Romans 6 | Aaron & James Podcast

Hello, my name is James Rathman.

And I'm Aaron Deff.

And this is the Aaron and James Podcast.

Today we're covering Romans chapter six.

It's not exactly in line with the uh workbook, but we wanted to break up Romans chapter six and seven because there's a lot here.

So much.

This episode of the podcast is brought to you by Easter at Redemption Church Denver.

Easter is one of the best times of the year, don't you think, Aaron?

You know, I haven't heard of Easter before.

Can you tell me a little bit about it?

You'll explain it all, explain it all after the pot.

There's this.

Um we have two services this Easter Sunday, like a mega church.

That's crazy.

Thanks.

And uh the they are at 9 and 11 on Easter Sunday, which is 420.

Classic.

Nothing funny about that.

Nothing funny.

About 420.

420 in Colorado, Easter Sunday.

We need volunteers.

We've been seated in the heavenly places with Christ.

That's right.

And we need volunteers for uh redemption kids for Easter Sunday.

So there's two services.

One great thing to do, maybe maybe uh volunteer at the early service, attend the 11 o'clock, or come volunteer at the 11 o'clock and attend the nine o'clock service with your family.

That seems like a great option to me.

So many ways you could put that together.

A lot of combinations.

A lot of combinations.

Yeah.

It's like uh like a Mexican food restaurant.

Or a choose your own journey book.

Or a choose your own adventure book.

You are all of those things you can do.

So we still need volunteers.

This is a great time to volunteer.

Uh so many folks come and check out the church on Easter Sunday and celebrate with us from the neighborhood.

Uh it's a great time to practice hospitality and uh serve also just the kids in our church.

Yeah.

So to excuse me, I'm joking.

To volunteer for that, you just uh uh go to the calendar on either our app or website, and uh uh you can select your spot to volunteer there.

It'd be a big help for us.

Yeah.

So thanks for the sponsorship of Easter Sunday.

Romans chapter six.

Cool.

Let's talk about it.

Okay, so this chapter seems to be a lot about identity.

Yes.

And who we are and and what Christ has done for us.

But there also is likely some cultural lies that we've been believing around our own identity, where we get it from, how we define it, that type of thing.

Do you want to walk us through that?

Yeah, I do.

So uh even just in the nature of the term itself, identity.

And we we say this, and there's identity in Christ is um, you know, it it there's uh I think preachers get paid by how many times they they can say identity in Christ and to reinforce our identity in Christ.

I know I do.

At least a bonus structure would be good.

Exactly, if we hit our quota.

But even the nature of this term identity is a particularly modern term.

And we think of it when we think of identity, what we're thinking of is self-perception or our self-reckoning.

And that's the whole picture of identity for us is how we consider ourselves.

And this is in this chapter, Paul will give us what's basically the first command in the letter so far, which is just a command to consider yourself in a particular way.

He's he says in uh verse 11, so you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.

But if we think of that in just the ordinary frame of identity, which is self-consideration, then we'll think that this is sort of like a trick we can play, that our faith becomes real or the reality of our position manifests insofar as we really think it about ourselves.

And Christianity can then become something like a psychological trick we're playing on ourselves.

But that's a misunderstanding of identity because our our conception of identity, uh, this modern conception of identity comes from a secular frame in which we aren't related to anything above us which bestows our identity upon us.

Now, fundamentally, that's that's um even in your own story, that's basically not true because you didn't name yourself.

Yeah.

And so your your most you know fundamental identity or whatever, like who who you're called, was just given to you.

You know, you didn't you didn't name yourself.

The the self-naming in our culture through the trans ideology, or that's like the most graphic example, probably most explicit, of the self-reflection um being the most fundamental thing about ourselves, yeah, um, is a self-naming exercise.

And it what that shows is that there isn't really any reality outside of me to which I must adhere or which bestows identity upon me.

And this whole text, all of chapter six, is saying the most fundamental thing about your identity is something that Christ has done on your behalf and then imputed to you.

And so it's given to you, it's done to you, and your self-conception is downstream or it's true insofar as it is in agreement with God's conception of you.

Yeah.

And that means that it's it's there's a sense in which it's real whether you think it or not.

And it's it's that level of real, which is very real.

Yeah.

Uh real whether you whether you think it or not, because it's it's God who is saying it.

And so that ties in with this assurance of salvation that we see throughout uh Paul's letter to the Romans.

He's he's giving you the mechanisms by which you could understand your salvation is secure in Christ because it was accomplished by him and then as a free gift given to you.

And so I think in order to grasp the reality of what Christ has accomplished for us, we need to consider that the most fundamental thing about us isn't within us, it's what God thinks of us and what he has done for us on our behalf.

And then our identity, who we are, our self-conception, flows from that and is true insofar as it agrees with that.

And there are two positions that we can then be in in the world.

We can be in Christ, and therefore our identity, our self-conception ought to flow from him.

As he says, it must, you must consider yourself, which means there's something binding your self-consideration that's above you.

Yeah.

So you're either in Christ or you're in sin.

And you're in Adam, and you're under the dominion of sin.

So part of our identity is what we are under the dominion of, because identity is granted from above.

Yeah.

You know, who your the the status of your soul is granted from above.

And so this flips the quest for identity.

I think that like our um culture teaches us to turn inward in order to find the deepest truths about ourselves.

And what we discover there is that we're a labyrinth inside of uh this mixture of desires.

In our culture, it would ground um our identity within desire.

You know, you can think of the way that the way that our culture works, you can hear it in our language, like gender is something like a secular soul.

You know, it's immaterial, it's within you, it's only accessible to within that person.

Um, and it has this soul-like quality to it.

Um, but it it again, I use that as sort as a maximal example or an explicit example, like the way that Paul uses homosexuality in Romans 1 as a plain, explicit example.

But we do that in all kinds of in all kinds of ways where there, I mean, we'll we'll do it.

Uh uh like I I remember times in my life where I thought some of the most important things about me were my taste in music.

You know, like my my particular uh having having the right opinions about movies.

Yeah, because they fit in with what everyone else was tasting or listening to.

Exactly, or just didn't on the fringe.

Yeah, yeah.

And that was that was like this deep expression of myself.

And so if I were to really relate to somebody and they were to get to know the truest aspects of me, um, they would know my taste.

Are you a dashboard confessionals fan?

Yeah, you know I should be, but I wasn't.

I'm not a dashboard guy.

Okay.

I haven't said to clear that up real quick.

Yeah, I've got all the markers of someone who was, but I did I just wasn't.

Great.

Yeah.

Um so uh with in order for us to grasp it that's why it can be hard to grasp the truths that Paul is saying here because uh we're it's this real it's this real shift from what is natural and intuitive to us as modern people, from a position of self-conception being the most fundamental thing uh to our trust that the most fundamental thing is uh God's conception and uh for the Christian being in Christ.

Yeah.

We know how God can see we know how God relates to us and how he can relate to us as ones who have uh fulfilled the requirements of the law because Christ on our behalf did.

And he can relate to us in grace, not as ones who are under the dominion of sin because we died in sin.

Yeah.

Uh because Christ died, and his death is our death.

So these things are outside of us, and they describe to us who we are.

And so we need to learn how to live out of that conception of ourselves.

Yeah.

What are your thoughts on um, you know, it seems like a lot of like our our identity that we seem to divine of ourselves is seems more personality-based sometimes.

Yes.

Um and it seems like this is more position or status-based.

Yes.

In terms of what the Bible is is teaching, whether you're in Adam or you're in Christ.

Do you want to talk about that a little bit?

Well, I'll give an analogy.

You can see it kind of in the way that our culture considers marriage, for example.

And why we uh it have these the the okay, so the way that we think of it is like um we're we're we're not good at understanding relationships categorically.

We place all relationships on the same spectrum of intimacy.

Okay.

And so we consider that there's this um low level of intimacy, which is uh stranger, you know, there's no intimacy.

There's a uh higher level of intimacy, which is friend.

There's a higher level of intimacy from there, which is uh boyfriend or girlfriend, or um some sort of uh something like that.

Sure.

Uh then there's then once you've graduated from this higher level of intimacy from boyfriend or girlfriend, you go to uh engaged.

And then you signal a higher level of intimacy finally with marriage.

And that's not really the way to think about those categories.

Because it it well, what would happen there is that we would consider that um uh if you uh well here's one here's one way to get at this.

Like, who did David have a higher intimacy with?

Jonathan or Abigail?

Jonathan.

I think so.

I think so.

Yeah.

But so in our culture, we'd be like, this is um uh that's a a mistake of levels of intimacy.

Yeah, it's backwards.

It's backwards because we don't have uh but to David there's no contradiction because he was in a categorically different relationship with Jonathan, the relationship of friend, than he was with Abigail, the relationship of spouse.

And so those are those are categorically different relationships.

And so what we're in with Christ and with the Lord is we've uh because of what Christ has done, our station with him has changed.

And it's a it's the highest relationship, so it's a cause cosmically, this is true.

So the so to the Lord we are the bride.

So there is a marital, covenantal element to it.

Christ also calls us his friends, so there's a friend element to it.

Like it it subsumes all of the relational categories that we can that we have, you know, because it's beyond them, it's above them.

Yeah.

Um, but it is it is a categorical, a categorical shift of of station.

And therefore, God will treat us according to the uh covenantal relationship that He has entered into with us.

And so we can know absolutely where we stand before the Lord.

Yeah.

Well, and one of the interesting things with this, I think, is that because today we tend to do desire-based or personality-based definitions of it, that's the way in which it's the personality and our desires that drive our behavior.

Right.

Um, but it seems like in this chapter, Paul's kind of he's getting at our behavior um with the question of are we to continue to sin that grace may abound.

And here it's it's seeming like the station is what's driving the behavior and the way that we live.

Do you have any thoughts on that?

So the the analogy that's most helpful th throughout like our understanding of our new station with Christ is to consider the original station of Adam, because it's like a birth.

You know, this is the analogy that Christ uses.

It's a new birth.

And so, what did you do to what did Adam do to receive the station of of uh righteous creature before God?

Yeah.

Uh created in the image of God.

Well, you just received it, you know, it was just given to him.

Uh that it was nothing.

I don't know what you do.

It's like, what'd you do to be born?

Yeah.

You know, you just probably don't even remember it.

It just kind of you just take it on.

Someone told you.

Someone told you.

You were born.

It's like when Forrest Gump when he says that, he's like, I don't remember being born.

I don't remember my first outdoor picnic, but I remember the first time I saw Jen A.

It's like that.

Yeah.

And uh so the the uh the analogy of of new birth is really helpful.

Okay, so Adam receives this uh new birth, which is a purpose.

Identity and purpose are you know basically different perspectives on the same thing.

Uh because when I take my watch and I um try and cut my bagel in half with it, and I'm like, this is this is a horrible watch.

Can't even cut my bagel.

And it's like, no, no, that's not that's not what a watch is.

Right.

You know, so it's uh its identity is nested in its purpose.

Yeah.

His purpose is a worshiper, enjoyer of God, uh, dominion taker.

All those things are just they just adhere in him as just gifts that are received.

And then from who he is flows what he does.

When he lives in agreement with the purpose of who he is, he's fulfilling the identity that he's been given.

Yeah.

Um and so we do have uh different dispositions and callings and circumstances that are received, that we that we just receive.

Uh but uh these are uh uh these find their their purpose when they are tied up to uh what it is that God requires of us as the particular people that He's made us to be.

Yeah.

When it seems like the cultural one of the cultural lies in in this is that if you're telling me that if I need if I need to take my identity from my station, then I'll I'm gonna lose myself as a person.

Um and it you know it creates all these like Christian robots.

Yeah.

Um but that's where we all dress the same and it looks like the wild, wild what was that documentary?

That cult documentary on Netflix?

Wild something?

I don't know.

Wild something.

Wild Things.

Yeah, where the wild things are.

Yeah.

They all dress the same, and it's like here's your orange cloak, and just dance around a fire.

Yeah, that's right.

Yeah.

It's cultish.

It's cultish, yeah.

Yeah.

Well, and that's I mean, you know, I think and that is one of the differences between Christianity and cults, is cults kind of they try to assimilate everybody into the same thing.

Yeah.

Um, whereas and and that's I think that's what our reaction is sometimes in this, is that we believe, okay, if you're telling me I have to act out of my station, I'm gonna lose myself along the way.

Um, but we we tend to find out that that's not true based on what he's saying, is like when we present our members, you know, we're not getting new members whenever we become Christians.

It's the same members that we had before, but it's now our members are serving that purpose and that station to which we're we're now in.

Um which is, yeah, I think that's just interesting to think about.

We're not losing ourselves, but that is what we tend to believe in this in this process.

Yeah, and it is mysterious because how could uh this diversity of people being tied up in unity of purpose to one God, to the one God, doesn't that mean that in their in their finding this unity of purpose that that the distinctiveness among them would disappear and it would more and more disappear?

And it's not the case at all.

Yeah.

It's it's actually precisely the opposite.

Like there's this, you know, it this is one of the unique aspects of Christianity is.

The preservation of the individual's personhood.

You know, when we uh this is not like uh uh Hindu religion where finally we get uh uh when we fulfill when we fulfill our purpose, our dharma, then we dissolve into the like a drop in the ocean.

You know, we we uh uh float off and we get to join up into the infinite sea of samsara as just a it as we dissolve and we're freed from the ego and we're uh uh it dissolved into the this in infinitude.

Yeah.

Um that's not the case.

Uh in what we're brought into is the our that the the truthfulness of who we are is found in our relatedness to God.

And in order for there to be relatedness, which is what a covenantal, which is what covenant implies, it implies relatedness, because there's two parties, uh, then both parties must uh continue to exist.

This is why it's the this is the nature of love, which is love loves the other as the other, and does not try and make the other uh themselves, but it loves them as the other.

Yeah.

So when we're redeemed in our humanity, we do not become non-human uh uh indistinguishable uh uh th things.

We do not dissolve into the whole.

Um, but instead we become uh our true selves, uh united in our purpose to Him.

Yeah.

And so there's a there's a preservation of the diversity within the unity.

Yeah.

It's pretty, it's very Christianity is very unique in that.

Yeah.

Uh in that regard.

But that's because it's based on love.

Um that's a fundamental aspect of love.

The um the last thing I was thinking about touching up on before we we jump into this is it it also seems like there's ways in which we can abuse our station.

Which is the whole reason for this question.

Right.

Of like, or even just understanding our station and what our what our station means.

Right.

Um, just that like are we to continue to sin?

Which means that people were making the the argument that well Look at Paul's religion.

Yeah.

This means that you if you really thought that, then this is just license to sin.

Yeah.

If it's just the righteousness of him g freely given as a gift to to you, and it's uh done as a matter of fact, and it's this a marriage with no threat of divorce, uh then just sin.

Yeah.

It's it's lawlessness.

You know, if I don't have to submit to the law, it's just gonna lead to chaos.

Right.

Um what are what are your thoughts on just in in terms of the way that we abuse it, or are there any patterns or things from culture that we've um learned around just how we view our station as Christians today that maybe we need to unlearn from this this chapter?

I think that there's this what that makes me what that question makes me think of is that the the unity between our uh uh the identity of who we are and the uh the outworking of that in the world, the things that we do, uh is the those things being united, that is like the preservation of the soul.

You think of the way that Jesus talks about it, what why would a main man gain the whole world?

What would it be worth to gain the whole world and then lose your soul?

You're you're not even there anymore to be able to receive this thing that you've gained.

Yeah.

And so what's the what's the point of that sort of trade?

Yeah.

And it that's a way of treating things as though there are uh lateral things, you know, things next to us that are not above us that can grant us true identity.

Sure.

Or there can be an identity granted to us that disagrees with God.

And it in seeking that, you you're actually losing your soul in order to gain something else.

And that's it's uh oh you know, it's like um I don't know what an image of that is.

Midas, I guess, is like an image of that.

It's like if everything's gold, but you can't even, but but you've you you've lost the ability to experience gold as gold.

And experience other things.

And experience other things, then what's the benefit of everything being gold?

Yeah.

Uh he's lost his soul in a sense.

Uh that would be what it what it would be like then for the Christian to receive the wonder of this free gift as license for continuing in sin.

It'd be like, oh, well, why would you lose the the wonder of this thing that you've received?

Or would you rob yourself of the ability to experience and participate in this wonderful thing?

Yeah.

Um by uh fundamentally denying the identity that you've been given in order to receive it.

Uh you become you become a contradiction.

Uh so that that that's really that's what Paul is is uh uh arguing against in this passage.

How it is that our uh the free gift of being in Christ, counted as in Christ, uh is uh not license to sin, but it's freedom from the captivity of sin.

Yeah.

And being assured of your salvation is not yeah, same thing.

Another way of putting it is you can be certain in your salvation, but it doesn't give you the ability to sin however you want.

That's right.

And greater assurance of salvation does not equal greater licentiousness.

Those don't go up and down on the same scales.

Cool.

So that's what he's arguing against.

So yeah, maybe we just hit that first paragraph because that's right where he's jumping in.

Want to go ahead and read that?

Sure.

Chapter six.

Yeah, chapter six.

Uh 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 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.

So you can hear he begins with that very question.

And why does he start with that question?

Well, it's because in Romans chapter 5 he had just described the uh our being in Christ as opposed to being in Adam.

Romans 5 · chapter mention

And this is just a matter-of-fact thing that has happened, that the one man died, and therefore we receive his grace.

Yeah.

So it just it happened, it's done.

And he is taking for granted that the Christian is in that station.

That is, the are we, so the ones who are in Christ, to continue in sin that grace may abound?

By no means.

How can we, the ones who are in Christ, who died to sin, still live in it?

Yeah.

And it's a consideration.

It's like, how could how could the ones who have been freed from this dominion, from the the tyranny of sin, who have literally died to to the nature of sin, that that part of us is dead?

Uh how could we then, to use our modern language, live out of that identity?

It's like it couldn't be done.

You'd you'd uh you'd lose your very soul in that process.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And reading these, I think this this chapter and chapter five, I think one of the things that really stood out to me was what we were we were talking a little bit just before the podcast is the the doctrine of the union with Christ.

Yeah.

And I don't know that I've ever heard anyone really talk about that uh before.

Actually, before, I mean, joining our church and kind of going through the confession, and uh, even in the way that the confession talks about it, it's still um it's not real in depth.

It just kind of mentions it's saying like all saints are in Christ and um we benefit from his death and his resurrection and um all the graces and things that he offers.

Yeah.

Uh, but it seems like this this passage kind of really spells that out for us.

And um and so uh, you know, one of the one of the ways that um in my readings that you can't you kind of look at this and come to this is that that baptized into Christ is basically the Holy Spirit like changing our our status.

Yes.

So taking us legally from being in Adam and connecting us to Christ.

But then there's this like mystical union there of like we are actually a part of Christ's body, right?

And because we're a part of Christ's body, it's tr we can say that it's true that we're dead to sin because Christ actually died.

Right.

Um, and you know, being dead to sin doesn't mean that we're sinless, it means that we're dead to that rule and reign of sin, that the devil's no longer our master, um, we're not in Adam anymore.

Um, and we know that that's true because of what like the the images of death uh that you talked about.

Like when Christ came, he submitted himself under the law, under sin.

Um, but when he died, he was no longer in that same position um to the law or to sin.

And then the resurrection, when he came back to life, proves proves that even further.

To say that his death um um not only did he satisfy the he satisfied the requirements that God had on us, but uh, and that makes sense even just when we think about death in general, like when we die, we no longer have any relationship to this life.

Right.

Or to like any other people in this life, right?

Whether that's your marriage or whatever, like all those relationships fundamentally end just by by the nature of death.

Yes.

Um, and so when you apply that to Christ and seeing that okay, he he humbled himself, he submitted himself in this position for us, um, but his death, it basically did away with his relationship to those things, and because I'm in him, it does the exact same thing for me.

Yes, that's right.

That's right.

I just don't know that I I've I heard have heard it talked about it that way.

Uh, I think uh what I've always um what you always hear is that okay, I Christ is crucified, so we need to crucify ourselves.

Uh-huh.

But what he's saying here is that no, that that already happened.

Like you already you already died in Christ.

You died in Christ.

You you are in him.

What he did is uh is yours.

And that's you know, like last time we were talking in Romans, in Romans chapter five, yeah, it's what Adam did in his sin in the garden, that's your sin.

Yeah.

And it's like, oh, that's kind of stinks.

And we have this whole negative view of imputation, this the nature of federal headship, covenantal headship, the representative nature of that and being downstream of that.

We don't want our identity to be in the hands of somebody else.

We don't want it to be something we receive.

You know, I want it to be mine and I want to be in control of it.

That's it's self-contradictory.

That's it's impossible.

You can't, it's naming yourself.

You can't name yourself.

Yeah.

And there's uh, but but then here on this side, when when he's applying this very same principle to Christ's death on our behalf, paying the penalty of sin, his righteousness granted to us.

Think of the the righteousness with which God sees you as having and treats you as having.

Like Christ's righteousness is uh the you know, like ordinary righteousness is uh you anybody else throughout Scripture, they were righteous and the promise that they would receive was the promise of life for their righteousness.

Christ was righteous unto death on a cross.

The promise that he would receive for his obedience was death in the torments of hell.

And he was that righteous before the Lord.

God bestows on us that righteousness, just the most absolute version of righteousness, righteous to God towards punishment.

Unthinkable.

Yeah.

And that very righteousness is what God grants to us in Christ, because we're in Him, uh who we are, the the station of our souls flows from what He has accomplished for us.

That's the free gift.

And God treats us that way.

When He considers you, He considers you that righteous.

When He considers how He'll treat you, He treats you with that type of righteousness.

What He has stored up for you, the good things that He has stored up for you in the heavenly places, they're uh for someone who is that righteous.

Yeah.

Because they're Christ's co-heirs.

It's just crazy.

Yeah, it's crazy.

And it makes sense of, you know, the the phrase in Christ is like one of the most common phrases in all of Paul's writing.

And it can feel just kind of like a throwaway, like in Christ.

In Christ where things are great in Christ.

Um, but it's a it's a real technical term for Paul.

You know, he really means he really means it, like you're in him.

Uh the things that he has purchased are yours.

What's true of him is true of us.

Yes.

Not in the in the exact same way.

Right.

But that's why, you know, that's why when we die and we believe in the resurrection, we're being raised because we're already in him.

Yes.

And he has been raised.

Yes.

So we'll we'll receive it because he received it and gave it to us.

Why will I be resurrected?

Because Christ paid the penalty for my death, gives to me his righteousness.

Therefore, death has death and sin have no hold on me.

Yeah.

So I'll be resurrected like him.

Yeah.

And in all this, I mean, it to me, this has made the assurance of salvation doctrine um just more clear and make more sense as well, in that the you know, the Bible says the death Christ died, he died once and for all.

Yeah.

Like he's not gonna die again.

He's living and reigning.

And even as Christians, when we when we sin, there can be that temptation to think, oh, I really wasn't a Christian, or um, you you question your salvation in in that sense.

But it's not it's not possible for Christ to die again.

And if you're in Christ, even though you've sinned, you're still you're still in Christ.

Um the difference is that rather than um you know there being a legal obligation to your sin at that moment, uh, where it was before when when we were not under grace, um, it's that we've we've more like we've sinned against love, and so our status stays the same.

Yes.

Um it's a it's a different type of relating than that our that our sin even has once we're in Christ.

Yeah, yeah, it is.

It is really well said.

Yeah, so the image of this, and he's it he's saying this to you, and he's saying, like, don't you know, Christian, if you you were baptized, that means that you're in him and that his death is your death.

So that's that's yours.

This is who you are.

Uh that that's the most fundamental thing about you.

And therefore, like from that, uh uh because we were buried with him, uh, we will be raised with him.

And we can walk now in newness of life.

Yeah.

Because that's who you are now.

Uh like there's uh so it changes your so the method of fighting sin must not be scaring yourself into thinking you're not in Christ, but it must be turning to the cross and then uh seeking to live out of your position in Christ.

Yeah.

Because the scary yourself, it just leads to more bondage.

Like there's not there's not freedom in that.

You're resubmitting yourself, like you're going back to the handcuffs and putting them back on again and um tethering yourself to those things that you you're quote unquote trying to fight.

Yeah, that's right.

But we're freed from those things now.

Yeah.

We're freed from the the punishment.

We're freed from the penalties of the law.

So and then he he emphasizes this.

Uh you'll just hear all the these several ways in which he comes back to this.

Uh you died with him, you died with him, and just drawing out implications from this uh for uh so I'll just continue reading, starting verse five.

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.

Okay, if it's his death, and we're united with him in that, then it's our resurrection.

I've died.

I don't remember seeing you die.

Well, in Christ I died.

Yeah.

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.

Being brought to nothing, dying, is the same thing.

That body of sin, which we were in Adam, has been put to death, it's eliminated, it has no relationship to anything anymore.

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.

See, he's saying, he's teaching us how to think.

Everything that you think about Christ, you now think about you.

We know Christ died once, he's not going to die again.

Yeah.

He can't die again in this resurrected body.

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.

Of course that's the station of Christ.

We're not considering that he'll return and die again, and he'll pay the price of sin again.

Yeah.

It was paid once and for all on the cross.

So then, now that you can in verse eleven.

So it's like na if you consider all these things about Christ and you're in him, so you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.

So I want to hit that must because it's not it I I want to just guard against the way of thinking of this like a like a trick of like a psychological trick.

That's not what the must is.

It's not like you must consider yourself this way.

Um, you know, uh look in the mirror every morning and say, I'm, you know, if you look in the mirror every morning and tell yourself that you're the best, you're the best, you're the best, or something.

Yeah.

Um, then it will manifest.

That's not what the must is.

Yeah.

The must is you must consider yourself this way because it's a matter of fact.

Yeah.

You must consider yourself, yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus because you've been baptized into Christ, and his death has happened.

And the things that are true of Christ are now true of you.

So you must consider yourselves this way.

So your self-conception is primarily grounded, finds its ground, its truth, in your conception of Christ and what he has accomplished in his in the in the gospel.

Yeah.

His death and resurrection.

Yeah.

And what's I think I think one of the other things that I thought was interesting in this chapter was, you know, it says that we know that the old self was crucified with him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing.

Uh in my reading there, that that our old self, um, you know, Martin Lloyd Jones talks about that as not being like our sinful nature or um that type of thing, because we we know that we still have sin indwelling in the body.

He talks about that being kind of like the status of who we were in Adam.

It's like that part of us is dead, and now our status is who we are in Christ.

And the reason, uh, one of the reasons that that happened is that the body of sin might be brought to nothing.

And he talks about that body of sin actually being our physical bodies.

Because that's one of it's like the last vestige in which kind of like sin rules and reigns.

Uh-huh.

And why Paul can say, the things that I do, I do not do, um, or the things I want to do, I don't, I don't do.

Um, but it's the sin that's in me.

Uh, because what's true of us spiritually is that we're in Christ and that we have died to sin and we have died to the rule and reign of sin.

Um, but like the body, because we still die in this life, it's like the one place that sin tries to gain mastery over of.

Especially like as a non-Christian, it you can see that it has that mastery.

But as Christians, now it's our job to say, you know, sin can't can't even control my body.

Um, which is why then he he goes on to say you you need to consider yourself dead so that you don't let it rain in your mortal body to obey its passions.

And um, you know, I I I thought that was interesting, and I think I've even seen that um recently with myself, and so I've been trying to do some fasting and um even just some basic intermittent fasting.

Uh and what I notice is that the days where I fight to to do to like follow the fast through, um I'm better at at like fighting thoughts or um grumblings and complainings that maybe I have, but the days when I don't stick with it, it makes everything else harder.

Yeah.

And what's interesting with that to me is like it that's my physical body.

Yes, like there's an element in which like um just the food that I eat and and the practice of disciplines I have around that affects my spiritual life.

Um, and so I I just thought that was it because those passages before never really made sense to me.

It's like the things I do, so it's the sin that's in me, and like I'm not really doing that.

But this seemed to make it really to help kind of bring that light bulb on for me of just understanding how sin rules and reigns and why we're supposed to beat our body and discipline ourselves, um and so that we can present those things, those things to God.

Right.

We have to um uh we're we must war against these passions.

And the type of freedom that we gain is the ability to not get what we want.

And many of us don't have that ability to not get what we want.

Um well, none of us have that ability it completely.

Yeah.

Uh because it's something to it's something to war against.

Yeah.

But yeah, like it, like uh a fast ism is a mechanism for making war against the flesh.

Yeah.

And it makes so salient this.

When we I know you and I were were talking about fasting, and uh you had said something that was really helpful for me, which was you know, we have these sort of battles with sin.

Um and it can be hard to participate with them.

Uh but uh uh a fast is a way of like putting to death this passion in us, this desire in us, and it makes that war present and tangible in a helpful way, yeah.

So that we like train our uh ourselves to be able to deny ourselves, to deny the these passions, which otherwise just toss us around.

Yeah.

Um and so it does make sense that I guess we should probably just go and finish out this section and verse 12 let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body to make you obey its passions.

It it sounds it's it does sound like this airy language, but it's actually just like so practical.

Like do you like you know what it's like to just be tossed around by your passions?

You know, I mean uh and by just like your body sort of warring against you.

We were we just got back from a road trip yesterday, so it was hours in the car with the kids and multiple days in a row, and uh you are just reach these times where it's like, oh man, I'm angry.

Like I'm in a I and we're all in a car together.

So like my my moods, everyone's moods are just like these, you know, yeah tentacles reaching out and slapping each other in the face.

And um uh and it was you know, I was like hungry or needed coffee or whatever, but it's not a um the truth is like this is my passions warring in me.

Yeah.

Uh to, and if I just listen to them, like I'll just sin against my family.

Yeah.

And I'll be impatient with my children, or I'll uh require a satisfaction that's just not reasonable of like quiet in the car, or of you know, whatever, not missing a turn.

Um so it's a it this is uh don't think of this as some flighty thing.

Like it's just very present.

Yeah.

This is what it's like out here, like this is very much just what it's like to be human.

Yeah.

Well, and I I think in a lot of this, I don't know, we we or I maybe just like I just never thought about it this way before.

Um in that sense, like some of the things I think that you deal with, you're just like, oh, these are things that are kind of happening to me.

I don't have any control over these, or um, there's nothing I can do about about this.

Um you know, Martin Lloyd Jones said something around like we need to we need to think about ourselves in parts and portions, not just like as a whole.

Um, and I think maybe that's how I I'd been thinking about things isn't just like, okay, me as a whole, like I'm a Christian, but like all these other, like these parts of myself, it's just part of sin, like the fall, like there's there's not much we can do about it.

But where Paul is saying is knowing like you're responsible for every single member.

You gotta you gotta think about yourselves in parts and portions.

Um the the other interesting thing that um he does here is he says, do not present your members to sin.

Um, but then when he talks about God, he says, present yourselves to God, and then he also says, and your members.

So when we were thinking about our relationship to sin, it's like we're not presenting ourselves because of what's true about us.

Um we're our status is now in Christ, and that's not going to change.

So then what's left for us is our is the members.

Right.

Um, and and what we and and I think well often we I think in just Christian culture we do this is like, oh, I'm I'm Christian, and then the way that we live or what we do doesn't really flow out of that, but he's saying both of those things, like you're presenting to God yourself and your status, but then also your your members as as instruments um for for righteousness.

And apparently that word instruments could be translated like weapons, it could be translated, I don't know, just different things, but it's I guess it's just this idea of um like we're either using our body parts, not our our body parts, our our thoughts, our imaginations, things that we're either using that to serve God, or we're we're still there, we're still allowing them to serve um the enemy in a way which like he starts to talk about with as it relates to being slaves.

Um and we we can see this when we look at history, uh the emancipation of the slaves.

It was declared that they were free, but what played out in all reactionality uh in the South was not everyone knew they were free.

And so people were still living as slaves, or in some instances they returned back to the old way of life because the new way of life was foreign to them and they didn't understand how to relate to it or to be a part of it.

Yep.

It seems like it's that kind of thing that's that's going on here is we've been translated out of the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of God's son, and now we've got to figure out what we do with this body that we've been left with while we wait for it to be glorified.

Yeah, yeah, that's really good and really helpful.

You know, the the way that a lot of you know, we've we both became obsessed with that Evagras of Pontus' book.

We did the podcast on it earlier, but the way that he uh describes uh uh the war in our flesh as like the conquest of Canaan and how it's not all it's not all driven out at the same time, but there are these parts, there's like these different nations in the land of Canaan that need to be driven out with these different battles, yeah um one at a time.

And it's sort of like, yeah, like I've developed this patience with my wife.

Man, it's really hard for me to tithe.

Like, like dividing, multiplying by point one and then push and send, it's like I can't bring myself to do it.

There's this whole future at stake that I I feel like I I'm laying down, or I can um, man, I'm I'm being you know faithful at work, uh, but gosh, when I get home this certain times of day, and it's like I just get on my phone and I'm you know looking up things I shouldn't be, or or I'm giving my attention to things I shouldn't be giving them to.

They and it's like okay, there's these are like different members that's very helpful um uh that can be addressed as such.

And it's like, okay, I'm not going to present that attention to that thing.

Yeah.

Um, even though it desires this attention in this particular circumstance.

Yeah.

It's like you don't get to have it.

Yeah.

And he had this really great quote on this that I wrote down.

Um maybe I'll just read.

It says, When you fall into sin, the real trouble is not so much the particular thing you have done or the badness of the thing.

That is important, I agree, but there is something much worse.

It is that you, for whom Christ died, have allowed sin to use a faculty that is in you.

And we must not fraternize with the enemy.

Sin shall not have dominion over you.

It is.

It's like that conquest of Canaan metaphor, it's like handing over to the Hittites.

Yeah.

You know, like you can have this part.

It's like, no, man, take the land.

Take the land.

Yeah.

Why settle for why settle for less than you've been given just because it's easier?

Yeah, and to consider Satan and sin having dominion over parts of ourselves that have been purchased by Christ.

Yeah.

The doctor does it again.

Um do not present your members to sin as instruments for unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life, and your members to God as instruments for righteousness.

For sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law, but under grace.

Just like the promise I will drive out all the nations, sin will have no dominion over you.

So you can stand against it.

Deny your passions.

Yeah.

You can deny your passions.

All right, next section.

Uh starting in verse 15, you want to read?

Sure.

What then are we to sin because we are not under the law but under grace?

By no means do you not know that if you present yourselves to anyone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin which leads to death, or of obedience which leads to righteousness.

But thanks be to God that you who were once slaves of sin have become obedient from the heart, to the standard of teaching to which you were committed, and having been set free from sin, have become slaves of righteousness.

I am speaking in human terms, because of your natural limitations.

For just as you once presented your members of slaves to impurity and to lawlessness leading to more lawlessness, so present your members as slaves to righteousness leading to sanctification.

Yeah, so he's he's uh coming then to a question of a s slightly different form, but it's are we to sin because we are not under law but under grace?

If the curse of the law has been removed, then is this just license to sin because our station can't be threatened?

But classically, Paul by no means.

Um then this language of obedience and slavery.

Yeah.

Well, it's kind of like if you if it if the doctrine of the union of Christ is hard for you to understand and to understand the things that were true of him are true of you, and that analogy, it's as if he's giving us another analogy that's maybe a little bit more clear, because he says I'm speaking in human terms.

In human terms.

Yeah.

It's not of course the slavery analogy is not perfect.

Yeah.

But it's you can kind of get this.

Yeah.

And as a slave, like if you're a slave to sin and Satan, that's all you're you're gonna serve that.

Right.

And oh identity, you know, like we talked about, it comes down from above and it's given to you.

So if your master, which is where which is what tells you who you are, is sin and Satan, then that is what you will serve, and that will make you a slave to your passions and to the lusts of the flesh, and to the desires of the eyes, and boastful pride of life.

Yeah, uh, you'll be enslaved to those, unable to rebel against them.

They will master you.

Uh, that is that is the nature of it.

But if you've been set free from that, you know, like the Israelites in on the other side of the Red Sea, they've been set free from Pharaoh, and they no longer have to live under his control.

And then they go through this process of putting to death, being refined in the wilderness.

Um but ultimately towards presenting your members as slaves to righteousness, which leads to sanctification.

So uh part of our hope in this is uh is this process of sanctification, which is justification is an act of God once which takes place once for all time for the person.

Sanctification is a process of the infusion of the grace of Christ into our hearts, so that we more and more can put to death sin and be more and more made alive in Christ.

And we have this confidence that in presenting our members to righteousness, we will be sanctified.

More ground will be taken, more will be set apart to God, even in our own souls, and more of our members will be uh uh find alignment with the head, uh, our head.

Yeah, our head is Christ.

And then that's the that's becoming coherent, that's integrity in us.

Yeah.

Well, and it and it's interesting too that it seems like the the methodology of of sanctification is it's like realize your standing, like realize who you are, yep, and act in accordance with who you are.

Yep.

Um it's it's not you know, go have a quiet time, spend you know, a bunch of time doing self-reflection and um all you know, family of origin, all these things, which just and then discern who you are, that yeah.

Which something is then present that to the Lord.

Right.

As whatever.

Yeah, you know.

And those things could be helpful, but yeah, but first and foremost he says, no, just understand you've you've been bought with a price, you're now in Christ, and so act like you're in Christ.

Right.

So it it's like it begins with submission because it's something that you receive uh from above.

And so it it's like your sanctification is is not something you can boast in either, because it's a gift as well.

There we're never put in the position where we can boast before the Lord.

Uh we uh you've been given your station, and when you act in accord with that station, it's not it's nothing that can be boasted in.

Uh and that's to the praise of his glory, to the praise of his honor, which is when we're praising him for his glory, that's fulfilling our highest calling.

Yeah.

I I think what's also cool about this passage is that um just as he's basically saying that your position doesn't give you license to sin, he's also kind of refuting uh legalism and um belief in justification by works, but basically saying that our obedience leads to li righteousness, but then righteousness leads to life.

So he's not saying our obedience leads to life, he's saying it it leads to righteousness.

Um and the only way, I mean the only way we can do all that is is through faith.

Um but yeah, it's it's if he would have said it would have led to righteousness, basically he would have been teaching that obedience leads to life.

Um and so it's this is he's really kind of hammering home.

Um not yeah, this isn't you don't have license to sin, it's still justification by faith, um, and your faith is gonna produce obedience.

Yeah.

In the same way that um sin, the reign and rule of sin delivers certain results, like death, the reign and rule of grace is gonna deliver certain results like obedience.

For when you were slaves of sin, you were free in regard to righteousness.

But what fruit were you getting at that time from the things of which you are now ashamed?

Did we already read this?

No, no, no, yeah.

We haven't.

For the end of those things is death.

But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God, the fruit you get leads to sanctification and its end eternal life.

For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

You know, I I want to talk a bit about just this idea of being under a different dominion and a different reign.

And though a lot of times like folks will say, like Paul doesn't, Jesus is all about the gospel of the kingdom, Paul's about justification.

What is the are these are they even speaking the same language?

And they're speaking precisely the same language.

Because it's what Paul is talking about here is we're in an under a new dominion.

And the new dominion is the kingdom of God, it's the kingdom of heaven.

And he's relaying how we could be a part of that kingdom.

And we're we're granted status in that kingdom, citizenship, by Christ's death and resurrection, which frees us from the tyranny of sin and Satan and places us into the kingdom of his beloved son.

And I love in this section how he just he's he's laying out the fruit, saying, so consider when you were slaves to sin, what fruit did you get of those things that you look back on and you're now ashamed?

Ultimately it just leads to death.

Like sin always leads to suffering and death.

That is the effect of sin.

And so you're under a dominion of a kingdom that always leads to suffering and death.

So that's the wages, that's the result, that's the fruit of sin in our lives.

But the free gift, how different from wages is a free gift?

What's earned versus what's given for free in Christ?

The free gift of God.

What fruit will it bear?

It's eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

This is what He's accomplished for us as a free gift given to us.

And realizing, oh, you must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.

You must because Christ died.

And you're in Christ.

And you're in Christ.

Yeah.

All right, it's probably a good place to wrap it up for Romans chapter six.

Thanks everybody for listening in.

Uh, this is a great chapter, super fun to look over, super encouraging, and we'll see you next week.

Goodbye.