If you want to turn in your Bibles
to the book of Romans, the book of Romans chapter 6. I think
this is one of the more difficult texts of scripture in the book
of Romans because it has to do with our sin and our own sinfulness. And that's always a difficult
subject, isn't it? So I want to bring a message
today from the first two verses of Romans chapter six, and I've
entitled this message, Dead to Sin. Dead to Sin, because that's
the word, that's the way that God describes it, dead to sin. So let's ask the Lord to help
us. Father, we pray that for the Lord Jesus Christ's sake,
and for our salvation in Him, and all the blessings that you've
given to your people in that covenant you've made with Him
for us. As you have given us your word
and given us your grace to be persuaded of the truth of what
you've said, so that we embrace Christ in trust with great gladness
and peace and rest and joy in believing, so we ask, Lord, that
according to this same grace, that you would give us an opening
of your word today so that we would be able to praise you in
the triumph of the Lord Jesus Christ over our sin. In his name
we pray, amen. If you look at the first two
verses of Romans chapter six, it says, what shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin that
grace may abound Now I want to stop right there because obviously
he's asking the question that depends on what went before in
the book of Romans, especially if you look at the verse just
before this in Romans 5 and verse 20. It says, moreover, the law
entered that the offense might abound. Now that just seems contrary
to all of our human logic, doesn't it? that God would give his law
in order that our sin would abound. Isn't the law meant to suppress
our sin? Isn't it meant to curb it and
to keep it under check and to enable us somehow to be upright
before God? According to this verse, when
the law entered, our sin abounded. It sprang forth like one of those
geysers in Yellowstone that spray out of the earth because of the
heat trapped deep in the earth and the water there. It forces
that water out, doesn't it? That's what the law did. It forced
out what was already in us, didn't it? It was there, latent. No one could see it. Well, not
to the extent that it was there. But when God's law entered, then
our sin abounded. But notice, And here we have
to pause and consider how great God is. Notice, but where sin
abounded, grace did much more abound. Now that is the goodness
of God, isn't it? Our sin against God abounded
when God's holy law was given to us, which shows and proves
the exceeding sinfulness of our own wickedness. God's own word
in Romans chapter 7 uses that comparison. That conclusion is
drawn by God himself, that because his law is holy and just and
good, and because by that law our sin became evident and became
worse, therefore it proves our own wickedness. And so the law,
you can see the effect of the law here, is that God's good
law proved our wickedness, our evil. Where God's law entered,
our sin abounded. Where our sin abounded, God's
grace did much more abound, meaning that even though God gave the
law and made our sin evident, and it became, it increased,
yet by God's grace He overcame, where His own law discovered
our sin. That's incredible, unbelievable,
unless God had said it. Notice in verse 21, That is,
sin hath reigned unto death. So the tyrant, sin, like a king,
reigned. And that sin, that reign of that
king, sin, was to death, our death. Even so, remember now,
that reign of sin was a just reign. Sin was what we did. Death is what we deserved. It
was a just death that we deserved. It was from God. All under God's
sovereign rule, sin reigned unto our death. But God obligated
himself to answer his own law that he might make his grace
towards us abound in our salvation. That's the goodness of God. that
as sin hath reigned unto death, even so might grace reign." Now
grace is on the throne. The king is grace, and grace
reigns. Not through sin, but through
righteousness, but not our righteousness. He says, grace reigns through
righteousness unto eternal life, our eternal life, by Jesus Christ
our Lord. This is the gospel. We were sinners. God's law proved it. It made
it abundantly clear and evident. And while that fomenting cauldron
of our sin was bubbling forth and abounding because of the
presence of God's law given to us, then God's grace abounded
even more. And like a man in the snow trying
to start a fire, The river, you could think of it as in Alaska,
the Yukon River came over and washed over that little kindle
of fire, which was our sin, with such abundance that God's grace
was then made known. He put it out. Grace reigns through
the righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ to our eternal life. That is grace. And so he asked
the question in the next verse, Romans 6, 1, where we just read,
what shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin that
grace may abound? Now, this question is asked by
the spirit of God through the apostle Paul, because this is
the kind of question that arises from our sinful hearts. Should
we now sin because grace abounds when we sin? And realize now, we're gonna
do this, we're gonna try to summarize the first five chapters of Romans
to see how this is built up here. But realize there's two things
that are being taught in the first part of Romans. First of
all, our sin, what we are as Gentiles, and our sin, what we
are as is evident in the religion of the Jews. As Gentiles, We
were licentious. That means we sinned as if we
were given a license to do whatever we wanted to. We gave ourselves
that license. God innately showed himself to
us as our creator and sovereign. His eternal power and Godhead
were made known to us by God himself. From our conception
in birth, in our infancy, and as we grew older, we knew God.
But we didn't like to retain God in our knowledge so we held
him down in our conscience and we bludgeoned our conscience
to allow ourselves with a license to do sin, to do what we wanted
to do. We wanted to sit on the throne
that we might sin all we wanted to. And so the law was then given In a written form, God himself,
with his own hand, wrote it and gave it to the nation of the
Jews. So they had a written copy, in God's own handwriting, of
his law. But what they did with the law
proved something else about us, not just that we wanted to sin
with profligate licentiousness, but that we wanted to use God's
law to justify ourselves compared to others, especially in the
sight of God. And so that's what the Jews did.
They took what God commanded them to do, and they thought
they could do what God commanded In their own heart, they thought
that they were as good, their own works and their own sacrifices
were as good as Christ, even better, and God could accept
them. Like Cain, who offered the fruit of the ground and expected
God to receive him as equally as Abel, who offered the lamb
according to God's purpose. That's the way we are. Our legalistic
heart arose with God's law, and we turned what was meant by God
to convict us of our guilt and condemnation and helplessness
in our wickedness, and we used it to elevate ourselves in our
arrogant and ignorant pride. We were blinded by our pride
and we used God's law as a weapon against others to judge them
and condemn them and to justify ourselves before others in comparison. Oh, I'm better. I'm not like
him at all. And we trusted in our own righteousness. These
two things, our licentiousness and our legalism, are in our
hearts by nature. It's in that old nature what
we received from Adam in our conception in our mother's womb.
We became sinners from birth. And so we naturally arose. We
had this arrogance. We could take God's throne. We
could do what we want. And we could live for ourselves.
And we could exalt ourselves and claim a moral superiority
in doing so. And that's the world, doesn't
it? The world takes the most, the grossest things and they
claim a moral superiority over others in allowing it or in doing
it. Either one, it shows the wickedness
of our heart. We see it in our own, in the
peers we have this world. And so he asked the question
here in Romans 6, 1, what shall we say then? Shall we continue
in sin? that grace may abound. But see,
all that was said in that first part of Romans, up until Romans
chapter 3 and verse 21, all of it was said to convince us that
we are sinners. Look at Romans 3. In Romans chapter 3 and verse
19, he says, now we know that what thing soever the law saith,
whatever God's law says, It says to them who are under the law
that every mouth may be stopped. And here's the result of what
God's law said. It's going to stop our mouths.
We won't have anything to say in our defense. And all the world
may become guilty before God. We stand before God. There's
his law given to us. We try to justify ourselves in
our conscience and before God using that law. Just like the
men in Matthew 7 who stood before Christ on the last day. And they
said, well haven't we? And they list all the things
that they've done. Because they have this, they
can't get beyond this, that what God requires of them, they have
to provide and they're able to provide it. Does he require repentance? Alright, then I'm going to repent.
Does he require faith? All right, I'm going to believe.
And we think in our arrogance that we can do those things that
God requires and make ourselves acceptable to God by doing that.
That's called justifying ourselves before God by the law. And it
doesn't matter what part of God's requirements we try to use to
justify ourselves, it's all the same. But God says, no, the law
was given to stop our mouths so that all the world may become
guilty before God. And then he says this, not only
are we all guilty, None righteous, no, not one. None good, no, not
one. None seek God, none understand.
We're all filthy, as you can read in those verses that precede
this, and we're no better than the Jews, by the way. Romans
3, 9, are we better than they? No, and no wise. But here he
says in verse 20, notice, therefore, here's the conclusion, by the
deeds of the law, by what we do to keep God's law, what God
requires, There shall no flesh be justified in his sight, for
by the law is the knowledge of sin. The law exposes, it makes
evident that we're guilty and wicked. Well, we know that's
true, if we're honest. Every time, I don't know about
you, maybe you don't share the same problem, but every time
I was accused of doing something as a child, I immediately ran
with some excuse. Well, it's because, or I didn't
really do it that, or it wasn't as bad as you, there's always
some excuse. That's the nature of men and
women. I've seen it in my own children.
They got it from me. I say that in all seriousness.
Therefore, by the deeds of the law, what we do to do what God
says in order to be just, God says, no, no one is going to
be justified that way. no flesh will be justified in
his sight. For by the law is the knowledge of sin. God's law,
by its very character, exposes sin. Therefore, we can't be,
and it pronounces us sinner. Therefore, we're already guilty.
We cannot be justified by the very thing that condemns us.
Have you seen that? I remember I was in a court criminal
trial, and two people had lured a man out and shot him and they
tried to justify themselves before the court. And the very thing
that they did that brought on them the guilt and condemnation.
That's how foolish we are. But now, verse 21, Romans 3,
but now, notice, in contrast to all that we are as sinners,
in our licentiousness, in our legalistic heart, God's light
shines brightly. He says, but now the righteousness
of God, not ours, His. which is by faith of Jesus Christ
unto all and upon all them that believe, for there is no difference.
I'm sorry, I read the wrong verse. But now the righteousness of
God without the law is manifested, being witnessed by the law and
the prophets, even the righteousness of God by faith of Jesus Christ
unto all and upon all them that believe, for there is no difference.
For all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. God's
righteousness is made known now into the dark void and emptiness
of our sinfulness. And what is that righteousness?
It's a righteousness that was testified to by the law, even
though it's without our personal law-keeping. God's law testified
to it in all the sacrifices in the Old Testament, in all that
God required, and that the tables of that law were put in that
ark, and that ark contained the tables, and the blood was sprinkled
on there, so that God's righteousness was foreshadowed by the law. It was witnessed to by the law.
Moses spoke of Christ as the one like the serpent hanging
on the pole. He bore witness to it, to Christ and God's righteousness
then. But that righteousness is now
made manifest, he says in verse 22, the righteousness of God
which is by faith of Jesus Christ, meaning because he acted in submission
to his father out of faith as a man, perfectly fulfilling God's
law and offering himself for our sins, satisfying God's justice
in His death for us. Therefore, God's righteousness
in that work is made known because this is the very righteousness
of God. It was God's work, God's will,
Christ did it, and now God sets it forth. This is my righteousness
in contrast to all of your unrighteousness. And notice he says in verse 24,
Though we have all sinned and come short of the glory of God
being justified, we now are justified, how? Freely. Not by anything
we do, obviously, because in all consideration of ourselves,
God would have to condemn us. But being justified freely by
His grace, through or on the basis of the ground of the redemption
that is in Christ Jesus. that purchase, that paying of
our debt by the purchase of His blood and buying us and releasing
us from the prison of our condemnation and our sin, guilt before God.
God justified us. by the redeeming work of the
Lord Jesus Christ, and this justification is freely given to us because
of God's grace. God gave His Son and justified
us by the blood and the righteousness of His Son. That's the conclusion
here. And if you read on verse chapters
four and chapter five, it builds on that conclusion. We're justified
by the Lord Jesus Christ. So then in chapter five and verse
19, he says, well, look at chapter five and verse nine. He says,
much more than being now justified by his blood, See that? Where does the whole
weight of our justification lie? On the blood of Jesus. Everything
is accomplished by the blood of Jesus. The offering up of
the body of Jesus Christ once for all. We shall be saved from
wrath through Him. Now, go over to chapter 6 again,
verse 1. What shall we say then? If we
listen to our legal heart, our licentious heart, we'll ask this
question, can we sin that grace may abound? You see, this is
the problem with religion. If you take the law off of me,
then I'll do so badly. If you take away all restraints,
I'll do bad things. I have to have this law to keep
me in check. Right? That's the way religion
works. If we just take off the requirements,
the regulations, everything's going to break loose. Why? It's because they only can conceive
of God in a relationship by which they stand before God on the
basis of their obedience according to his law. That's being justified. That's trying to clear myself
before God by my own obedience or to obtain blessings from God
by my own obedience. And not only that, but he says,
shall we continue in sin that grace may abound now that you've
been released from the condemnation? Imagine Adam and Eve now in the
garden. They had just sinned against God. Imagine the shame
that came upon them and Adam hiding. They were naked. They
were hiding. He was hiding behind the trees.
They decided to sow fig leaves together to cover their nakedness,
their conscience. The sin against God bore so heavily
upon them that they just hid. They were afraid. And God's voice
came speaking to them in the cool of the day. Where are you?
And Adam said, I heard your voice in the garden and I was afraid.
And I hid myself. Well, and then you know the story
that follows. So imagine that now. They've
been taken out of the garden and they have the sentence of
death upon them. Imagine now that they understand
that through the righteousness of Christ, God covers their nakedness
and makes them acceptable before him in that righteousness, which
is what God did when he clothed them with the skins of that animal.
God offered and clothed them with the skins of that offering.
He clothed them with the obedience of Christ unto death. That's
our righteousness. And so they were accepted by
God. Imagine now that they're brought back into the paradise
of fellowship with God, all the blessings they have in Christ
Jesus, and they want to go back and repeat their sin in the garden.
Is that what they would want to do? No one in their right
mind would do that, would they? And so he says, Shall we continue
in sin that grace may abound? And the next words in verse two
are, God forbid. No, not at all. And then here's
the question now. And the question contains the
answer to the objection raised in verse one. Shall we continue
in sin that grace may abound? No, how shall we that are dead
to sin live any longer therein? Now, these two verses summarize
all that's taught in the book of Romans. And this is, to the believer,
this is of the greatest interest, what God says about our salvation
from our sin, isn't it? If you believe on the Lord Jesus
Christ, your greatest interest in life is your salvation from
your sins by the Lord Jesus Christ. Now, I can say this from experience,
but I can also say it from God's Word. Jesus Christ and his salvation
of us from our sins captivates us. God has written this on our
heart. He has given us his own nature and seen this. We live
to God. And this revelation from God,
the light of the gospel of the glory of God in the face of Jesus
Christ, it shines in our heart. And now he tells us plainly why
We won't continue in sin that grace may abound. Why we've had
a complete change from this attitude of licentiousness and this attitude
of legalism. Something else has come now.
And that something else has come is that we've died to sin. and
therefore we won't live any longer therein. Now let me give you
a summary before we lose the pressure of these precious words
upon our heart. To die to sin means that we died
to sin's guilt and condemnation. And we were justified in that
death by God. We were justified from our sin. God himself has justified us
from our sins so that we didn't commit them. And we've done all
that the law requires so that before God, his law is honored
in our justification. And that justification is not
what we did. It's by his grace given freely
to us by the redeeming work of the Lord Jesus Christ. That's
what it means when it says dead to sin. We died with Christ. We made a complete satisfaction
to God for our sins and we also in that death, we fulfilled all
righteousness because Christ did it for his enemies out of
love, for his enemies. He laid his life down, giving
all of himself. That's what it means, to die
to sin. We die to sin, we're dead to sin. And how can we live
any longer therein? Because having died to sin and
being justified by God, all of the blessings of God's everlasting
covenant are given to us. So that the spirit of God is
given to us, and with him, life from the dead, our spirit is
raised to life, the spirit is life because of righteousness,
and we're raised from the dead, we're quickened, and we're created
in Christ Jesus, we're birthed by the Spirit of God, and we're
renewed by the washing of regeneration. The gospel of God's grace is
written on our hearts to show us his law is fulfilled in the
doing and dying of Christ. We live to God so that the way
we used to see things in this life of being licentious and
being legalistic is done away so that now we see that God has
done something. He has made his righteousness
known in our salvation and that this is all Christ's work. And
we see that in him, we have done everything God requires and have
all that he has. So we no longer stand like a
legalist thinking, well, in order to avoid the penalty I deserve,
I have to do things, or in order to get the reward I want, I've
got to do things. I've got to avoid this, I've
got to do that. No, we don't think that way anymore, because
we say, no, all that God requires has been fulfilled by Christ,
and all that God requires of me, he looks to Christ for, just
like I do. Now, by God's grace, I trust
him for that. And having this, we hear, as
Jesus told the woman taken in adultery in John chapter 8, neither
do I condemn thee. No conditions met by her, no
word spoken by her. And Jesus, stooping down, justifies
her and says, rising, neither do I condemn thee. And then he
says, go and sin no more. Right? The one who justified
us is the one who tells us now, go and sin no more. Shall we
continue in sin that grace may abound? No. What are we going
to do as sinners? Are we going to go out now and
say, yep, I knew it, you're going to lay this heavy load on me
now to go sin no more? No. We're going to go again to
the one who laid his life down for us and look to him by his
resurrected life to give us what he already obtained for us. Look
at Romans chapter 5 and verse 10. If when we were enemies we
were reconciled to God by the death of his son, Now, he accomplished
our reconciliation. When we had offended God, God
took the initiative. God provided the makeup. He restored us to himself by
taking away our offenses in the death of his son. He was delivered
for our offenses. He was raised for our justification.
And so he says, when we were enemies, we contributed nothing. We were opposed to all that God
is. We were reconciled to God by the death of His Son, all
God's work, without our contribution, much more being reconciled now
that God has lavished upon us the blessings of grace in the
life, the Spirit of God living in us and faith in Him. Now that
we're reconciled, we shall be saved by His life. Much more. So that as we started in grace,
we continue and end in grace. If Christ died for us, if he
reconciled us by his death, much more we shall be saved by his
life. So that as the woman hears those
words from Christ, go and sin no more, she would naturally
have said, Lord, give what you have promised. Give me the life
to live. The strength has to come from
you. All grace has to come from You. And so we pray this prayer
in response to this statement of God's truth that we are dead
to sin and we should not live any longer therein. Let's read
on now in Romans chapter 6. He says, Know ye not that so
many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into
His death? Now here again, we visited these
things a few weeks ago in relation to baptism, and now I want to
bring it home to us again, that it is, our baptism symbolizes,
is an emblem of what actually took place. We were in Christ
when He died. He bore our sins in His own body
on the tree. And Having died to our sins,
we live. He died, but we died with him
and therefore we live because he rose. He says this, don't
you know, let me paraphrase it, don't you know that you who were
baptized in water, symbolized by that baptism in water, that
you were actually in Christ, so that when he died, you died
with him. He says you were baptized into
his death. That emblem of baptism signifies
what actually took place when he died. In Christ, you died.
You were baptized into his death, immersed. That's why baptism
also has to be immersion. Were you sprinkled with death
or were you immersed in it? Verse four, therefore we are
buried with him by baptism into death. Buried with him, that's
what we do when we're immersed in water. We're put under the
water, buried, because with the Lord Jesus Christ, in his body
he bore our sins on the cross, right? First Peter 2.24, who
his own self bear our sins in his own body on the tree that
we being dead to sins should live unto righteousness by whose
stripes you were healed. It's all what he did, but it
was because of our identification, our union with him in that. He
did it vicariously. We did it vicariously in him. and his wisdom and his sovereignty
has set it up so that Christ being so worthy and capable could
stand for us and all of his people would be saved by what he did,
the one champion and captain. So he says that we were baptized
into his death, therefore we are buried with him by baptism
into death. When a man is buried or a woman
is buried, their body is put in the grave And it says in the
Psalms, they're like a dead man out of mind. And it says that
in order that we would understand that when we were buried with
Christ, our sins were buried out of mind. They were remembered
no more. Let me give you a couple of scriptures
so you can see this in the Psalms. In Psalm 88, in Psalm 88 it says
this, He says, verse 1, O Lord God
of my salvation, I have cried day and night before Thee. Let
my prayer come before Thee. Incline Thine ear unto my cry,
for my soul is full of troubles, and my life draweth nigh to the
grave. That's being buried, right? I
am counted with them that go down into the pit. I am as a
man that has no strength, free among the dead like the slain
that lie in the grave, whom thou rememberest no more, and they
are cut off from thy hand." Okay, look at Psalm 31. That's the Lord Jesus Christ
and us in Him. In Psalm 31, if I can find it here. Verse 12, he says in verse 11,
this is a psalm of the Lord Jesus Christ, in prophecy, I was a
reproach among all mine enemies, but especially among my neighbors,
and a fear to mine acquaintance. They that did see me without
fled from me. I am forgotten as a dead man
out of mind. I am like a broken vessel. So
you see that how, and remember Jonah, cast into the sea, like
a dead man now forgotten. The Lord Jesus Christ is that
man. but we died and were buried with
him. So back to Romans 6, therefore
we are buried with him. By baptism into death, our sins
were put away. When the high priest on the day
of atonement laid his hands on the head of the scapegoat and
transferred the sins of Israel onto the head of that goat, then
that goat was sent out by the hand of a fit man into the wilderness
and never brought back. The sins were put away. They
were sent out, the begone goat was sent out. And so he says
here, we are buried with him by baptism into death, that like
as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the
Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life. It was
God who raised Christ from the dead. It's God who raises us
from the dead with him. Just as we died with him and
were buried with him, so also we rose with him. Do you see
how this chapter, gives to us that comfort and that confirmation
of all that we believe, that God has told us to believe about
ourselves what is true of the Lord Jesus Christ because we
trust Him. Not because we trust Him or we
made this way, but because we trust Him, God-given faith, it's
the evidence that Christ is in us and therefore we are in Him.
And everything He did, we did in Him. He bore our sins in His
own body on the cross that we, being dead to sins, should live
to God. He did it, it was our doing in
Him. This is such an important truth
of scripture that we have to get a hold of this. It says in
2 Corinthians 5, 21, for he hath made him to be sin for us who
knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God
in him. We had nothing to do with His
death. It was before our time. God did it, put us in Him, and
received it from Him for us. That's what we believe. That's
what grace is. That's what our justification
is. Before God, by His blood we're justified. By His death
we were reconciled. And so the gospel shines forth
so strongly and clearly from the book of Romans that we want
to go back to it all the time and avail ourselves of the truth
of it and the comfort and the consolation in order that we
might stand upon this. And so he says in verse five,
for if we have been planted together, you see those words planted together? Do you know what they mean? The
same words that are translated, planted together, mean united
to. If we have been united to Christ
in the likeness of His death, we shall be also in the likeness
of His resurrection. United to Him in death, we are
united to Him in life. Look at 2 Timothy, in chapter
2. I show the same truth here, 2
Timothy 2. This is a common thing. The believers
in the New Testament would take these things and realizing them
by God's grace, they would make songs out of them and sayings
out of them. And they would say them to one
another, so they became so common that the apostle Paul says this
in 2 Timothy 2, verse 11. He says, I'm sorry, yeah, verse
11. It is a faithful saying. Here's
one of those things that those believers would constantly repeat,
just like we do. I'm a great sinner and nothing
at all, but Jesus Christ is my all in all. That's a faithful
saying. He says, this is a faithful saying. If we be dead with him,
we shall also live with him. That was a faithful saying, and
they realized these things. Look at 2 Corinthians chapter...
I can go out and read this here. I don't mean to interrupt it
in a sentence. He says, It is a faithful saying, for if we
be dead with him, we shall also live with him. If we suffer,
we shall also reign with him. How do you suffer? Do you have
the enemies of this world trying to hang you on a stake and burn
your body because you're a Christian? That hasn't happened to me this
week or last week or even yet in my whole life. But we do suffer
as believers. And how do we suffer most? Isn't
it that suffering that occurs with the lamentation of the apostle
Paul? We cry out, oh, wretched man
that I am. We're shackled to the body of
this death, and we suffer that way. But notice, he says, if
we suffer, we shall also reign with him. If we deny him, he
also will deny us. Now, it doesn't mean that I didn't
confess Christ. I remember when I was in the
sixth grade, I think, some girl who was very vocal on the playground
asked me, what are you wearing that thing for on your shirt?
You know, it's supposed to be for me to give an opportunity
to tell them about Jesus. I don't know. I don't know, I
don't know what it is. Making all sorts of excuses and
hiding behind my shame. And then I felt like I must be
going to hell, I couldn't be Christ. It probably was true
at the time, because I didn't know the Lord. But in any case,
all of us, probably, probably all of us, or most of us, have
had that experience where we didn't confess Christ when we
should have, or like Peter, we actually denied him three times.
That cannot be what it's talking about here. If we deny Him, it
means we deny, we say, no, Christ cannot be my Savior. No, His
work cannot be enough for me. No, I have to bring something
else. I have to trust, like Cain, in something I bring to God. And so we present to God like
the Pharisee or like the hypocrites in Matthew chapter 7, something
of our own for our justification. No, that's denying Christ, denying
His work in person, our staff, our comfort. But he goes on,
if we believe not, yet he abideth faithful, he can't change. He's
not going to deny himself. And that means not only will
he not deny who he is and what he's done, but he won't deny
any of his own. He won't deny himself. We're
joined to him. All right? Look at 2 Corinthians
now, chapter 5. I'm just going to give you a
few of these verses of scripture so that we anchor ourselves in
the rock and take refuge here. Our salvation is in Christ alone. What do you have as a believer? You have nothing except what
you have in Christ. Do you believe that? Before God
I have nothing but what God has given me and sees and receives
for me in Christ. That's it. And if it requires
something more than that, then I'm lost. 2 Corinthians chapter
5. He says, Verse 14, for the love
of Christ constraineth us, because we thus judge that if one died
for all, then we're all dead. And that he died for all, that
they which live should not live unto themselves, but unto him
which died for them and rose again. Did Christ die for every
individual? Well, let me ask this, did every
individual live? If he died for us, then we live
to God. Therefore, he couldn't have died
for all because not all live. So the all here is referring
to all of God's people, the elect, the redeemed of the Lord. He
died for them. All those for whom Christ died
must be saved. And so back to Romans 6, verse
5, he says, if we have been planted together, if we've been united
to Christ in the likeness of his death, then we shall be,
he says without fail, we shall be also in the likeness of his
resurrection. If you were with Christ when
he died, you will be raised. No one can be... Christ could not die for a man
without raising that man. Therefore Christ died for his
elect and he saves all of them. And he didn't die for the non-elect
because that means that he died for people who go to hell and
his death would have no value. And that would also mean that
those in heaven were there independent of his death, but they did something
in order to get themselves there. They met some condition. Hence,
who needs his death? His death would be in vain. We'll
see in Galatians chapter two, read these words with me again
in Galatians chapter two. In verse 19, he says, I through
the law am dead to the law. The law required that because
of my sin I should die. Christ stepped into my place
as my surety, answered with himself all that the law charged me with,
received the guilt of that charge to himself as his guilt for me,
and then he bore the punishment of that guilt in the eyes of
the law. I, through the law, am dead to
the law that I might live to God. I am crucified with Christ. that had to happen when he was
crucified to be crucified with him. Nevertheless, I live. Yet not I, but Christ liveth
in me. My life is Christ. And the life
which I now live in the flesh, in this body of flesh, I live
by the faith of the Son of God who loved me and gave himself
for me. You see our union with Christ here? You see that God
is teaching us here, unmistakably, to think about ourselves in Christ
as God thinks of his Son. So back to Romans 6, verse 6. Romans 6, 6, knowing this, that
our old man is crucified with him, that the body of sin might
be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin. So now,
what is this body of sin that was crucified with him? Well,
all of our sins were born, were bore by the Lord Jesus Christ
in his body on the tree. 1 Peter 2.24, I keep repeating
it. He who his own self bore our
sins in his own body on the tree. And he received the beating that
our sin body, our body of sins deserved. The lash came upon
him. It was coming on the body of
our sins. And that body of sins died, it
was crucified, it was cursed by God in the death of Christ. And it was buried. And that was
it. That body of sins was like a
dead man out of mine. When Christ rose, He rose without
sin. He died once to sin, and having
died to sin once, all the sins He died for The cause of his
death, all those sins were then answered and put away. No more
to be remembered. He shall remember our sins and
our iniquities no more. Okay, so here he says it, knowing
this, know this, what do you know? You know what you believe,
and what do you believe? What God has said. This is God's
word, knowing this, that an old man is crucified with him. We
know it's to be true because God said it. It's not true because
we make it so. Not true because we, like, who
was that guy? The power of positive thinking
guy, whoever he was. Somebody, I don't know his name,
somebody here does. He says, knowing this, that our old man
is crucified with him, that the body of sin might be destroyed,
that henceforth we should not serve sin. He that is dead, notice
verse seven, Romans 6, seven, look carefully. He that is dead,
who is that? Whoever died, is justified. The King James Version here translates
it as freed. He that is dead is freed from
sin. Now, it turns out 40 times I think, 40 times in the New
Testament, this word is translated, the word translated freed here,
was translated 40 times justified. Why in this one place did the
King James translators translate it freed? I don't know. But I know that that translation
cannot be the right one. It's gotta be justified. He that
is dead is justified from sin. Sin's debt has been paid in that
death. We died with Christ, we're justified
from sin. In Acts 13, And 39, listen to these words.
In Acts 13 39, the Apostle Paul is preaching, he says, By him,
by Jesus Christ, let me read verse 38, Be it known to you
therefore, men and brethren, that through this man is preached
unto you the forgiveness of sins, and by him all that believe are
justified from all things, meaning sin and everything else, from
which you could not be justified by the law. The law only allowed
some sins to be forgiven and only those that were really insignificant
in most cases. The real ones like murder In
adultery, you had to die for them, but under the gospel, you're
justified from all sin. He says here in Romans 6-7, he
that is dead is freed from, or justified from sin. Now, verse
8, if we be dead with Christ, we obviously are, it should say,
and since we be dead with Christ, we believe that we shall also
live with him. Knowing that Christ, being raised
from the dead, dieth no more, death hath no more dominion over
him." Death had dominion over Christ when he died because he
yielded himself to death when he took our sins and submitted
himself to the penalty our sins deserve. Therefore, he came under
the obligation of death. And death had dominion over him,
but no more. Why? He says, because he's raised
from the dead, he dies no more. Death has no more dominion over
him. Our sins, the reasons for his death, were put away, fully
answered. His resurrection proves that
all of our sins were justified in his death. We were justified
from our sins in his death. Verse 10. For in that he died,
he died unto sin once. How did Christ die to sin? Let
me ask this question, because in here we keep reading this
over and over again, dead to sin. How did the Lord Jesus Christ
die to sin? Did he die to sin's influence? Do we have an influence of sin
in our experience? Did he die to sin's power in
order to tempt him to do wrong? You know as as a sin nature it
caused I sin like Paul says in Romans chapter 7 the good that
I would I do not but the evil which I would not that I do and
if I do that which I would not I know it's not I that do it
but sin that dwelleth in me did sin have power over Christ in
that way of course not he never sinned sin had no influence over
him and The devil came and had found nothing in him. So he didn't
die to sin's influence and he didn't die to sin's power to
cause him to sin as our sinful nature does us. What did he die
to then? He died to the guilt and to the
condemnation of sin. Look at Romans chapter seven
and verse four. My brethren, you also are become
dead Here's another death, this time to the law, which is the
strength of sin. The strength of sin is the law.
You become dead to the law, how? By the body of Christ. Because
you resolved not to do it? No, you became dead to the law
by the body of Christ. You became dead to sin in the
same way, in the death of Christ. And then look at Romans 8, verse
1. This is after Romans 7 when Paul the Apostle struggles with
this matter of indwelling sin. And what does he say? God say,
there is therefore now what? No condemnation. Why? Because I died to it. I died
to sin's guilt and I died to sin's power, I mean sin's condemnation,
guilt and condemnation. Did I die to sin's influence?
Well, No, no I didn't. Sin still has influence over
me, otherwise I wouldn't continue sinning. Right? That's not what God is saying
here. That's what most people teach from this chapter. That
we now, we're dead with Christ, therefore we live a victorious
life because sin doesn't have power over us. I haven't found
that person yet. But I do know this, that as Christ
died to sin, I died to sin with Him. He died to sin's guilt. He rose there because He was
justified from our sins. Death has no more dominion over
Him. He died to that sin. So we see this here, that Christ
died. He says, as I keep quoting 1
Peter 2, 24, who his own self bear our sins in his own body
on the tree, that we being dead to sins should live unto righteousness
by whose stripes you were healed. He was beaten. I was healed.
He suffered death. I rose from death. I was justified
from my sins. And so he died to sin in that
way. So now we see all of that came before in the book of Romans
bearing the weight here. It has to do with our justification
before God from our sins and in answer to His law in all of
its righteousness. We're dead to the law, we're
dead to sin. That's what we have to understand. And so, therefore, he brings
it to a point in verse 11. Notice. Likewise, reckon ye also
yourselves to be dead indeed in a sin, but alive to God through
Jesus Christ our Lord. Is he saying here, think this
way so it'll become this way? Or does he say, think this way
because it is this way? It has to be that. because he
said Christ died and we died with him. He rose and we rose
with him. Therefore, he says, you reckon it so. Consider it
to be counted as such. Know that what God sees and receives
from his son is true of you also because you were in him. That's
the whole message of the gospel. So reckon it to be so because
God said it is so. And if God said it so, it is
so. And notice, this isn't merely
a try to think this way or I encourage you that you would begin to think
like this. He's telling you, commanding
you, reckon it so. It's a very strong, it should
be a persuasion. God is telling you, think this
way. It's the way it is. Reckon it
to be so. You are dead indeed unto sin. He puts the word indeed there
in case you missed it, but alive to God. You are alive to God
through Jesus Christ our Lord. These are facts established by
God. And then he goes on, let not
sin therefore reign in your mortal body that you should obey it
in the lesser of. Neither yield your members as
instruments of unrighteousness to God, but yield yourselves
to God as those that are alive from the dead, and your members
as instruments of righteousness to God. Notice in verse 14, I'm
going to enclose the last two verses here, but for sin, notice,
sin shall not have dominion over you, for you are not under the
law, but under grace. Why? Why will sin not have dominion? It's a fact. It's a certainty. It's a promise. It's a truth. Because of grace. Not because
you live by the law. Not because you're trying to
justify yourself by the law. And you're thinking, you're saying,
well, I can do what God says. I'll somehow get it done. No,
no. It's all of grace. You don't
contribute where grace works. You do not do anything in order
to make God's grace work. Otherwise, grace would not be
grace. So grace ensures that sin shall not have dominion over
the believer. So what are we gonna do? We're
gonna believe that. God said it. It's the way it
is. And how do we live our lives?
Just like Jehoshaphat. He went out before the army and
he says, I don't know what to do. I have no strength in this
battle, but our eyes are upon thee. And you saw the Lord defeat
his enemies. And they just stood still. And
they saw it. And then they praised and thanked
the Lord for it. That's what we are to do. Present
ourselves. Yield yourselves to God and say,
Lord, do with me what only your grace can do. You said, neither
do I condemn thee. Go and sin no more. I'm returning
to you to give what you require. Give me that which you said is
true. Provide for me, do what you have
said, provide by your grace that is in Christ, all the blessings
of that grace that are there to me because of Jesus Christ. Isn't that what we say? It's
a very bold thing to say, isn't it? But we can come into the
very presence of God by the blood of Jesus. I'm gonna read this
one verse from Psalm 106, and we will close here. Psalm 106.
This was a memory verse several weeks ago. He says this in verse
47. Notice how this reverberates
the whole truth. Save us, O Lord our God, and
gather us from among the heathen, notice, to give thanks unto thy
holy name and to triumph in thy praise. That's it. Blessed be the Lord God of Israel
from everlasting to everlasting and let all the people say amen.
Praise ye the Lord. That's what we do. We stand still.
We see the salvation Christ has accomplished and finished and
declared to us and tells us now to believe it. We're persuaded
of it. I have no other hope. but that
God would do this for me. Under the law, I thought I could
do things. Thought I could believe, thought
I could repent, thought I could consecrate and dedicate myself.
I thought a number of things. If I just walked the aisle, or
if I kept the Sabbath, or if I didn't steal, or if I didn't
lie, or didn't cheat, and suddenly I found out I'm in trouble. Suddenly
the law came home and made my sin abound, and where that sin
abounded, God's grace did much more abound, because when I found
myself utterly unable to do one thing of all that God required,
then I saw the salvation, the righteousness of God is in the
Lord Jesus Christ. God did it, and He did it without
you, and He gave it to you freely by His grace through the redemption
that's in Christ Jesus. Let's pray. Father, thank you
for your word. This is our salvation. What you've
said here, if you don't save us by this grace that's in Christ
Jesus, we will be of all most miserable and lost with certainty. And so we pray, Lord, that to
the glory of your great name. To the praise and honor of our
Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, you would deliver us from our
sins, as you said, sin shall not have dominion over us, that
we have been united with Christ in his death, in his burial,
and in his resurrection, and you told us to reckon it to be
so. So Lord, by your grace, we ask you for that faith to believe
it and to live our lives looking at the salvation that's in Christ
Jesus, and expecting you to fulfill your word, because this is the
truth of heaven, and this truth you've persuaded us of in our
heart, and we pray that you would make it real to us day by day,
and we would be enabled to give praise to your holy name, and
triumph in your praise. In Jesus' name we pray, amen.