Romans
6:5-9 (NASB)
5For if we have become united with Him in the likeness of
His death, certainly we shall also be in the likeness of His resurrection, 6knowing
this, that our old self was crucified with Him, in order that our body of sin
might be done away with, so that we would no longer be slaves to sin; 7for
he who has died is freed from sin. 8Now if we have died with Christ,
we believe that we shall also live with Him, 9knowing that Christ,
having been raised from the dead, is never to die again; death no longer is
master over Him.
Haven’t we already looked at this?
You will
have noticed that verses five and six have been included. This is not because we are going to go over
them again, but rather because they are necessary to understand the logical
conclusion that comes in verse seven.
That having been said, verses five and six are amazing verses to
consider. Paul is telling each and every
believer that they have died with Christ, and will share in the likeness of His
resurrection. The knowledge of this
accomplished fact is the operating basis for the life of believer. We need to be abundantly clear in realizing
that we don’t ever NEED to walk in sin again.
As we have seen the continuing presence of the sin nature can fairly
well ensure that we will walk in sin (anytime our eyes are taken off of
Christ), but we are no longer under any obligation to sin. The cross is not just freedom from sin’s
penalty, the only power to live in freedom from that old master of sin also
comes at the cross as well.
It
furthermore comes in the same way. We
had to believe (trust) in the power of the cross for our salvation. For our continuing sanctification there is
only one path – continuing to believe that our identification with Him frees us
from the power of our old sin nature. We
find that the major operating force in the life of the follower of Jesus is
FAITH. Not discipline, not hard work,
not programs, not rituals, not traditions, nothing but Knowing what God’s word
says is true and believing it. This is
the path to growth in Christ prescribed by the Bible, anything else will only
have us treading water.
Romans 6:7
for he who has
died is freed from sin.
Has died
It is
important to realize the tense of this verb.
This is about something that has occurred in the past tense. It doesn’t say, “he who is in the process of
dying…” but rather: “He who HAS DIED”.
This past tense completed action occurred (as the previous verses showed
us) when we were identified with Christ at the cross. It is important to note that there are five
steps in our salvation which we already seen in part. To quote Newell:
There are five parts to our salvation:
1. Christ’s
propitiatory work toward God through His blood: bearing the guilt and
condemnation of our sins.
2. Christ’s
identification with us as connected with Adam, “becoming sin for us,” releasing
us from Adam, our federal head: “our old man” being crucified with Christ.
3. The Holy
Spirit’s whole work in us, as “the Spirit of grace,” involving conviction,
regeneration, baptism into Christ’s Body; being in us as a “law of life”
against indwelling sin, the Witness of our sonship; our Helper, Intercessor,
and, finally, the mighty Agent in the Rapture.
4. Christ’s
present work in Heaven; leading our worship and praise as our Great High
Priest; and protecting us should we sin, as our Advocate with the Father (as
against our accuser).
5. Christ’s
second coming to redeem our bodies, and receive us to Himself in glory: The
Rapture.[1]
What we are
studying here is the second point. This
is an established fact for every single person who has put their faith in Jesus
Christ. This is the basis upon which we
move forward. We are not “crucifying our
selves” or “dying daily” by any stretch of the imagination. True growth will come when we realize what we
already are based on what Christ has already done.
Freed from Sin
“Sin” here,
again, is “the sin” or “the sin nature” as opposed to the individual sins being
in view. This controlling principle,
whom we will see is a hateful slave master, is our master no longer. We have been set free forever. Notice again, the tense in which Paul is
writing. Not “will eventually be freed”
but this is, again, past tense. You are
already free from sin! You are no longer
the slave of sin, based on the supernatural reality of what Jesus Christ did on
the Cross. So why do I still sin? The Devil, the Sin Nature, and the World are
all working in perfect concord to try and convince you that this isn’t so. Everything is working together to convince
you that you do need to continue to live subject to the sin nature, either in a
way that is legalism (external rule keeping of any kind) or a way that is
licentious (lying, cheating, sexual sin, etc.).
Romans 6:8
Now if we
have died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him
“if-fy” topic
Here we
have an interesting word. In English the
word “if” most always insinuates probability (“maybe you will, maybe you
won’t”). However, the Greek construction
surrounding the word “if” can mean one of three different things. Either that the statement is being assumed
true, that is assumed false, or that it may be either way. This case is the first type. Paul is not suggesting that we may or may not
have died with Christ; this much is assumed to be true. So the very reality of the grammar in this
sentence is that what has already been said (“you were baptized into his
death”) is being enforced in this statement.
Because of this grammatical construction some translate “Now since you
have died with Christ…”
A Word on “with”
Here our
death is again described as being “with Christ”. This is interesting. If I were to tell you: “I went to the store
with my wife.” You wouldn’t assume that
I went to the store and then she went to the store five hours later. If that were the case my statement would be a
lie. Here Paul tells believers that we
died with Christ. How can this be so? We carry no recollection of that event, how
can we be said to have been crucified “with Him” when we were still many years
from even being born? This is the power
of our God who is totally outside of time.
When we put our faith in Christ, He includes us in the death of Christ
which occurred 2000 years ago outside of the city of Jerusalem. So what we see, is while there was only one
person on the cross, Golgotha was spiritually a very crowded place. Scripture encourages us to see Christ’s death
very much as our own. The spiritual
reality always supersedes the physical reality in truth and importance. Our death with Christ is no less spiritually
real, than His death was physically real.
We believe
The world
abuses the concept of “faith” regularly.
It is often times presented in the form of a false dichotomy. “Faith” is held in contrast to “facts”. Nothing could be further from actual states
of affairs. We find that in order to
“know” anything requires faith. What we
believe will happen when we turn a light switch, or what we believe happened
300 years ago in Europe, what we believe to be a scientific “law” now and
whether we believe there is a God who can supersede those observed phenomena,
or not, must all be taken on faith. So
when Paul says, “We believe we will also live with Him” He is not using the
word “believe” as a weaker form of the verb “to know” he is using it as a
knowledge that is apprehended by faith and is every bit as valid and
trustworthy as anything known by any other human means or method for
establishing truth.
We shall live with Him
There is a
difficulty of translation here. The
English rendering of the Greek here gives the impression that Paul may be
looking at our fellowship with Christ, either on this earth, or in the
hereafter. While fellowship with Christ
is a very important topic, this is another case where there is a slight
difference in the Greek language than in the translation tradition. The picture that is painted by the context is
far more about instrumentality. In other
words, the “living” here isn’t just “with” Him, but rather, “by means of
Him.” So this verse is actually saying
that, having been crucified with Christ, we live our lives by means of Him and
will do so on into eternity future.
Wuest translates this passage: “…we shall also live by means of Him”.
Romans 6:9
knowing
that Christ, having been raised from the dead, is never to die again; death no
longer is master over Him.
Knowing…again
Notice that
word “knowing” comes up again. The focus
of this word is on knowledge that comes by perception. There were indeed several eye witnesses to
the resurrected Christ, of whom Paul was one.
The fact of Christ’s resurrection was not a fact ever questioned by the
early church. Those who wrote the New
Testament had seen it with their very own eyes.
This word knowing, is the counterpart of “believing” in the previous
verse. Here we see again, the reality
that the Biblical authors did not mean faith was a weaker form of knowing, but
rather a trust in what is clearly known and why.
Raised from death
Christ
defeated death once and for all. We
share in His life, right now. That is a
life that will never again be separated from the eternal God who created us. We see that the life within us is no longer
subject to death. There is no
opportunity for separation from God.
Surely we may be out of fellowship, but the reality is that the only
reason death ever had any power over Christ was because He had taken on our
sin. Having done so, death (eternal
separation from God) is no longer available to those who believe.
No longer master
The true
fear that physical death holds is in the reality that it means eternal
separation from God. However, having
conquered death, all that physical death is to the believer is a gateway into
the new phase in our union with the Lord.
We have nothing to fear in physical death as we know exactly what waits
for us on the other side. We know that
He has saved us completely, and we know that since it is fully impossible that
Jesus Christ would spend eternity apart from the Father, the same is true of
all who have placed their faith in Him for salvation.
Just keep believing
Hopefully,
the conclusion is clear. We were saved
(justified) by placing our faith in Christ.
We are being saved (sanctified) by our continued belief in that same
fact. We see the power of the cross is
the tool that God meant to use in every aspect of our salvation. Many believers waste years and years of their
time trying to “perfect themselves” or eliminate sins one bad behavior at a
time. Usually this legalism drives the
believer into despair as years go by and no progress seems to have been
made. In the most frightful and sad
cases the person is able to convince themselves that they have succeeded,
leading to a life of cold, hard self-deception and hatred of all of the rest of
humanity who they perceive as being “far below them.” Salvation, in all three phases, is always: by
grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone.
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