circumcised, it was a placing of Himself under the authority of the law as He had come to redeem those that were under the law.

Colossians 2:11, In Him you were also circumcised with the circumcision made without hands, by putting off the body of the sins of the flesh, by the circumcision of Christ, Christ was set apart. He was made pure, and we are identifying with Him, are made pure in Him.

We can also identify even with His baptism for we, too, have been baptized by the Spirit of God. We can be identified in His sufferings for we bear in our bodies the marks of Jesus Christ. We know the fellowship of His sufferings. We are united with Him in His life.

We are united with Him in His eternal, glorious likeness as we are made into His image and conformed to that image more and more until someday, we are like Him for we see Him as He is. Our union with Christ that we could just study that alone for great lengths of time.

Hebrews 2:11, For both He who sanctifies and those who are being sanctified are all of one, for which reason He is not ashamed to call them brethren,

When you became a Christian put in union with Jesus Christ. We are identified in Christ in His death and resurrection. V 3-4, Or do you not know that as many of us as were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death? ⁴ Therefore we were buried with Him through baptism into death, that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life.

We didn't actually die physically. We didn't actually rise physically but in the “likeness” of it. It happened in that manner that we were identified in His death and resurrection spiritually.

When you came to Christ and believed in Him, immediately by divine miracle, you died. Your old life died, and you rose to walk in newness of life. We are buried with Him. Burial being the proof of death. When Christ was buried, it was the affirmation that He was truly dead.

When we are buried with Him, it affirms that we really died. There's no “old you” around. There's no “old nature” around. 1. The body of sin has been destroyed. V 6, knowing this, that our old man was crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves of sin.

Part of the problem with Christians not being able to live the Christian life the way it ought to be lived is they don't know who they are. Our old man is crucified with Him. It is not wounded but dead.

What is the “old man”? Former manner of life.

Ephesians 4:22, that you put off, concerning your former conduct, the old man which grows corrupt according to the deceitful lusts,

What kind? Corrupt.

Contrast

What is the ‘New man’?

Ephesians 4:24, and that you put on the new man which was created according to God, in true righteousness and holiness.

What is the “new man”? “After God, it's created in righteousness and true holiness. Are your old man and new man fighting each other? You will never find that in the Bible.

Are your old nature and new nature hassling? No. You have put off the old man. You have put on the new man. V 6, knowing this, that our old man was crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves of sin.

If any man be in Christ, he is a new creation.

Do not go on living as if you were still that old man because that old man has died. Do not go living on living as if he was still there.

Ephesians 4:20-22, But you have not so learned Christ, ²¹ if indeed you have heard Him and have been taught by Him, as the truth is in Jesus: ²² that you put off, concerning your former conduct, the old man which grows corrupt according to the deceitful lusts, You didn't learn Christ to continue in your sin. You have put off the old manner of life and put on the new man. Put off the old self, then certainly, in practice, you ought to be living it out that way.

Colossians 3:9-10, Do not lie to one another, since you have put off the old man with his deeds, ¹⁰ and have put on the new man who is renewed in knowledge according to the image of Him who created him,

What is the “old man”? It is the unregenerate nature. Described for us in chapter 5.

Romans 5:12-14, Therefore, just as through one man sin entered the world, and death through sin, and thus death

spread to all men, because all sinned— ¹³ (For until the law sin was in the world, but sin is not imputed when there is no law. ¹⁴ Nevertheless death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over those who had not sinned according to the likeness of the transgression of Adam, who is a type of Him who was to come.

• Being in Adam was being in sin.
• Being in Christ was being in grace.

The old man is the Adamic nature, the unregenerate nature, the old nature. What Paul is insisting in his doctrine of justification is that when a person is redeemed, there is a breach. There is a complete dissection of the person from the old sin nature.

It is not a process. It is an already completed reality. Our old man has already been crucified. You are a new creation. You are a new creation, but you are a new creation not yet perfect but nonetheless a new creation. The old man is the unregenerate man.

The new man is the regenerate man.

You are one new man. The old man ceased to exist. Salvation is very important, it causes a radical change in the nature of a person. When someone comes along and they are living in the same old relationship to sin, no matter what they claim, the fact is, if there hasn't been a radical demonstrable change in the reality of who they are, then they have not been redeemed.

Substantial truth. The old man, the sin nature, is dead and the new holy nature is born. The old man is crucified that the body of sin might be destroyed. “The body of sin might be destroyed.” When I became a Christian the body of sin was destroyed?

Paul conceives of sin as associated to the body. If you follow his argument all the way into chapter 8.

Romans 8:10-11, And if Christ is in you, the body is dead because of sin, but the Spirit is life because of righteousness. 11 But if the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He who raised Christ from the dead will

also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit who dwells in you. Paul talking about a mortal body, a physical body. He connects it with sin.

Romans 8:13, For if you live according to the flesh you will die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live.

Romans 8:23, 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 face the fact that as long as we are in this body, we have a problem with sin. So, the body is connected with sin in Paul's thinking, not only in Romans 8 but in many other places. The expression “the body of sin” is best seen as referring to our humanness under the absolute domination and control of sin.

As conditioned and controlled by sin. It is, apparently, a genitive of possession. A person's body before salvation is totally and utterly in the possession of the sinful nature. So, you have got the old man controlling the body, and by “body,” not necessarily just talking about the physical body, but

talking about humanness which, of course, is manifest through our physical bodies. Because of our union in Christ's death, the body of the believer is no longer the possession of sin, no longer controlled, conditioned, and solely dominated by sin.

1 Corinthians 6:19-20, Or do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and you are not your own? ²⁰ For you were bought at a price; therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are God’s. Your body is not any longer under the domination of sin. So, you don't want to yield to that because your body is now under the control of the Holy Spirit.

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.

It is not to say now that the body is evil all the time and only evil. That's not true. The body as potentially good. How else could it be offered to God as a sacrifice? How else can our bodies be given to Him for His use?

But in our humanness, before we were saved, sin totally dominated, and controlled.

What happens when you are saved?

• Sin is no longer in control.
• It no longer makes the decisions.
• It no longer is the sovereign.

You no longer are its slave.

Romans 7:23, 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. Paul looks at his body.

Romans 7:18, 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. In both of those cases, Paul is looking at his humanness. Naturally, in that humanness, there is the potential for evil and sin. There are instincts. There are propensities that become foothold for the attack of the enemy to lead us into sin. So, the body in Paul's terminology, is basically the foothold. It is the vehicle by which sin manifests itself.

The unregenerate person, in his humanness, is totally controlled by sin. An unregenerate person can do nothing good. He can do human good that isn't good as far as God's concerned. When you become a Christian, according to verse 6, that dominant oppression of sin over the body is broken, and there is a new controlling agent.

Romans 6:16, Do you not know that to whom you present yourselves slaves to obey, you are that one’s slaves whom you obey, whether of sin leading to death, or of obedience leading to righteousness?

God is the monarch, and God is the ruler.

Romans 6:17-18, 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. ¹⁸ And having been set free from sin, you became slaves of righteousness. You have a new monarch. You have a new lord. You have a new master. Sin is no longer the utter absolute controlling factor.

Galatians 5:24, And those who are Christ’s have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. A positional statement.

The flesh has been killed in terms of its dominance, not necessarily in terms of its presence. There were two fields with a little road in the middle, and all his life, before he knew Christ, he lived in the field over here. Satan was the dominant force in that field, and Satan drove him and dictated to him and told him what to do and his humanness and his flesh and his body was used for sin. And then, by the grace of God he crossed over into the new field. And that field is under the dominion of the Lord Jesus Christ, and it's controlled by righteousness and by holiness, and that is the new ruler and the new monarch.

You always seem to have a hard time because you keep hearing Satan across the road yelling orders at you. And though you are not under his dominion, he has a very clever way of making you interested in what he's asking you to do.”

There is no real dominance there, but it comes to us in enticing terms, and often, though it's not necessary to do it, we fall prey to that very thing from which we've been delivered. V 6, the body of sin is destroyed.

“Destroy” is probably a bad selection of terms because it gives us the idea that maybe the sin nature has been eradicated. Katargeō has been used by some to teach the eradication of the sin nature. In other words, you never sin again after you're saved. You might make mistakes, but they're different.

The term occurs 27 times in the New Testament.

Romans 3:3, “Shall their unbelief make the faith of God without effect?” Now, katargeō is the word “without effect.”

It couldn't mean “destroyed” because nothing could destroy the faith of God.

Romans 3:31, Do we then make void the law through faith? Certainly not! On the contrary, we establish the law. Now, katargeō is the word “void.”

Romans 4:14, For if those who are of the law are heirs, faith is made void and the promise made of no effect, Now, katargeō is the word “no effect.”

The idea is that here the body of sin loses its dominance. It loses its total control.

Romans 7:2, For the woman who has a husband is bound by the law to her husband as long as he lives. But if the husband dies, she is released from the law of her husband. Same word. It doesn't mean she's destroyed. It means she's free from the dominance of that husband. He's dead. “To make of none effect, to deprive of force influence or power, to bring to naught.”

The body of sin is deprived of its dominant power, its controlling power. The old man is crucified. The body of sin is rendered inoperative. We will no longer serve sin. V 6, knowing this, that our old man was crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves of sin.

It doesn't say we won't sin, but it's not a dictatorship anymore. You don't have to sin. Even the best thing you do, according to Isaiah, the righteousness that you would consider to be the best you do is as what? Filthy rags.

The body of sin is rendered inoperative in terms of its dictatorship, and henceforth we no longer are under slavery to sin. 2. We are no longer bond slaves to sin.

Romans 6:17-18, 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. 18 And having been set free from sin, you became slaves of righteousness. Now, the controlling force in our life is grace and godliness and righteousness and holiness. V 7, For he who has died has been freed from sin. He that is dead is freed from sin. Again, it's not so much the idea that we are dead. It's the idea that “we who died,” aorist tense.

We are freed from sin's dictatorship. Again, it doesn't mean that we are freed again from sin's presence. Sin is still around us.

• As long as our humanness is there, we are going to have to struggle with that.

• As long as we can still hear the voice of Satan yelling from the field across the road,
• As long as we still have some of those old human bents and propensities, we are going to have some problems.

Dying with Christ, sin is no longer reigning and ruling over us. Important truth. If a Christian sins, he is responsible because sin does not have the dictatorship.

1 Peter 4:1-2, Therefore, since Christ suffered for us in the flesh, arm yourselves also with the same mind, for he who has suffered in the flesh has ceased from sin, ² that he no longer should live the rest of his time in the flesh for the lusts of men, but for the will of God. Being crucified with Christ, you have ceased from sin. No longer should live the rest of his time in the flesh, but to the will of God.

Romans 7:20, Now if I do what I will not to do, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells in me.

What are you saying? It's not the new “I.” It's not the “new person,” the “new man,” the “new creation.”

But it is what? Sin that dwelleth in me. The new “I” has been freed from sin. The new “I” is a new creation. The new “I” is the marvellous divine nature, as Peter calls it, planted in the life of the believer. The new “I” is Christ in you, the life of God and the soul of man.

It's not that that's sinning. It's that sin that's around it, surrounds that new “I”, that humanness that's there that becomes still the foothold, but we don't have to sin because the dictatorship is broken. That's the essence.

A justified person is set free from sin. We are baptized into Christ, We are baptized into Christ's death and resurrection. The body of sin is rendered inoperative or no longer in control. The death of Christ was a death to sin.

V 8-10, Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him, 9 knowing that Christ, having been raised from the dead, dies no more. Death no longer has dominion 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. Now, here in verse 8, to begin with, you have the same ideas we have in verse 3 and verse 5. We have died with Christ, We now have risen in new life with Christ.

This is a certainty. “We believe that we also shall live with Him,” The future tense doesn't point to heaven. It points to certainty from here and now throughout forever in heaven. We participate in the same holy life that our Lord lives now and forever.

We have died once in Christ. We rise to walk in newness of life. We are certain of that forever because verse 9 says Christ is never going to die again.

Why? Because the dominion of sin was broken the first time. How do we know that Christ really broke the power of sin the first and only time He died? Because God raised Him from the dead.

When Christ came out of the grave, He showed that He had broken the dominion of sin. Because sin's power, sin's sting, sin's executioner is death. When He conquered death, He showed that He had indeed conquered sin. It was a decisive, complete, and final victory.

There will be no more added to it. Never. V 10, For the death that He died, He died to sin once for all; but the life that He lives, He lives to God. There are two elements.

• a) He died once.

Once. A victory that needs no repetition. V 9, “He will die no more.”

Why? Because death has no more power. He has broken that power. This is a very important principle to the writer of the book of Hebrews. The writer of Hebrews shows how, in the Old Testament, they had to kill an animal and another animal and another animal. It just kept going and going. He makes a marvellous contrast.

Hebrews 10:10, By that will we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.

Hebrews 10:14, For by one offering He has perfected forever those who are being sanctified. He makes a major point out of the “once” idea, particularly in Hebrews 7, ⁹ and 10. So, when Christ died once, came out of the grave, He showed He had broken the power of sin. So, when we believe in Him and are placed in His death and resurrection, we too have broken the power of sin permanently. It will never lay claim on us again. It will never be our dictator. V 10, For the death that He died, He died to sin once for all; but the life that He lives, He lives to God.

What does that mean? He died to the guilt of sin. This is the legal sense.

Romans 6:23, For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of

God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. When Jesus died on the cross, He died to sin in terms of paying the penalty. He died to the guilt of sin.

He died to the penalty of sin. Jesus paid it all I owe. Jesus paid the penalty. He met sin's demand. God says, “You sin, you die.” Jesus said, “I will take that death for every man.” So, Christ died unto sin once in paying the penalty.

When we died in Christ, our penalty was paid also, and that's why the law and sin have no more power over us in terms of penalty. That's why you don't have to go to hell to pay for your sin because they have been paid for.

You go out and murder a whole bunch of people. How many times can the law take your life? Once. What happens if they take you up there in the gas chamber and they put you in and you are gassed. You paid the penalty. It just so happened that you rose from the dead.

That's exactly what happened in the cross. The wages of your sin was your death, and you died in Jesus Christ. You paid the penalty, and that's why sin has no claim on you.

There is only one way for you to deal with your sin. You have got to die, and you either die in hell forever paying for them, or you die in Jesus Christ. The choice is yours. He not only died to the penalty of sin He died to the power of sin.

• b) He broke the power of Sin.

He broke the power of sin. It's not something in the future. He did it then.

Was He under sin?

2 Corinthians 5:21, For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him. Temporarily under its power like you can't believe. And by dying, He bore the weight of sin, and by rising, He broke the power of sin. He entered a new state no longer under the power of sin, no longer under the dominion of sin.

We came out of that grave with Him, and we are no longer under its power either. No longer do we pay its penalty.

No longer are we under its power. So, a two‑fold death to sin. In the death of Christ, as we put our faith in Him, we die, and we are saved from wrath because we died of the penalty in Him, and we are made pure because we died of the power in Him.

• A Christian is not simply a person who gets forgiveness, who gets to go to heaven, who gets the Holy Spirit, who gets a new nature.
• A Christian is a person who has become someone he was not before.
• A Christian, in terms of his deepest identity, is a saint, a born child of God, a divine masterpiece, a child of light, a citizen of heaven.

Not only positionally (true in the mind of God, but not true in actuality here on earth), not only judicially (a matter of God's moral bookkeeping), but actually. Becoming a Christian is not just getting something no matter how wonderful that something may be. It is becoming someone.

I am not what I ought to be. I am not what I wish to be. I am not even what I hope to be. But by the cross of Christ, I am not what I was. John Newton.