Dead to Sin and Alive to God

Romans chapter 6 verses 1 to 11. Please

Romans 6:1–11

listen now to the reading of God's word.

What shall we say then?

Are we to continue in sin that grace

may abound?

By no means.

How can we who died to sin still

live in it?

Do you not know that all of us

who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were

baptized into his death?

We were buried therefore with him by baptism

into death, in order that just as Christ

was raised from the dead by the glory

of the father,

we too might walk in newness of life.

For if we have been united with him

in a death like his, we shall certainly

be united with him in a resurrection like

his.

We know that our old self was crucified

with him in order that the body of

sin might be brought to nothing.

So that we would no longer be enslaved

to sin.

For one who has died has been set

free from sin.

Now if we have died with Christ,

we believe that we will also live with

Him.

We know that Christ, being raised from the

dead, will never die again. Death no longer

has dominion over him.

For the death he died,

he died to sin once for all. But

the life he lives, he lives to God.

So you also must consider yourselves

dead to sin and alive to

God in Christ Jesus.

This is the word of the Lord.

Thanks be to God. Please be seated.

Well,

Muhammad Ali

is considered

by many the greatest heavyweight boxer

of all time.

In the 19 sixties

seventies, he was undoubtedly the most famous boxer.

His name was,

a, was known in households all around the

world.

Interestingly,

Muhammad Ali was not his birth name. His

name was actually Cassius Clay Junior after his

father, Cassius Clay Senior.

However, after becoming world champion at age 22,

Clay converted to Islam

and changed his name to Muhammad Ali,

claiming that Cassius Clay was quote his slave

name.

He said he didn't choose the name Cassius

Clay, neither did he care for it. He

didn't want it. He wasn't gonna keep it.

Now, many people were upset at the name

change, but Ali was correct in this.

There is a sense in which

whoever names you, owns you.

This is why our parents name us and

exercise

authority over us while we are in their

house, living

under their name.

In this morning's text, in Romans, Paul makes

it clear that Jesus

has broken

the chains of bondage that death once exercised

over Christians.

He writes that if you are united to

Jesus by faith,

you are no longer under the household of

Adam.

And therefore,

you are no longer

under the domain of sin.

In fact, the main point that I have

for you this morning is this.

Christians

don't live like a slave to sin.

Live like you belong to your savior.

Again, don't live like a slave to sin,

live like you belong to your savior. And

we're going to have a false message this

morning under 3 headings.

1st,

the significance

of being in Christ.

2nd,

the freedom

of being like Christ.

And 3rd, the blessing of being with Christ.

So let's look at the first one, the

significance of being

in Christ.

In verses 1 and 2, we read, what

shall we say them?

Are we to continue in sin that grace

may abound?

By no means.

How can we, who die to sin,

still live in it?

Now last Sunday, Julio preached on these two

verses, and he did a really great job

explaining that it is an utter contradiction

for someone to, on the one hand, claim

that he is a Christian who has received

forgiveness by grace,

and on the other hand,

continue

to unrepentantly

indulge in sinful behavior.

The notion that because salvation is by grace,

when it's free to live without any care

for obeying God's laws known as antinomianism.

And it is a total distortion

of the gospel.

Antinomianism

teaches that since justification is by faith and

not by works,

God's law has no bearing on the individual

anymore.

Has no bearing on me.

It says that I have the freedom

to live however I want because my sin

has already been paid for.

But Paul asks,

how can we

who died to sin

still live in it?

It is incongruent incongruent.

It is a contradiction.

More than that, it is a slanderous

lie

against the holy character of God.

And yet, it is tempting to believe this

lie, or at least to want it to

be true.

After all,

who wants to have any restrictions

on how to live his or her life?

Who wants to follow rules?

Isn't it so much better to just follow

our own heart?

Well, if lying means

that I that I can get ahead,

then why not lie?

If cheating means that I'll get a better

grade, then why not cheat?

If I can close that business deal by

bending the rules,

why not do it?

If no one gets hurt when I access

that website,

it was to stop

me. If I can take something

without it ever being noticed, without it ever

being missed,

why not take it? And if I can

do any or all of these things

without consequences,

then why not?

Doing the right thing is not easy, so

why bother? Especially if so called good works

have no bearing

on my salvation.

If God is gracious,

then why shouldn't I continue in sin that

grace may abound?

Well, how does Paul answer this question? He

says, by no means.

You see, there are consequences

to sin. There are always consequences to sin.

If someone who claims to be a Christian,

unrepentantly,

in done indulges in sin, he hurts himself.

Because sin slowly

and surely

will consume him.

He hurts other people

because sin always privileges the self above all

others.

He distorts the gospel

because he turns grace into licentiousness.

And he drags the name of Jesus through

the mud because he claims to follow Jesus

while displaying

the sinful lifestyle

Jesus died to eradicate from his people.

Look at what Paul writes in verse 3.

He writes, do you not know

that all of us who have been baptized

into Christ Jesus

were baptized into his death?

Paul draws a connection between baptism

and the death of Jesus.

So, his argument so far is that a

sinful lifestyle

does not comport with Christianity

because Christians have been baptized

into Christ's death.

Now, this is a very profound statement by

Paul, but its meaning is not easy to

understand.

Yet, we need to make an effort to

unpack it because once we understand what Paul

means, then everything else he says here makes

sense.

The key to understand how to decipher Paul's

argument here is to understand the meaning of

baptism.

Baptism

is a visible and material representation

of an invisible

and spiritual reality.

Again, it's a visible and material representation

of an invisible and spiritual reality.

It represents

our being united to Christ by faith.

This spiritual union

with Christ

impacts our sinfulness in 2 ways.

1st,

his death on the cross pays for the

guilt of our sin

so that we are justified

or we are legally declared innocent before God.

2nd,

since Jesus pays for the debt of our

sin with his own death,

sin no longer has any claim over us.

We are not in its debt.

Sin doesn't own us anymore

because the wages of our sin

has already been paid by Jesus.

Jesus with his death

purchased us from the domain of sin. Sin

no longer

owns

us. Sin no longer is our master.

Instead,

Jesus is our Lord. We belong to him

now.

Baptism

is a public

visible sign

that you

and all that is yours,

everything in your household, including your children,

belong to God because Christ has purchased you.

So,

his death impacts you by taking away the

guilt of your sin

and by removing

sin's claim over your life.

Again,

you belong to God now.

You have been adopted

into his family.

This is why you and your children are

baptized in his name, the name of the

father and of the son and of the

Holy Spirit.

Baptism

means you enjoy the privileges of being a

member of God's household.

But since you now have his family name,

baptism also means that you represent

God's household.

This is why Paul writes that it is

absurd for Christians to live

sinful lifestyles.

You have been baptized, he says.

You have been baptized

into Christ's death.

A death that purchased you away from the

domain of sin.

That's when the transaction took place at the

cross, at the death of Jesus. That's when

you no longer belong to death anymore.

You do not belong to God's family,

so act like it. That's essentially Paul's argument

here.

Paul completes this idea in verse 4 saying,

we were buried therefore with Christ by baptism

into death,

in order that just as Christ was raised

from the dead

by the glory of the father,

we too might walk in newness of life.

The image of being buried with Christ by

baptism

does not have anything to do with the

mode of baptism. It's not an image of

baptism by immersion, for example. That's not what

Paul has in mind here.

Rather, it's supposed to take us back

to Genesis

3 19

where after Adam sins,

God pronounces a curse on Adam saying,

by the sweat of your face, you shall

eat bread

till you return

to the ground.

For out of it you were taken, for

you are dust, and to dust you shall

return.

In other words,

remember that in Romans 5, Paul wrote that

sin and death had entered into the world

because of the sin of Adam.

So everyone in Adam's household

has sinned, has his sin, and bears his

curse.

And if anyone dies in Adam, he is

buried in Adam

and is returned to the cursed ground.

That's the connection.

Dead in Adam,

buried in Adam,

cursed in Adam.

But in Romans 5, Paul also wrote that

anyone who is in the second Adam, that

is to say in Jesus,

will have eternal life. Because unlike Adam,

Jesus

obeyed the law perfectly.

In 1st Corinthians 15 verse 48,

Paul lays out these two destinies in this

way. He writes,

as was the man of dust, that is

Adam,

so also are those who are of the

dust.

And as is the man of heaven,

Jesus,

so also are those who are of heaven.

Paul completes the thought here by stating

that your baptism into Christ's death

means that you, who belong to Jesus,

are buried with Jesus

and not

with Adam.

And since Jesus' death breaks Adam's curse,

the ground or the grave or the dust

has no claim over you anymore.

You were baptized into Christ death.

You are buried with him.

The cursed ground could not contain Jesus, and

neither will it contain you.

The gates of hell will not prevail

against you, Jesus says.

The same power

that freed Jesus from the grip of death

at his resurrection

also delivers you from bondage to sin when

you are born again.

Thus, Paul writes

that you can live in newness of life.

That is to say, you can overcome

the temptation to sin and you can grow

in godliness.

So for you, what is the practical significance

of being in Christ?

Well,

since being in Christ means that he has

removed the guilt of your sin

through his atoning death,

then you can be sure

that you are truly

justified,

that you are truly innocent before God, no

matter what accusations

Satan may bring against you.

This means that you have really been reconciled

with your heavenly father.

You are his son.

You are his daughter.

His wrath is not on you anymore.

He loves you and cares for you, and

he delights

in blessing you.

When you go to him in prayer,

you can be sure that he receives you,

and he hears you.

And you can be sure that he works

all things together

for your good.

And because God has forgiven you,

when you sin against others,

you have the freedom

to confess your sins.

You don't have to hide.

You don't have to endure unending shame.

You can accept your shortcomings

and ask for forgiveness

because God knows everything about you.

And he loves you. And he has already

forgiven you.

But not only this,

being in Christ also means that your heavenly

father

loves

and has forgiven

anybody who is in Christ. He has love

he loves and he has forgiven other Christians.

So when another Christian

sins against you

and he asks,

and he or she asks for forgiveness, you

now have the freedom

and the responsibility

to forgive

him or her.

In other words, because in Christ we are

reconciled to God,

we can also be reconciled to our brothers

and sisters

in the faith.

And not only this,

but remember that Paul wrote in Romans 510

that it was while we were God's enemies

that Christ died for us and reconciled us

to God.

This means

that in Christ we have the freedom and

responsibility

to not only forgive other Christians,

but also to love and forgive

unbelievers.

If we truly believe this,

and we live it out,

imagine what this can do for our marriages,

for our relationships with our children,

for our relationships with our parents, or with

our siblings,

or with our neighbors.

Because in Christ we are a forgiving people,

we have the freedom and the power to

be a forgiving

people.

If you are unforgiving

and resentful

and proud,

perhaps the chains of a sinful nature still

bind you.

Because in Christ, we are

a forgiving people,

we are to be a forgiving

people.

If you are in Christ, resentment

is not your master.

Praise the Lord. More importantly,

not only is resentment not your master, but

sin is no longer your master. Which brings

us to our second heading this morning, the

the freedom of being

like Christ.

The freedom of being like Christ.

Christ not only justifies you by removing the

guilt of your sin,

he also sanctifies you by removing the corruption

of sin, breaking its power over you.

Look what Paul writes in verse 5.

For if we have been united with Jesus

in a death like his,

we shall certainly be united with him in

a resurrection

like his.

The word translated as united

carries the sense of being planted together,

of being

fused or engrafted.

The image is that of a believer

who was dead in his sin,

but was fused with Christ in his death

and buried with him or planted

with him as it were.

What happens next is best described by Paul

in 1st Corinthians 15 verses 42 to 45

where he writes,

so it is with the resurrection of the

dead.

What is sown is perishable.

What is raised is imperishable.

It is sown in dishonor.

It is raised in glory.

It is sown in weakness.

It is raised in power.

It is sown a natural body. It is

raised a spiritual body.

If there is a natural body, there is

also a spiritual body. Thus it is written,

the first man, Adam, became a living being.

The last Adam

became a life giving spirit.

In other words, we were perishable,

dishonorable,

and weak,

being under the power and domain of sin

and death.

But by grace, we were united to Christ

by a spirit wrought faith.

We were fused

with that glorious,

powerful,

imperishable seed.

And we were

buried or planted

or sown

with him.

Therefore,

since we were planted

and fused with Jesus,

When he was raised by the power of

God, we were raised with him and utterly

transformed.

We were sown perishable,

but raised imperishable.

We were sown in dishonor,

but raised in glory.

We were sown in weakness,

but raised in power. And not only this,

but the original Greek reveals another interesting fact

that our English translation conceals.

Verse 5 literally says,

that we are united to Christ,

not in a death like His, as the

ESV translates it, but that we are united

to Christ in the likeness of His death.

We are united to Christ in the likeness

of His death.

What is interesting about this is that Adam

was made in the image and likeness of

God without sin.

But since Adam sinned

at his death,

the image and likeness of God in Adam

had been corrupted

by sin.

But we are united to Christ in the

likeness of his death.

And since Christ did not sin,

the image of and likeness of God in

Christ, even at his death, was not corrupted

by sin.

So in

Christ, by virtue of our union with him,

the image and likeness of God in us

is restored.

Therefore, through our union with Christ we are

transformed,

and we are transferred

from the realm of Adam

to the realm of Christ.

From the kingdom of dust

to the kingdom

of heaven.

From the domain of sin

to the domain of righteousness.

In verses 6 7, Paul spells out the

practical implications for us. He writes,

we know that our old self was crucified

with him in order that the body of

sin might be brought to nothing,

so that we would no longer be enslaved

to sin.

For one who has died

has been set free

from sin.

Paul now personifies

the sinful nature we inherited from Adam, calling

it our old self, and referring to its

body as a body of sin.

One may choose to obey

the old self.

Since it has a body, one may feel

its tight grip

pulling us away from the well lit path

of virtue

and toward the dark and murky path of

sin.

But Paul's point is this,

that old self

does not own you anymore.

His body of sin cannot overcome you

because Christ took that old self and nailed

nailed it with him

to the cross.

In fact, Christ has brought that old self

to nothing.

And verse 7 states

that you now live under God's power, not

under bondage to sin.

This is not a future aspiration for the

Christian. In it is, in fact, a present

reality

because Christ has already

conquered

death.

Now this does not mean that Christians don't

sin anymore.

Paul is going to spend chapter 7 in

Romans explaining his own struggle and battle with

sin.

But it does mean that sin no longer

owns you, that sin no longer controls you,

that sin no longer has authority over you.

It means that since you are united to

Christ,

you have the freedom

of being like Christ,

victorious over sin.

The fact that

you battle with sin,

that you struggle against it is evidence that

it is not your master anymore.

It means that you can name your sin,

but you are no longer named by your

sin.

Since sin has lost its authority over you,

you're not in its household anymore.

Thus, there really is no such thing

as a gay Christian

or a racist Christian or an adulteress Christian,

just to name a few.

For Paul writes in Colossians 2 verses 14

Colossians 2:14

and 15 that Christ not only cancelled the

record of our sin, that is to say

that he removed our guilt, but that he

also triumphed over the power of sin by

taking our sin and nailing it to the

cross.

So your sin doesn't get to name you

anymore.

Instead, through your baptism,

you bear God's name.

You don't identify with sin anymore

because the old has passed,

and the new has come. In Christ, you

are a new

creation.

So, as Christians, we identify with Christ,

and Christ identifies with us.

He reconciles us to the father,

and we reconcile to one another through him.

He is our high priest before God's throne,

and we are his ambassadors before the world,

having the freedom and the power to live

like him.

All the rich implications

of our being baptized into Christ's death,

of our being buried with him,

of our being raised with him to newness

of life are summarized by Paul in 2nd

Corinthians 5 verses 14 to 21, where he

writes the following.

Again, 2nd Corinthians 5 14 to 21.

For the love of Christ controls us. Notice,

it's not sin that controls us anymore. It's

not Adam that controls us anymore. It's not

the old man. It is the love of

Christ that controls us because we have concluded

this,

that one has died for all,

therefore all have died.

And he died for all, that those who

live might no longer live for themselves,

but for him who for their sake

died and was raised.

From now on, therefore, we regard no one

according to the flesh. Even though we once

regarded Christ according to the flesh, we regard

him thus no longer.

Therefore,

if anyone is in Christ, he is a

new creation. The old has passed away, behold

the new has come.

All this is from God

who through Christ

reconciled us to himself

and gave us the ministry

of reconciliation.

That is,

in Christ, God was reconciling

the world to himself,

not counting their trespasses against them and entrusting

to us

the message of reconciliation.

Therefore,

we are ambassadors

for Christ,

God making his appeal through us.

We implore you on behalf of Christ,

be reconciled to God. For our sake, he

made him to be sin who knew no

sin,

so that in him we might become

the righteousness

of God. How good it is to know

that we are reconciled to Christ, that we

are reconciled to God, that we are reconciled

to one another.

We We are not to live in shame

anymore.

The guilt of our sin is removed.

So we have the freedom to forgive, we

have the freedom to ask for forgiveness.

And, yes, that entails other people. If others

don't want to reconcile with us, what that

means for us is that we still,

through the power of Jesus Christ, have the

power, the ability, the capacity, the responsibility

to love them, to pray for them, and

to desire that they too might see the

light that by grace we have seen. So

having considered both,

the significance of being in Christ and the

freedom

of being like Christ,

we now turn to our 3rd and final

heading, the blessing of being

with Christ.

In verse 8, Paul writes,

now we have died with Christ, we believe

that we will also live with him.

The primary focus of Paul in these verses

is to assure believers

that we have the ability to live lives

of obedience.

In other words,

in the previous verses, Paul has demonstrated that

Christ has broken the power of sin over

us.

But an important corollary to this, to this

good news, is in a positive sense,

Christ has also given us the power

to obey God's will. It's not just that

sin doesn't have power over us anymore, it's

that now we have power to obey God.

In other words,

not being in bondage to sin anymore

also means that we are now free to

obey God.

We died with Christ.

This broke sin's power because Christ took our

sin and nailed it to the cross.

We also live with Christ.

This gives us power to obey because we

partake of Christ's righteous life.

What a great blessing

the preposition with

turns out to be for the Christian.

It is our union

with Christ

that enables us to enjoy the fruit of

righteous living in this life.

People may tell you that you cannot overcome

certain sins,

but that's not true

Because you are not alone.

You are with Christ.

Or better yet,

Christ is with you. Both in the chain

breaking power of his death,

and in the purifying power of his life.

In verses 9 and 10, Paul writes, we

know that Christ being raised from the dead

will never die again. Death no longer has

dominion over him.

For the death he died, he died to

sin

once for all,

but the life he lives,

he lives to God.

Christ did not die because death had any

power over him.

Instead,

Christ willingly

sacrificed himself to pay for the sins of

his people.

But now that he has done

it, he has accomplished his mission to redeem

his church. It is finished. He has paid

the price to purchase us.

We now belong to him.

He has the receipt.

His

hands, his side,

his feet bear witness to his payment.

Since death has no claim on his sheep

anymore,

it has no power over our shepherd either.

He will never

die again.

Because he was the perfect

spotless sacrifice,

the father accepted that sacrifice. His once for

all death was enough.

Thus, the author of Hebrews writes in Hebrews

10 14,

for by a single offering,

Christ has perfected

for all time

those who are being

sanctified.

This is why reformed churches have councils,

but not altars,

and pastors,

but not priests,

Because there are no sacrifices being offered in

our churches anymore.

Christ,

once for all, sacrificed to redeem his people

was sufficient.

So our Lord neither offered is sorry. So

our Lord is neither offered up on an

altar, nor is he hanging on a cross.

Instead, as verse 10 tells us, he is

alive,

and he lives to God,

ever interceding

for us as our high priest.

So Paul concludes

in verse 11,

so you also must consider yourselves dead to

sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.

The word translated as consider

is the same word that Paul used in

Romans 4:3,

Romans 4:3

where he wrote that Abraham believed God and

it was counted to him. It was considered

for him as righteousness.

The word that means it is the word

that means to reckon something is true, to

credit something is true, to impute

something

as true.

Paul says, you must consider yourselves

dead to sin and alive to God.

This is exactly

what God considers you.

God considers you to be justified

and sanctified before him.

He considers you righteous

and holy.

And the reason for this

is that you are truly

united

to Christ who is righteous

and holy.

God makes you clean by imputing

Christ's righteousness

to you. And what God makes clean, you

must not call common.

Even though Muhammad Ali's birth name was Cassius

Clay Junior,

he really was not named after his father.

Rather, both he and his father were named

after Cassius Marcellus Clay,

a wealthy

19th century politician

who had once been a slave owner, but

who had become

a staunch supporter of the abolitionist

cause in America.

It's somewhat ironic, therefore, that Ali had forsaken

that name, calling it his slave name.

In adopting Islam,

Ali may have gotten a new name, but

he remained as spiritually enslaved

as ever.

That is because as we have seen today,

there's only one man who can break the

chains of slavery

and he didn't write the Quran.

Unlike Cassius Marcellus Clay,

Jesus did not become an abolitionist after owning

slaves.

Instead, Paul,

while he himself is in chains in Rome,

writes for us in Philippians the following

verses regarding Jesus.

He says that of Jesus that though he

was in the form of God,

he did not count equality with God a

thing to be grasped.

But he emptied himself

by taking the form of a servant, the

form of a slave,

being born in the likeness of men.

And being found in human form, he humbled

himself

by becoming obedient to the point of death,

even death on a cross.

Therefore,

God has highly exalted him and bestowed on

him the name that is above every name,

So that at the name of Jesus every

knee should bow in heaven

and on earth and under the earth, and

every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord

for the glory of God the father.

So remember the significance of being in Christ.

Because he died on the cross, you are

no longer guilty before God.

And live in the freedom

of being like Christ. Because he took the

form of a slave,

you are no longer in bondage to sin.

And enjoy the blessing of being with Christ

because he humbled himself. You have been given

his name and exalted with him to glory.

So Christian,

don't live like a slave to sin.

Live

like you belong

to your savior. Let's pray.