Romans
6:1-4 (NASB)
1What shall we say then?
Are we to continue in sin so that grace may increase? 2May it never be! How shall we who died to sin still live in
it? 3Or do you not know that
all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus have been baptized into His
death? 4Therefore we have
been buried with Him through baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised
from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness
of life.
The Beginning of the Middle
Romans 6,7
& 8 are possibly the most important chapters in the Bible when it comes to
Christian growth and maturity. It is
important to notice that Paul does not even begin to talk about growth until
the problem of righteousness and salvation is completely settled. Paul ended chapter 5 explaining that the Law
finished its purpose in bringing us to Christ and the believer is now
completely under the grace of God. Grace
is repeatedly placed in opposition to law in Scripture (John 1:17; Romans 5:20;
6:15; Galatians 2:21; 5:4). What we have
to realize is that what Paul puts forth here is radical and amazing. Something never seen before in all of human
history. It should be shocking and
alarming. It should be surprising to
us.
Conversely
it should NOT be surprising to us that the world doesn’t get it. It should not shock us one bit that the world
has perverted this message again and again and again, trying to put the
believer back under law. Placing the
believer back under the curse of the law (2 Corinthians 3:7; Galatians 3:10),
usually for their own selfish gain or power.
The Book of Romans brings us to the full and complete understanding that
salvation can come one way and one way only:
Through the work of Christ on the cross, and no righteousness can be
accrued or retained in any other way whatever.
Law keeping is no longer to be the driving force of our existence…a life
motivated by fear of punishment is no longer the factor that conducts our
lives. God has much more in store for
us. All by grace, all in Christ.
Romans 6:1
1What shall we say then?
Are we to continue in sin so that grace may increase?
Teaching with Questions
Paul then
uses the tool of rhetorical questions to make his point. The use of rhetorical questions is an important
teaching tool. They are employed here
because Paul wants the readers to interact and take seriously the information
that is being given. Additionally, he
wants them to know that he has already considered their rebuttal to this
amazing thing called grace. Here is the
comical thing: When sharing the message of salvation by grace alone, through
faith alone, in Christ alone you will still be answering this question all the
time.
The Obvious Question
This would
almost be comical, if it weren’t so sad.
Here we have the flagship book in the Bible on what it means to be saved
(Romans along with Galatians) and if you go to any random church and say “You
are not under Law, but under grace.” You will often have half the church down
your throat in no time with the same rebuttal, never from the Bible, always,
“So you are saying I can do whatever I want?
What would keep me from…” The
first thing that must be noticed about this argument is that it is totally
worldly and human centered. It isn’t
about the Bible, the Cross or the Holy Spirit; it is an argument that
presupposes that if nobody was looking we would do whatever we could get away
with. Of the non-believer this may be
true. But the normal Christian life is
totally different than the unsaved non-believer.
Shall we continue in sin?
- Sin vs. Sins
There is
something to be noted first about the word “sin”. Until now, Paul has been chiefly concerned
with “sins” (plural) meaning the individual acts of unrighteousness by which a
person can be condemned apart from Christ.
In chapter 6 we see two changes:
First – The
plural (sins) is no longer used and the singular (sin) is employed talking
about a thing, or a principle rather than many individual things.
Second -
the definite article is used. This is no
longer talking about “sins” but “the Sin”.
The definite article in Greek means specificity. The specific “sin” is what is in view. This use of the word “sin” here is the
motivating force in the life of any person that we call “the sin nature”. Another term used for this is “the
flesh.” So the “sin nature” is the
controlling factor before we were in Christ, and it is the only basis for
operation that the unbeliever has.
– The issue of sanity
Paul is
going to make repeated appeals to this issue of sanity? What have seen to be the natural consequences
of sin in the world? The last 5 chapters
of Romans have been hammering away the reality that sin and sinning brings
nothing but hatred, sadness, death, loss, hopelessness, weakness, separation
from others, separation from God, and pain.
Forgiven or not the question is: why is this question even being
asked? Would you want to continue to
live your life at the behest of this master who wants nothing but your own pain
and destruction? The person who does so
could only be called one thing: insane.
Grace may increase
The
reasoning behind this false argument is “that grace may abound”. Will grace abound? Yes, we know that there is grace increases all
the more whenever sin is present (Romans 5:20).
Notice here, that Paul is not taking anything back. He is does not retreat one single inch from
his position that God’s grace increases over all of our sins. There is not a question, but is that any reason
to sin more?
Romans 6:2-3
2May it never be! How
shall we who died to sin still live in it?
3Or do you not know that all of us who have been baptized
into Christ Jesus have been baptized into His death?
Never! Never! NEVER!
This is one
of the strongest ways, in Greek, that Paul could forbid something. This could be brought across as: “Don’t even
conceive of the thought!” or “Don’t even
think about thinking about it!” It is very extreme and very serious. Paul is saying, “you’ve got it all
wrong!” Paul will come back to this
phrase again when exposing erroneous thinking surrounding the gospel, and in so
doing he will expose many of the heresies that are STILL GOING ON TODAY. We find that the Devil, the flesh and the
world don’t stop playing the same old strategies just because they are
addressed in the Bible. In a way, that
is the safest place for the answer to be, as people who are looking to get away
with something, or flee from God’s Spirit will rarely care to check His word.
Logic!
C.S.
Lewis’s Lion, Witch and the Wardrobe
features a funny old Professor who bemoans the children’s lack of critical
thinking skills by complaining that Logic is no longer taught in schools. While this is true (and it shows in our
society) it is important to note something here. Paul COULD HAVE said, “NO! That’s just wrong and that’s that!” This would be a dogmatic assertion based on
his position and authority as an apostle.
That is not what he does. Instead
Paul reasons with the reader. The
significance? This is not just good
doctrine…it is REASONABLE doctrine. The
reality is that this is something that isn’t just coming from the throne of
God, but it also proves out as right and sensible.
Died to
Here we see
our continued topic of “death” in the Bible. The issue of the proper biblical
definition of the word “death.” We see
that, biblically, death always involves a separation. Physical death is the separation of the soul
and spirit from the body. Spiritual
death is separation from God (Gen. 3; John 17:3). Reproductive death is the separation from
reproductive ability, functional death in the life of the believer is lack of
fellowship with God. Here is the
important fact: Death NEVER means
annihilation or inability to respond. The
unbeliever is dead to God (Ephesians 3:1-3) it does not mean that he cannot
respond to God and must therefore received some pre-grace to respond, it only
means that he is separated from God. To
define spiritual “death” as “out on a slab, cold, unable to respond” not only
makes no sense given the rest of the information about salvation, it also is
monstrously bad exegesis to change the word meaning to match your theological
presupposition.
What did you die to?
The
question is, if we have died to that slave-master Sin, why would we continue to
live in obedience to it? What logical
reason can we come up with? It is insane
to imagine the separation we have from the sin nature and then think that we
would ever want to go back under it? The
question, of course, exposes the ridiculousness of the assertion that we may
want to do go back and be evil “if we knew we could get away with it.”
Do you not know?
The issue
of knowing is a big issue in the Bible.
There are those who can say that we cannot know, or that knowing what
the Bible says is secondary or less important than whatever their pet doctrine
is about. However, the reality is that,
having spoken, God expects us to know and apply the information in His word. This is what He wants: that we would know
what the Bible says, and continually believe it (faith, believe, trust). As we will see here, the knowing IS the
answer to how we are meant to grow. It
is not out of fear of punishment but because we know what we are, what He has
made us to be. Consider the following
distinction:
The Law -> “What
you do is what you are” -> You sin, therefore your are a sinner
Grace -> “What you
are dictates what you do” -> You are a saint, who sometimes sins
The point
is that God’s plan for us in Christ is to make us new creatures, not just
polish up the old creature. What He
wants us to be is those who freely conform to His will in everything we do. Every thought, every word, every action
flowing from the life of Christ within us.
This is who we are, when we act otherwise it is because we are not
acting like what God declared us to be.
Baptized
The concept
of baptism occurs throughout the Bible.
Every time baptism is mentioned in Scripture the meaning is identification. There are wet and dry baptisms throughout the
Bible, but the imagery is identification.
Those who were baptized with John the Baptist’s baptism were identified with
his movement and identified themselves to follow the coming Messiah. The word “baptism” is a word that carried a great deal of
cultural power. It was used of a sword
being tempered. It would first be super
heated and then plunged into cold water, thus hardening the metal and making it
useful for battle. This word was also used
in dying cloth. White cloth was baptized into the red or purple dye and
was permanently and irreversibly changed from that point forward.
Birth Order
So here we
find the first true step in the biblical order of your birth. You believed and you were Baptized into
Christ’s death. You died with Him, and
your history before you were saved was forever replaced with the history of
Christ. At that point you were forever separated from your sin nature. However, your sin nature still lives within
you, it was not annihilated it was simply taken out of the driver’s seat. Just as you used to be dead, separated from
God, though not unable to respond to Him, now you are separated from your sin
nature, though you are still able to respond to it.
What’s Real
We live in
a world that gets confused between the real and the imaginary. The point of this passage is this: This
separation, this identification with Christ in His death, was real. We are familiar with tragic situations where
people are unable to distinguish reality from fantasy. A person who believes he is Napoleon spends
his days in a mental ward wondering why the hoards of France don’t flock to his
call. This is what we look like when we
live in subjection to our sin nature. We
are acting like something we are not and operating under the delusion that our
sin nature is still our operating nature, but in reality we have died to that
and are identified with Christ in His righteousness. So, just as with the first phase of
salvation, the issue is not about obeying some rules, it is about believing
what God has said over and above our experience.
Romans 6:4
Therefore we have been buried with Him through
baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead through the
glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life.
Next step in the Birth order
After dying
with Him on the cross we were buried with Him.
As Christ was buried physically so we were spiritually. Though we do not remember this experience it
is the actual spiritual reality that we are called to live in. The physical death of Christ was confirmed by
His three days in the grave. There is no
doubt that He physically died, and thus, our separation from Sin, punishment
and wrath are permanent and complete.
Raised from the Dead
However,
praise the Lord, Christ did not remain in the grave, and neither do we. Our old life done away with we are now raised
from the dead with Him. This is exactly
what Paul was writing about when he penned Ephesians 1:18-21:
18I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened, so
that you will know what is the hope of His calling, what are the riches of the
glory of His inheritance in the saints, 19and what is the surpassing
greatness of His power toward us who believe. These are in accordance with the
working of the strength of His might 20which He brought about in
Christ, when He raised Him from the dead and seated Him at His right hand in
the heavenly places, 21far above all rule and authority and power
and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this age but also in
the one to come.
He raised
us from the dead and ascended us with Jesus and seated us at the right hand of
the Father. This is the true “birth
order” of the believer that the Bible declares to us.
Walk in newness of life
The word
“walk” is another word that had great 1st century meaning. Most
people got everywhere by walking. So
when Paul talks about our walk, he means every aspect of our life, from waking
up, to shopping, to school or work, this is what the Christian life is
about. We are walking in the life that
He won for us. While we rest in what He
has done, He lives His life out in us every day, day in and day out here on
earth. “Newness” here is not new in
chronology, but new in kind. So it is
not like “I bought a new car” though I really just mean it is new to me, as I
just bought it. It is a whole new manner
and type of existence, wholly unseen by the world. Your new life is the life of Christ, as you
rest in Him you will be pleasing to the Father.
You will do the KINDS of things that please Him, because He is doing
them IN you! This exchanged life is the
Bible’s prescription for our sanctification.
It’s not just: “Keep trying.” It
is “Stop trying and trust.”
Like anything doing something successfully means doing it
right. Trying harder doesn’t mean a
thing if you are trying to do something the wrong way. For instance it doesn’t matter how hard I TRY
my car won’t go unless I put the key in.
I can say, “But I tried and I tried! I worked the pedals, change the
oil, I didn’t grind the gears!” Until we walk the way we are meant to we will
meet only failure, frustration and defeat.
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