Sovereign Grace Chapel, located
at 135 Annabel Lane in Beaver, West Virginia, invites you to
listen to a gospel message concerning Jesus Christ our Lord. If you wish to follow along,
turn to Romans chapter six. Romans chapter six. I'm going
to read as my text the first 10 verses. Romans six and verse
one. What shall we say then? Shall
we continue in sin that grace may abound? God forbid. How shall we that are dead to
sin live any longer therein. Know ye not that so many of us,
as were baptized into Jesus Christ, were baptized into his death?
Therefore we were 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. For
if we have been planted together in the likeness of his death,
we shall also in the likeness of his resurrection. Knowing
this, knowing this, mark this now. Knowing this, that our old
man is crucified with him, and that is with Christ. 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. For
he that is dead is freed from sin. Now, if 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. Look at this last phrase here.
Now this is not the last of what Paul says by any stretch, but
look at this last phrase. For in that he died, Christ. Yes. Not us. Yes. For in that he died, he died
unto sin. Yeah. Once. Once. Amen. But in that he liveth, he liveth
unto God. Amen. Last week, I believe it
was the other last week, I asked three questions. I will not get
to, the answer to all, I will not get to answer all three of
those questions this morning, possibly two of those questions.
But here is the first question I gave you, and I gave them in
line with what Paul deals with here in this chapter six, we
might say. Who then is dead in the wilderness? Notice Paul starts, and what
we see is chapter six. What shall we say then? Shall
we continue in sin that grace may abound? God forbid, how shall
we that are dead to sin live any longer therein? But here's
another question. How is it that we can be dead
to sin? So then, who is dead to sin? The actual answer is Christ died
to sin. That's the answer. The only people
that can be dead to sin are those that died in him. The fact is, as this letter bears
out, and it will soon bear out, the very context of chapter six
lets us know we still have the existence of sin in us. We still have the presence of
sin in us and around us. we can still have the ill effects
and influences of sin upon us and in us. And this is such a
heavy weight that in an upcoming chapter, even the Apostle Paul
will write these words, even while he's being moved by the
Spirit of God, but I should say, especially being moved by the
Spirit of God. Oh, wretched man that I am. Being dead to sin is not the
same thing as being dead in trespasses and in sins. So again, I ask
the question, who then is dead to sin? Jesus Christ is dead
to sin. First of all, look at it, Christ
died. He died, verse three. Know you
not that so many of us, as we're baptized into Jesus Christ, we're
baptized into His death. There's the important death. There's the vital death, do you
see it? Verse five. For if we've been
planted together in the likeness of his death, do you see it? Of his death, we shall also in
the likeness of his resurrection. And then the crescendo of this
is again verse nine and 10. Knowing that Christ being raised
from the dead dieth no more. dieth no more, death hath no
more dominion over him, for in that he died, he died unto sin
once. There's my only hope of me being
dead to sin. For in that he died, he died
unto sin once, but in that he liveth, he liveth unto God. Paul has not left the subject
of salvation. and then begins to deal with
service in chapter six. Years ago, when I was in false
religion, it called itself Christianity, but it was not Christianity by
any stretch of the imagination. They would talk about the person
and work of Christ in chapter five, especially the latter verses
of chapter five. Now granted, they perverted the
truth of the person and work that is detailed in chapter five. But remember, what does Paul
establish without question in chapter five? Jesus Christ is
a people's substitute. Jesus Christ is a representative
of a people. and everyone that he stood as
substitute for, and everyone he represented, and I might add
still represents, by the way, but everyone he represented,
they are saved. What I was taught was now Paul's
left that subject and is going on to service. He is going to
talk about service. There is no doubt, but you cannot,
we dare not separate our service from the sacrificial representation
of Jesus Christ on Calvary's tree. When we do, when we do,
we are forced to then lie about ourselves and start talking about
how good we think we now are now that God saved us. Isn't that what religion does?
Say, I used to be this. I used to be that. And that is
true in a sense. Paul said, I used to be a blasphemer.
That's not the way he lived any longer. But it's still his flesh. His flesh hadn't gotten any better.
If it did, why do we need to fight against it? Why do we need
to not serve it? If the flesh is getting better,
we should at least serve the part that's gotten better. Correct? Wouldn't that be logical deduction? But that's not what Paul's not
talking about. Now that we're saved, all of a sudden sin doesn't
bother us anymore. If you live in that world, you
live in a la-la land of false religion and deception. Paul
has not left salvation and now dealing with service, as some
say. And herein is the danger when some begin to preach or
teach, and I don't even know what the real difference between
those two things is, so don't ask me what the difference is.
After 37 years of preaching, I still don't know the difference
if I'm preaching here or teaching here. I hope I'm doing both all
the time. Here's the problem, when some
people start talking about preaching or teaching from the word verse
of verse, and then you start in verse six, and you say, well,
Paul starts with us, right? Well, he does in what we have
as chapter six, verse one and two, but he's just introducing
us into the equation now. He continues to talk about what
Jesus Christ did when he died on that tree and when he was
raised from the dead. He's still talking about substitution
and representation. He hasn't left salvation for
service. He is speaking of service in
light of the sacrifice of the Lord Jesus Christ himself. So
that's why you gotta see the chapters and verses are there
for convenience only. Convenience only. All right,
here's another thing. Paul still, even in now dealing
with our service to God. And you can't read chapter six
with any honesty whatsoever and not realize he's talking about
our service to God. And serving God and not the flesh.
serving God, even righteousness, and not sin. It's right there. But remember the key word that
I mentioned to you last week. Yield. Yield. Yield. Now I know what the Greek
says. It means to offer up. To offer up. That's the literal
meaning of the word in the Greek is to offer up. But the fact
that it's translated yield is because the translators understood
we are not giving something to God that he needs, we are to
yield, to bow the right of way, to yield to, to submit to his
will and refuse our will. This smacks the doctrine of free
will clearly in the face and puts it in the dust. Paul, yes,
is beginning now to talk about our service to God, and he introduces
service based upon substitution and representation. Again, for
if we've been planted together in the likeness of his death,
how many times did he die? Once. We shall also be in the
likeness of his resurrection, knowing this, that our old man
is crucified with him. It's done. The deal is done. As many have said before, the
difference between the true gospel and the false gospel is just
two letters. The false gospel says do, D-O,
do, do, do, don't live in sin. Get right with God. Give your
heart to the Lord, right? Serve him. Quit sinning. If you
do sin, confess it real quick. Let me just drop that for a moment.
The gospel is D-O-N-E, done. And that's the only thing that
encourages me to serve God rather than to serve myself. This is
why religionists have such a hard time, why coming to services,
why doing the things of God becomes such a burden to them. Why? Because they are doing, doing,
doing, and our doing, I don't care how deceived you are, your
doing is never really enough. Your conscience will bear you
that witness unless your conscience has been seared with a hot iron.
Those dead to sin, are dead to sin in their substitute. And
that's where it's at, folks. They're dead to sin in their
substitute. They are dead to sin in their
representative. Now, I was so taught from probably
the earliest age. I wasn't like Jay Wimberly. I
didn't have my little booties in the Sunday school room, the
Wimberly baby. He said they actually didn't
even know if it was a boy or a girl yet. Back then, you didn't
know it. Already before he's even born,
when he's in the womb, the Wimberly baby had little booties up in
the Sunday school room. Well, I didn't have that, but I'm sure
I was taken to Sunday school at the earliest age, and all
I ever remember hearing was do, do, do. It's easy to be saved. The difficult part is serving
the Lord. It's not difficult if God Almighty's
raised you from the dead. It's not difficult. The flesh
and battling the flesh is difficult. Not serving the flesh is the
tough part. Serving God is a joy. And that, and I'm not talking
about resting upon experience, I'm talking about resting upon
Christ. But all of us had to have had an initial experience
of conversion or you're not saved. You don't just grow into this
and start believing this and kind of go from dead in sins
to alive in Christ and everything just kind of continues on. It
don't happen that way. You will be confronted by the
master himself in his gospel or he has never confronted you.
So again I say, those dead to sin are dead to sin in their
substitute and representative. This is primary. This is the
fountain. This is the foundation truth
to being dead to sin. Now here was the second question.
What does dead to sin mean? Remember, I asked that question.
What does dead to sin mean? Let me give you three things,
and I'll deal mostly, the most of what I have to say will be
the third one, but I wanna try to move along. What does it mean
to be dead to sin? What does religion say? Sin don't
bother me like it used to. Folks, sin bothers me more now
that God saved me than it ever did before he saved me. Before
God saved me, sin didn't bother me. I was bothered when I got
caught. I was bothered when I got in trouble. I was bothered when
my peers, those my age, thought I was being weird if I tried
to do something that was right. I have a problem. I have a problem
with sin because God saved me. Before he saved me, sin was natural
to me. It's just who I was and what
I did. So what does dead to sin mean?
It is having our old man crucified in our substitute. Now if you
want to look at the old man, Paul mentions the old man again
in his letter to the church at Ephesus in Ephesians 4.22, I'm
not gonna read them, and also Colossians 3.5 through nine.
He's still talking about the old man, the old man. The old man
is a goner. He is corrupt according to deceitful
lust. and he still exists today. But
in spite of me having to say it that way, that old man was
crucified with Christ when Christ died on that tree. Jack, I don't
have to explain it, I just need to believe it. You understand
what I'm saying? Religion refuses to accept it
because they can't wrap their puny little minds around it.
We bow to the truth, O wretched man, that in my flesh still dwells
what? No good thing. And I have trouble
with sin after God saved me. That's when my trouble with sin
started. It is having the old man crucified. And what does it say? Knowing
this. Just know it. Just know it. Not because you've seen it. Not
because you've got empirical evidence. The book says so. Believe the book, that's all
you got. That's all you're ever gonna get is just the book. Even
when the rich man who realized it's too late, I'm a goner, but
I got five brothers. Lord, call some great miracle
to come along, somebody to raise from the dead, go tell them not
to come to this place. You know what Father Abraham
said? They got this book. Let them hear them. And that's
all God gives us. So much so that Peter said that
experience that he, James, and John had in that mount, seeing
Christ transfigured, he said this here is a more sure word
of prophecy than any kind of experience like that. You know
what he says? We have a more sure word of prophecy. It's this inspired book. Knowing
this, that our old man is crucified with him. With him, that the
body of sin might be destroyed Now does it, is it destroyed
in you? No. It ain't destroyed in you. It was destroyed in him. Do you
see it? On that tree. Religion is kind
of, they don't understand this language. Why? Because they pervert
substitution and representation. And they think Jesus did it for
everybody, but not everybody goes to heaven, so it ain't really
what Jesus did. There has to be something that
goes with that. And they are being logical in
their deductions. But they are dead wrong. 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. For he that is dead is freed
from sin. And one day we'll know the reality
of that. One day we'll know that when
we lay down this coil of dust, this frame here, this body that
has within it that old man, we'll be freed. Literally, actually,
physically freed from sin. But we're freed in Christ. Don't
you get it? We're already freed, Jack, in
Christ. For he that is dead is freed
from sin. Now if we be dead with Christ. See it? My only hope is that I'm dead
with Christ. Now if we be dead with Christ.
Well, Christ died for everybody. No he didn't. If he did, everybody
would be converted. For if when we were enemies were
reconciled to God by the death of the Son, much more being reconciled,
we shall be saved by his life. Amen. Not only that, but we also
join God through our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom we have now received
the atonement. Amen. This thing of universal
substitution and universal representation is a lie straight from hell.
because Jesus Christ prays for everyone that he died for. And
Joe, did we just hear him say, I don't pray for the world? There
you go. It is having our old man crucified
in our substitute. Here's what does it mean to be
dead to sin? Two, it is having life, life.
in Christ, verse eight. Now if we be dead with him, we
believe that we shall also live with him, knowing that Christ
be raised from the dead, doth no more, death hath no more dominion
over him, for in that he died, he died and ascended once, but
in that he liveth, he liveth unto God. Let me move on. It is having identified. and submitted to, yielded to
Jesus Christ by our public yielding to his command. It is manifested,
it's outwardly manifested when we went into the water of baptism. That's right, that's right. Baptism
is yielding to God's will, not your own. Let's think about even
the natural aspect of it. You are yielding your body and
your life to another individual to put you into a place that
you cannot survive for long. And basically trusting them to
bring you back up out of that, right? Be a good place for a serial
killer to be. Oh, wait a minute, ain't that what preachers are
anyway? Some of them are. Yeah, they may not murder men's
bodies, but they murder men's souls. but it is public identification
with Christ. You cannot be a secret believer. Cannot be, even the thief on
the cross, his faith showed up on him, didn't it? And he tells
another fella, even when he was first casting the same aspersions
in his teeth, something happened, I know what happened, God Almighty
laid hold of that man. and he identified himself with
Jesus Christ. He couldn't go into the water,
but I'll tell you, nonetheless, he had a spirit-wrought identification
with Christ. He rebuked his own sin and his
buddy's sin, and he said, this man has done nothing amiss. How did he know that? It had
to be the spirit of God taught him that. He said, Lord, remember
me. When you come into your kingdom,
he knew he was the king. Did not? And he knew he needed
him to remember him. It had nothing to do, he was
dying for his sins. Right there, wasn't he? And I'll
be more appropriate, he was dying because of his sins. And our
Lord said these words to him today. Today. I can't imagine what that was
like for that man. Today shalt thou be with me in
paradise. Let me tell you, if Jesus Christ
ain't in paradise, paradise will not be paradise. Because Jesus
Christ is my only hope. I get it, it's being identified
with Christ by our publicly yielding to his command. Know ye not that
so many of us, as we're baptized into Jesus Christ, we're baptized
into his death. Note the actual wording. Don't
let, don't be like the Campbellite, the Church of Christ, who just
because he hears the word baptized, he's elated because he loves
baptism. But don't be like the first Baptist or the first Presbyterian
that's so scared of water baptism that they try to make this out
to be spirit baptism. Spirit ain't mentioned there,
and anybody who reads that with any honesty knows, dead raised. Spirit baptism ain't dead and
raised, it's raised. It's raised, that's all it is.
You're already dead when it comes to spirit baptism. The spirit
has to raise you up. But let me read it. Know ye not
that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized
into his death. Therefore we are buried with
him by baptism into death. That like as, spirit baptism
ain't a like as, it is. It is a is. Physical baptism,
identification with Christ, submission to his command is a like as,
and Peter actually calls it that in one of his epistles, does
he not? The like figure. It is the answer or that is a
response of a good conscience toward God. What's a good conscience? One that's bowed down to the
will of God. Therefore, 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. For if we've been planted together
in the likeness of his death, do you see it? We shall also
in the likeness of his resurrection. Briefly, notice he doesn't say,
and I'm not gonna try to argue about it, he doesn't say baptize
to get in Christ. He says, know ye not that so
many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ. That's the union
in a public confession. That is the union in a public
identification with Christ. And you don't ever, you can't
baptize yourself. That's called swimming. It ain't
baptism. It's swimming. I know you're
somebody, I'm glad you're laughing. If baptism is it, why don't you
just baptize yourself? You can do it backwards, frontwards,
however you're supposed to really do it. No, you have someone baptize
you. So it's not baptized to get in
Christ, nor is it baptized to be in Christ. No, no, no. In and into are two different
words. Secondly, note, notice not all
who were baptized are baptized into. Well, there's a lot of
people been baptized, they ain't been baptized into anything.
At best, a false profession. At worst, maybe a deception from
which they will never recover. See, it's not just get people
baptized. This is a willing, loving submission
and identification with Jesus Christ and he gave the command,
baptize them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy
Ghost. And that's where we first make
our first public confession. Because you got to at least have
one other person around that's a believer to be truly baptized. If you had a heretic baptize
you, you ain't never been disidentified with Christ. It's just the way
it is. If you've been baptized and it
had nothing to do with being converted by the gospel, you
ain't never been baptized like Paul's talking about here.