You know, when you go through
the book of Romans, as we've done many times, but it never
gets old. To me, you know, I'll go through
and I'll read passages that I know by memory, and I still get chills
when I read it because it's so full of just the fundamental
pillars of the faith. The exact descriptions of gospel
truth. But you'll go through here and
you'll read passages and you'll read phrases that you realize
that, you know, if we don't really understand what this means, we
can't understand really anything essential in the Bible, especially
the gospel. And if you look at verse seven,
it says here, it says, he that is dead is freed from sin. And the title of this lesson
is freed from sin. Well, if you don't know what
it means to be really freed from sin, how are you gonna know anything
about the scriptures? Back over in verse two, he says,
how shall we that are dead to sin? Well, what does it mean
that I'm dead to sin? And then there in that verse
seven, he that is dead, what does it mean? Is he talking about
those who die physically are free from sin? In that sense,
well, according to the Bible, there are some who die who are
not freed from sin. Because sin is still charged
to them. And they'll suffer the consequences
of sin. So they're not free from sin,
but they're dead physically. But what does he mean? If we
don't understand, and the thing about it is, you know, it's like,
you know how some people approach the Bible, or they call this
Bible study. They'll get together in a group,
and they'll read a passage of scripture, and they'll look up
and they'll say, now what does that mean to you? And what do
you get? Well, you get everybody's opinion.
And you go nowhere. That's not Bible study. How does
this apply to your life? And somebody says, well, it means
this to me, and somebody else says, well, it means this. That's
not Bible study. That's just human talk, sinful
talk, if you will. What I want to know is what the
Holy Spirit intends when he inspired the Apostle Paul to write these
words. What does it mean to be freed from sin? We're gonna begin
at verse six now, but look back at verse three, because this
is the context. We'll just read through these verses that we've
already studied. But look at verse three, he says,
know you not that so many of us as we're baptized into Jesus
Christ, remember last week I talked about how that's our legal union
with Christ in his death, burial, and resurrection. That's not
believer's baptism. And so we're placed into Christ
before the foundation of the world, placed into Christ at
the cross in redemption. And we are placed into Christ
in the new birth as we put him on, we believe in him. But this
is talking about our legal union with Christ in his death, burial,
and resurrection. He's our representative, our
surety, our substitute, our redeemer. And he says you were baptized
into his death so that when he died, I died. When he was buried,
I was buried. When he arose again, I arose
again, not personally, but in him, as he stood as my surety
and my substitute. So that tips you off is what
he means by dead to sin. How am I dead to sin? Well, the
punishment that sin brings has been fully satisfied in the death
of Christ in my place. That's how I'm dead to sin. I'm
not dead to sin's influence. It still influences me greatly.
How about you? I'm not dead to sin's contamination. You'll hear people talk about
something in them that's uncontaminated. That's not present in a believer,
in a human being. Even as born-again people, we
still have problems with sin every day. We're in a warfare. The flesh still plagues, influences,
contaminates everything we think, everything we say, and everything
we do. Is that not right? So dead to
sin doesn't mean that I'm no longer a sinner or that I have
some uncontaminated nature in me. Doesn't mean that at all. When God the Holy Spirit gives
us spiritual life and a new heart, We do, emanated from that is
godliness, but it's not perfection because perfection can only be
found in the perfection of Christ. Righteousness, which is the perfect
satisfaction to justice and law, that can only be found in the
person and work of Christ. It cannot be found in you. And
the more you look for it, I pray you don't find it. I know you're
not looking for it. But I pray you don't find it
because if you do, I'll tell you what you've got there. You
got a Pharisee. You got a self-righteous Pharisee. And so he says in verse
four, therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death.
You see, this is legal union with Christ. Now why does Paul
start with this legal union? Well, he's explaining the whole
basis and foundation and ground of our whole salvation. which
is the motivation that God lays in the hearts of his people so
that we can fight sin and seek to follow Christ in a godly way. This is the foundation. And so
he says that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the
glory of the Father, even so we should also walk in newness
of life. And that newness of life is the
realization of what Christ has done for us and what we are in
him. And so he says, for if we've been planted together, verse
five, in the likeness of his death, planted together, that's
a key. See, people let those words just go by as they read
them. How in the world could we say that we were planted together? It tells you he's not talking
about the ordinance of baptism, because we all were not baptized
together in the ordinance, but we were planted together. And
when was that? Ephesians 2 speaks of this, how we together, that
is all of God's chosen people who were given to Christ before
the foundation of the world, all were together as represented
in him as our legal surety, substitute, and redeemer. And so we were
planted together in the likeness of his death, we shall be also
in the likeness of his resurrection. We arose with him legally, and
then when he gives life, we're raised again in the new birth,
spiritually, and then we'll be raised again in glory, in the
end. So look at verse six, now, knowing
this, knowing of our Legal union with Christ. And listen, don't
get bogged down with these people who say, well, if it's legal,
then it's not real. No, no, the law is real. Righteousness
is real. And somebody, they'll come along
and they'll say, well, you're saying it's only a legal matter.
No, it's not only a legal matter. It's also a spiritual matter,
but it's based on a legal matter. And so this is not the whole
thing. Paul's laying the foundation
now. He's laying the ground. This is the ground of salvation.
This is the ground of our justification. And so knowing this, and we only
know it by the Spirit of God, know it savingly, that our old
man is crucified with him, that the body of sin might be destroyed,
that henceforth, from that time forward, we should not serve
sin. Now the old man, here it comes. What is the old man? What is he talking about? Somebody
says, well, that's what I used to be. It's not what I am now.
Well, here's what you gotta think. A lot of people, they take this,
I'll never forget this one time. You've heard of these arguments
that people have. Does a believer have two natures? I've had to deal with that. I
had people leave the church in Ashland over it. because they
were so adamant that a believer has two natures. And one of the
men up there called it the old man and the new man. Well, the
Bible uses the term old man and new man. Here's the old man right
here. And what they would say is something
like this, that the old man is the old sinful nature. I'm a
born again person, I'm a believer, but I still have the old man
inside me, and I have a new man inside me. Now, to be honest
with you, that kind of language is confusing, but it's not necessarily
heresy unless you take it too far. I don't believe that's what
the old man is here. I'm going to show you what it
is in a minute. But you need to be aware of this, because
if you read a lot of the old literature of the old divines,
as they say, this is the way they look at it. And you'll confront
that. I have an old nature, and here's
where they go wrong. They'll say, well, I have the
old nature or the old man who does nothing but sin. And then
here's where the heresy comes in. They'll say, I have a new
nature that does nothing but good. So they talk as if, well,
we've got two people inside of us acting independently of us.
In other words, they occupy the same apartment. but they're always
at odds. And when I sin, that means the
old man has overcome the new man, and when I do righteousness,
the new man has overcome. Well, see, that's not biblical.
Now, we, the Bible uses the term flesh, all right? Sometimes the
term flesh just simply refers to the physical body, this physical
body. Now there's nothing inherently
sinful about your physical body. In fact, to prove that, who else
had a physical body? The Lord Jesus Christ. He was
made of the flesh, made of the seed of David according to the
flesh. So he had the flesh. But the reason the flesh many
times in the Bible is used as a metaphor for sin is because
of what we call sinful human nature. We fell in Adam, back
in Romans 5. We fell into sin and death. We've
all sinned and come short of the glory of God. We're sinners.
And the reason he talks about flesh being sinful is that our
sinful nature, you can say, human nature, which is our sinful thoughts,
it's our sinful Motives, goals, sinful ideas. Those sinful things express themselves
through our physical bodies. What I see, what I hear, what
I say. That's how sin expresses itself
through the physical body. And we do have sinful human nature. And when we're born again, we're
given a new heart, a new mind, new life, all of that. And if
somebody wants to call that a new nature, that doesn't bother me.
But to speak of those things as if they act independently
of me is not biblical. In other words, when I sin, it's
not some old man inside of me doing the sinning, it's me. Blame
me. And somebody mentions Romans
7, Paul said, it's not I that do it, but sin. I'm gonna deal
with that when we get to Romans 7, but Paul's not passing the
buck. He's not saying, well, I didn't do that, but my old
sin nature did it. No, he's not saying that. He's
just tracing it to its source. Well, the old man, what is it?
Well, first of all, knowing this, look at verse six, knowing this,
that our old man is crucified. Whatever he's talking about here
in the old man is dead. 100% totally dead. He's not talking
about some nature or principle that is dying or in the process
of dying. The tense of the verb is crucified,
it's a past act, it's a done deal, it's finished. When Christ
was crucified, the old man was crucified, he's dead. So he's
not talking about something that is progressively dying. You know,
I've heard people say, well, the old man's still with us,
but he's dying. Well, first of all, if the old
man was still with you, what makes you think he's dying? Well,
I stopped drinking, and I stopped smoking, and I stopped, well,
you're not speaking biblically, because that has nothing to do
with the old man. The old man's crucified. And that shows that
whatever he is, he's dead, he was crucified with Christ. Did
Christ die on the cross? Or did he just swoon and faint? No, he died, didn't he? He died
under the penalty of sin that was imputed to him. And when
he died, the old man died. Now what is this old man? Well,
first of all, understand again, what's Paul talking about? He's
talking about our justification. Down there in verse seven, he
that is dead is freed. Now that word freed is the Greek
word justified. The same word that's translated
righteous, justified. And so what he's talking about
is our legal liberty in Christ. So what is this old man who's
dead? Well, the old man, and here's the way I would put it
is this, and this is a legal context. Sometimes the old man's
used in a moral context, but that's saying something different.
The old man is our connection with Adam in sin and death that
would condemn us to death were it not for our death in Christ.
In other words, whatever happened to me when Adam fell. And whatever I've done as a spiritually
dead sinner in sin and rebellion and depravity, it cannot condemn
me because Christ took it to the cross and died. It's dead. That's what he's talking about,
the old man. My connection with Adam in sin
and death is dead. Now how do you know that? Well,
look back at verse six. He said, the old man is crucified
with him, that the body of sin, now what is the body of sin?
That's everything that sin involves as it applies to me or you as
one of Christ's people. Well, what is the body of sin?
Well, I fell in Adam, didn't I? Didn't you? Romans chapter
five. It's part of the body of sin.
I fell in Adam, fell into sin and death. And I was born spiritually
dead, born dead in trespasses and sins. That's part of the
body of sin. And then I've sinned every day
of my life. Have you? I'm not dead to sin
that way. I've sinned every day of my life.
We're all sinners. Even as justified persons, even
as regenerated, we're all sinners. That's part of the body of sin.
I'm physically dying. I'm in the process of dying.
The old man's not dying, he's dead. But I'm in the process
physically of dying. I'm getting older. We know about
physical death. That's part of the body of sin.
But here's what he's saying when he says the old man is dead.
All that body of sin that is part of the connection that I
have had with Adam in sin and death, it's all gone. It cannot
condemn me. That's what he means, it's all
gone. It cannot be charged to my account. My sin, the whole
body of my sin, was imputed to Christ. And his righteousness
is imputed to me. And that's the new man. The new
man is what I am in Christ. The old man is what I was in
Adam. You see, if it weren't for Christ
being my surety before the foundation of the world, where would I be?
I'd be condemned. But Christ was set up to be my
surety. He came in time and he suffered
and bled and died. And when he died, I died with
him. There's nothing in the body of sin that can condemn me. There is therefore now no condemnation
in Christ. And that's the only thing it
can mean in this legal. Now he says the purpose of all
that, verse six, and remember it starts off, verse six, knowing
this. Now by nature we don't know this.
This is something we don't know. By nature we're ignorant of this.
We're just like self-righteous unbelieving Jews. By nature we're
ignorant of God's righteousness going about to establish a righteousness
of our own. We're ignorant of the righteousness
of God. were ignorant of this great transaction that took place
in Christ, that was purposed in Christ before the foundation
of the world, and settled at the cross. Redemption paid at
the cross. But now knowing this, all right,
that our old man is crucified, that we cannot be condemned,
that the whole body of sin, listen to what he says, that the body
of sin might be what? Look at the word there, destroyed. Does that sound like something
that is still inside of me that is in the process of dying or
in the process of being destroyed? No, it's past tense. It's destroyed.
Christ put our sins away. Christ purged them away. We're
gonna see in the next message. Christ took care of it. He took
them away. Did you hear what Jesus said to me? My sins are
taken away. The blood of Jesus Christ cleanses
us from all sin. I'm still a sinner, but what
am I dead to? How is the old man dead? Cannot
be condemned. We're justified. So he says in
verse seven, he that is dead is freed, justified from sin.
That means he's not guilty. It means he's forgiven. It means
he has a righteousness that answers the demands of God's law and
justice. Now all of this at the end of verse six, he says that
henceforth we should not serve sin. So with this knowledge,
having become a part of us, it's not that we should be slaves
to sin and serve sin and promote sin, it's that we not serve sin. Now the serving sin here can
refer and describe the most religious people on earth who are ignorant
of or not submitted to Christ as their righteousness. When
Cain approached God, seeking acceptance and blessing, he thought
he was serving righteousness, but he wasn't. He was serving
sin. So this thing about that we should not serve sin, does
that mean, well, then we stop being sinners? No. Because if
it does, we are all lost. Isn't that right? We serve Christ. We look to him. We rest in him. We believe in him for all righteousness. He settled the matter and so
we serve him. So verse seven again, for he
that is dead, he that is dead to sin, as he mentioned back
up in verse two. How is he dead to sin? He's freed,
he's justified. This is the liberty of justification. justified by his righteousness
imputed. Now look at verse eight. He says,
now if we be dead with Christ, now see they keep keeping the
thought right here. This is the foundation. We believe
that we shall also live with him. Now Paul's beginning to
make a transition here. And here's what he's basically
saying. Salvation involves what you might say two freedoms. First
of all, if you look on the back of your lesson at the top there,
number one is our justification legally before God based on Christ's
work for us as our surety, substitute, and redeemer. He set us free
from the penalty of sin. We're free from condemnation.
He that is dead is freed from sin. Sin cannot be charged. Who
shall lay anything to the charge of God's elect? It's God that
justified. Who can condemn us? It's Christ
that died. So that's our legal freedom that
comes by virtue of completely and totally what Christ did for
us. But there is a second freedom. It's called liberation. And that's
number two there. Our sanctification spiritually
by God in Christ through the operation of the Holy Spirit.
And what he does, he brings us under the preaching of the gospel. And he gives us life, ears to
hear, eyes to see, and brings us to Christ. And we're liberated,
not in the sense that now we're free from sinning at all. We're
liberated in now we are not under the deception and the darkness
of unbelief and self-righteousness. We see Christ. We look unto Jesus,
the author and finisher of our faith. That's a spiritual liberation.
That's sanctification. Now that is, Paul's making the
transition here to show that our spiritual liberation in sanctification
by the Spirit is based upon our legal freedom, our legal justification
in Christ. Christ's righteousness imputed
is the ground of our salvation. The Holy Spirit's work in the
new birth is the fruit of our salvation. Christ's righteousness
imputed is the ground of our salvation, and his righteousness
imputed is the source and power of spiritual life. And that's
where he's making this transition. He says, we believe that we shall
also live with him. And that's really, look over
at verse 17. We'll be getting to this later
on. Now, compare it with verse seven. In verse seven he said,
he that is dead is freed from sin. Justified, legal. Righteousness
imputed. Sin imputed to Christ, righteousness
imputed to us. Verse 17, but God bethanked that
you were the servants of sin, but you have obeyed from the
heart that form of doctrine which was delivered you. That's being
brought under the gospel and being brought to faith. Verse
18, being then made free from sin. Now the word free there
is a different Greek word. It means liberation. And you
became servants of righteousness. You look to Christ. You're submitted
to his righteousness as the only ground of salvation. So one's
the ground, one's the fruit. But, one of the things about
it, look at verse eight again, we'll conclude this. He says,
now if we be dead with Christ, if we're justified, if the old
man was crucified with Christ, and we cannot be condemned, then
we believe that we shall also live with him. You know what
that verse is saying? It's saying that everyone for whom Christ
died was buried and arose again, will be saved, shall be saved. If he died for you, one thing
I can guarantee you, you're gonna live with him. There's no such
doctrine in the Bible taught as anything of universal redemption. that Christ came to die for everybody
upon condition that they cooperate or exercise their free will to
believe in him to seal the deal. No, he says, if we're dead with
Christ, now how are we dead with Christ? He's my representative,
he's my substitute, he's my surety. When he died, I died. That's
how we're dead with Christ, all right? In other words, if he
died for me, if he was buried for me, if he arose again for
me, what does that guarantee? Well, righteousness has been
established, and where righteousness is imputed, there must be life
given. So if he died for me and arose
again for me, I'm gonna live with him. That's what the Bible
teaches. And all these passages of scripture
that people turn to to try to prove the heresy of universal
redemption need to be interpreted in the context of these verses. There'll be no one perish in
their sins if Christ died for them because if Christ died for
you, what does that mean? It means the old man's crucified.
That the body of sin might be what? Destroyed. That henceforth
we should not serve sin, we believe that we shall also live with
him. So just as sin demands death,
righteousness demands life. We're nothing but sin, but in
Christ we have righteousness, and that's where grace comes
in. Grace reigns through righteousness unto eternal life by Jesus Christ
our Lord. All right.