Series on Romans
VIII The Gospel and Identification
A Reckoning our Situation
Text: 6:1-11
Introduction
We know what God reckons. He reckons us righteous in His sight because of the work of Christ and through our faith in Christ, The question raised here in our text is, what do we reckon? Verse 11 commands us, In the same way, count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus. The preceding ten verses are an explanation leading up to this imperative. God reckons or counts us as righteous in Christ, but we are to reckon or count ourselves dead to sin and alive to God. This is Paul’s goal in this portion of Romans. Paul catches our full attention with the pronouncement of an absurdity in verse 1, What shall we say, then? Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase? To go on sinning is to despise and trample under our feet the kindness of our great God and Savior. It is an abhorrent thought. The root meaning of salvation is to be made whole and that means holy and free from not only the guilt and penalty of sin, but from its presence. Forgiving sinners without reforming sinners is a plan of complete frustration that leads to disaster. Common sense teaches us that continually forgiving children for their disobedience but doing nothing to change their attitude can only lead to grief and disaster. So let us consider first the delusion about grace, and then the downthrow and the distribution of grace.
I The Delusion
The delusion about grace that has produced absurd and shameful results is a heresy that has plagued the church for centuries. It is called anti-nomianism by theologians meaning, “against the law.” Dietrich Bonhoeffer called it “cheap grace” in his book, “The Cost of Discipleship.” This cheap grace has flooded our churches and results in preaching a gospel of easy-believism where people are invited to enjoy the benefits of salvation without the commitment. The missionary hero C.T.Studd called such people chocolate soldiers that melt in the heat of battle. Jesus made very clear in Mark 8:34-38, that absolutely anyone who followed him had to deny himself, take up Jesus’ cross, lose his life, and forfeit the world. The continued preaching of this false gospel that you can be justified without being sanctified, forgiven without any obligation to forgive, freed of guilt but not freed of sin, and a friend of Jesus only for what you can get out of it, is a disgrace. This is especially true in that the Apostle condemns it here in the strongest possible terms in verse 2, By no means! We died to sin; how can we live in it any longer? The words translated “by no means” in the New International Version are actually an oath, “may it not be,” and are frequently translated “God forbid.”In our present culture with its philosophy of pleasing men, it is clear that neither the preaching nor the worship of the church is what pleases God. We would rather grow the church by pleasing men than chance reducing it by pleasing God.
II The Downthrow
And now the Apostle reiterates his previous teaching showing us that our salvation depends solely upon the saving acts of Jesus in His life, death, and resurrection. It is important that we understand this because if we do not, then we will not make the appropriate response and truly follow Christ. So Paul writes in verses 3-5, Or don’t you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life. If we have been united with him like this in his death, we will certainly also be united with him in his resurrection. As we have learned in Romans, union with Christ is the well spring of every part of our salvation. We are given the righteousness of God in Christ as a free gift through faith because we are joined to Christ through faith. Christ has thrown down all the forces that opposed our salvation. He has appeased the wrath of God the Father toward us, He has paid the penalty of the law for our sin, and he has obtained our eternal salvation by removing the guilt and penalty from us. We have been forensically, and judicially declared righteous in God’s sight. Now Paul has prepared the way for us to understand that justification can never stand alone. As the Westminster Confession reminds is in Chapter 11, paragraph 2, “Faith, thus receiving and resting on Christ and His righteousness, is the alone instrument of justification:a yet is it not alone in the person justified, but is ever accompanied with all other saving graces, and is no dead faith, but worketh by love.” Union with Christ is inseparable from justification and as Paul goes on to point out, from sanctification, or grace, in the life of the forgiven.
III The Distribution
Thus true union with Christ produces not only changed futures, but changed lives here and now. Paul’s exhortation is in verses 6-10, For we know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin—because anyone who has died has been freed from sin. Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. For we know that since Christ was raised from the dead, he cannot die again; death no longer has mastery over him. The death he died, he died to sin once for all; but the life he lives, he lives to God. Here the far off events of Golgotha and the empty tomb are drawn forward into the lives of believers. There is an old spiritual that asks the question, “Were you there when they crucified my Lord?, and Were you there when God raised him from the tomb?” The answer is an unequivocal yes, if you are a true follower of Jesus. Paul has made clear in these and preceding verses that when Jesus died, we died, and when Jesus was buried we were buried and when Jesus arose, we arose. We must not miss the finer point that Paul puts on this in verse 9. The crux of his argument is that when we were identified with Christ in his death, burial and resurrection we were identified with Him in a once for all event. As we read in Hebrews 10:11-14 Jesus’ sacrifice was unlike the many sacrifices of the Old Testament, Day after day every priest stands and performs his religious duties; again and again he offers the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins. But when this priest had offered for all time one sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God. Since that time he waits for his enemies to be made his footstool, because by one sacrifice he has made perfect forever those who are being made holy. When we died in Christ we died to sin once for all. It is not repeatable. Consequently, the Apostle exhorts us to, “count ourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus.” We are believing something that has happened in the past as a reality in our lives. We are dead to sin in the sense that we are no longer slaves to it. We have been set free. If we truly believe this then we will live lives that are more pleasing to God.
Conclusion
I would like to remind us in conclusion that the Christian life is admission free. Though it cost Christ everything, it costs you nothing, but the annual subscription is everything. Take up the cross. This is possible because we have died to sin, but it is not easy. It takes the power of God to roll the stone away so that new life can emerge. Also, as long as we are here below in this sinful broken world surrounded by temptation and sin, it will be a battle for us. Jesus had to die and we must die to the world spiritually and that can only happen if we do what Jesus said. We must lose our lives for His sake so that we can find them.
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