Romans chapter 6. I want to read
from verse 15. What then? Shall we sin because
we are not under the law, but under grace. God forbid. Know ye not that to whom ye yield
yourselves servants to obey, his servants ye are to whom ye
obey, whether of sin unto death or of obedience unto righteousness? But God be thanked that ye were
the servants of sin, but ye have obeyed from the heart that form
of doctrine which was delivered you. Being then made free from
sin, ye became the servants of righteousness. I speak after
the manner of men because of the infirmity of your flesh.
For as ye have yielded your members servants to uncleanness and to
iniquity unto iniquity, even so now yield your members servants
to righteousness unto holiness. For when ye were the servants
of sin, ye were free from righteousness. What fruit had ye then in those
things whereof ye are now ashamed? For the end of those things is
death. But now being made free from
sin and become servants to God, ye have your fruit unto holiness
and the end everlasting life. For the wages of sin is death,
but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our
Lord. Amen. May God bless to us this
reading from his word. I want to spend a few moments
this evening, if I may, especially at the beginning of what I hope
to say about this passage in Romans, just dwelling perhaps
by way of some sort of extended introduction upon the question
of sin. I want to just think about sin
for a little while. The Lord Jesus Christ once said,
John chapter eight, verse 34. He said, whosoever committeth
sin is the servant of sin. Whosoever committeth sin is the
servant of sin. And I think that that is a helpful
description of the nature and power of sin and evil in the
heart and in the life of every man and every woman. The Bible tells us that we are
born in sin. It's clear from Scripture. It's
easily provable that the Word of God renders all men and women
guilty before God because of their sin. And whether we're
thinking about that in the context of the Garden of Eden and the
Fall, we discover that sin passes upon all men and women. and all have sinned and come
short of the glory of God. But sin is not a list of our
misdeeds. It's not a catalogue of our crimes. Sin is more insidious than that
and we can all identify with the idea of a list, a rap sheet
if you like, a list of things that we've done wrong and we
could think about it, we could spend time thinking about the
things we've done wrong. There are churches, there are
denominations that make their existence, they establish their
existence in providing forgiveness for people's sins. and people go and they confess
their sins to a priest. And that priest gives them absolution
day by day, week by week, month by month, depending on the frequency
with which they attend, for their sins. And it's perceived as if
sins are the things that we've done wrong We can call them to
mind. The more sensitive we are, then
perhaps the longer the list, the less sensitive, then we struggle
maybe to find a few that we've committed. But that's not what sin is. Sin, according to Scripture,
is a ruling principle. It's an irresistible tendency
that is itself ensnaring, imprisoning, and debilitating in the lives of those it infects. It's a principle, a principle
of disobedience, a principle of bias, to transgress the law
of God. It is not the outward manifestations
of the deeds done, but rather an internal corruption that affects
and afflicts us, a sickness in our very nature that affects
and influences all that we do, all that we say, all that we
think, and all that we are. There is not a word comes out
our mouth, therefore, that is not affected and influenced by
our sin. There's not a good deed that
we do that isn't affected by our sin. The sin is the principle
within and everything that comes out is tainted and affected by
that so that even our best is spoiled. When we talk about sin in scripture,
very often we'll find that it is likened to leprosy. Today we might use a different
analogy if we were trying to describe it and maybe cancer
is another way that we might describe this principle of sin
in a person's experience. It lurks in our being. It is part of our identity. And for a time it may be imperceptible,
for a time you may not see its outworkings, its consequences. But sooner or later, and usually
it's sooner, it vents forth, it spews out. The evidence of
the internal condition begins to be revealed in the things
that are said and the things that are done. Our attitudes betray the fact
that sin dwells in our life. whether it's towards our fellow
man, whether it's within our family, whether it's against
those that we love, or whether we think about this in that cosmic
sense of before God, that sin principle antagonises and rebels
and seeks self-satisfaction against everything that is around about
us. Sin in man is a motivating force. We succumb to temptation. When something triggers a response
in us, we like to think that we have free will to be able
to choose whether to go down a particular course of action
or not. And true it is that for the sake
of a principle, a man might say, No, I'm not going to give place
to that lust in my flesh. And for the sake of the love
that I have for my wife, I'm going to stay faithful, despite
the fact that I'm being tempted at this very moment to break
my vows and to do something that I shouldn't do. And an individual
could put up a barrier against that. But that same individual
has already been tempted in their eyes, in their heart. And even
if they are able to prevent themselves doing something, the nature of
that sin principle in our heart finds that there is a sense of
self-righteousness, a sense of pride, results from the fact
that, yeah, you know what? I'm able to resist that. I'm
able to hold out against that. But even that very thing shows
that the passions are stirred inside the breast and that there
is a desire to pursue sinful conduct. We're driven, because of that
sin principle in our lives, to destruction. and ultimately to
death. And we spoil everything that
is around about us. It causes us, that sin principle,
to be deserving of judgment. because God, who is holy, cannot
look upon sin. And therefore, we have a sense
of needing to flee from his presence if we have any concept of our
sin at all. And it is the justifiable reason
why there must be eternal separation. from those who still carry that
sin principle and those sins in their lives. A sinful nature spawns sinful
deeds and sins are the product of sin. The sins that we commit
are the product of our sin principle in our lives. Sins that we commit,
those crimes, that disobedience, those transgressions are the
practical product of the nature within us, the kind of people
that we are. That's the effect, that's the
outworking, that's the consequence of the sin principle in our lives. And it's that sin principle that
the Lord was speaking about in John chapter 8, that verse that
I quoted at the beginning when I started to speak. It's that
sin principle when the Lord says, whosoever committeth sin is the
servant of sin. It shows. We commit sin because
we are the servants of sin. That sin principle is what drives
us. That sin principle is what motivates
us. And the evidence of that, the
mark of that in the individual is the sin that they commit. When another time the Lord speaks
of knowing a tree by its fruit, the idea is the same. It's the easiest way to tell
what kind of tree you've got. Is that an apple tree or a pear
tree? Now, unless you're really clever about the leaves, and
they're pretty much the same, you've got to wait until the
autumn. You've got to wait until the fall to see what the fruit
is. And that's the picture that the
Lord is addressing, is alluding to here. Whosoever committeth
sin is a servant of sin. You can see the fact that we
are servants of sin because we commit sin. In Matthew chapter
seven, verse 16, the Lord says, you shall know them by their
fruits. Every good tree bringeth forth
good fruit, but a corrupt tree bringeth forth evil fruit. Then
he goes on to say, you don't gather grapes of thorns or figs
of thistles. That's the idea behind what the
Lord is referring to here. And what he's saying is this,
that our conduct, our sins as far as that sin principle is
concerned, but our conduct betrays whose servant we are. Betrays who we serve. You see,
we all like to think that, you know, we're individuals, we're
autonomous, we're stand alone. But the Word of God tells us,
despite man's desire to be a free agent and to follow his destiny
and to be liberated from all of the constrictions of life,
and we see it all the time, you know, this is the land, is it
not, of liberty. This ideal is set up before us
of find yourself, prove yourself, follow your own way, do it my
way. But the reality is that this
principle within us, this principle of evil is always driving us
down, always ensnaring us. So here we have the way in which
these things are revealed in the word of God. The Lord is
saying our sins betray whose servant we are and by our sinful
actions we all reveal our true nature. We're all sins slaves. And the Lord goes on in John
chapter 8 to speak of the means whereby liberty from that servitude
can be obtained, liberty from the captivity of that sin principle
is to be obtained. And that's the purpose of the
gospel, speaking about freedom that we can have in the Lord
Jesus Christ. He says in verse 36, for example,
If the Son therefore shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed. Free in the sense that we are
free from the rule of sin in our life, free from the dominion,
free from that sin principle acting upon us. And he says,
we will be free indeed. Indeed, we shall be. And that's
one of the reasons why the Apostle Paul, bringing this letter to
the Romans, could speak about the fact that the gospel was
the power of God, because it would bring that liberating experience
into the lives of individuals. But I want to draw your attention
because in a sense I want to, we've maybe said some things
there that you're familiar with, but I want to just take it as
it were to a slightly lower level and think about something more
particularly, and it's this. We need to realise and we need
to remember that freedom from the dominion of sin, freedom
from that sin principle, is not the same as freedom from the
consequences of sin in our flesh. Okay, what do I mean by that?
Well, we've all seen pictures of a leprous person, someone
that's got leprosy. And even if that leprosy could
be cured, The flesh of the leper is still
wasted. The marks of that leprosy continue,
even although the activity of the leprosy can be diminished. A cancer can be cut out of a
person's body, but the scars will still remain in that body. There's a consequence to sin,
that even when the sin principle is removed, continues in our
lives. Now, you might say, well, what
about Naaman? Wasn't Naaman's cure, wasn't
the leprosy that Naaman had, wasn't that cured completely,
entirely? Yes, it was. Listen to what is
said in 2 Kings. His flesh came again like unto
the flesh of a little child, and he was clean. Bartimaeus, that blind man that
met the Lord in Jericho, or just outside of Jericho, He received
his sight. The eyes of the blind man were
made to see. And these miraculous healings
of the Lord, and there were many, were typical, typical. of the spiritual healing that
had gone on inside. So Naaman was brought to see
something of the nature of the true God and he believed that
there was one true God that was to be worshipped, and you remember
what he said to Elisha, how that he would go back to Damascus,
back to Syria, and would the Lord forgive him when he had
to bend the knee at the idolatrous shrine. He was a man who had
been changed in the inside. That sin principle had been taken
away. And the outward cleansing of
Naaman was a picture. It was typical of what had happened
inside. That's why it had to be that
he was cleansed in the inside. It was the same with Bartimaeus
or with any other of these miracles that took place, that the outward
change, the being made to see when you were blind was a picture
of what had happened internally, that the sin principle had been
removed. Their sins had been forgiven,
that sin principle had been overthrown in their lives, and in order
to demonstrate that fact, in order to reveal what had been
done, that divine work of grace that had been effected in their
souls, their bodies were also cured. Naaman still died. And Bartimaeus did too. Do you recall the miracle that the
Lord performed where he said to the man that was sick of the
palsy, he had been carried in by a number of his friends and
they took him on to the top of the house because they couldn't
get access into the presence of the Lord for the throne. that
was around about him and they undid the tiles on the top of
the roof and they let this man in his bed right down into the
middle and there was the Lord teaching and preaching when suddenly
the little bits of dust started to fall around them and then
a hole appeared in the roof and the next thing you know, here's
somebody in a bed being lowered down into the middle of the room. And the Lord looked at the man
and he saw the faith of the man and he saw the faith of those
who had brought him. And he says to the man, thy sins
are forgiven thee. Do you remember what happened
then? All the Pharisees and the scribes
said, who is this that can forgive sins? Who is this that can forgive
sins? Who does he think he is? Only
God can forgive sins. And the Lord said, whether it
is easier to say, thy sins be forgiven thee, or to say, rise
up and walk. But that ye may know that the
Son of Man hath power upon earth to forgive sins, he saith unto
the sick of the palsy, I say unto thee, arise, take up thy
couch, and go into thy house. That's in Luke 5. It's in, actually,
I think it's in Mark and Matthew as well, the same account is
provided for us. But you see the difference, see
what had happened there? That man's sins were forgiven him
while he was still lying in the bed. He didn't have to have his
legs healed. to have eternal life. He didn't
have to have his sickness taken away for him to have that sin
principle dealt with in his life. And indeed, it's almost as if,
had it not been for the fact that these men spoke against
the Lord, that the Lord was simply going to say to the man, your
sins are forgiven now, could you just take them back up again? But he healed him to show the
reality of the internal work. Why? Because he was proving that
he was God. Now, I know that you're thinking,
he's taking an awful long time to get to Romans. And I am, but
I explained that it's a long introduction. But here's the
thing. I hope to show this evening,
from what we're seeing here, the distinction between sin's
dominion and the presence of sin in our
lives. There is a difference. There
is a difference. And just as that man had that
sin principle taken away, there still was that sickness in his
body. The sin principle can be removed,
but the effects, the consequences of sin in our lives, they continue,
they're still there, and they will continue until our bodies
are changed. The sick man's sins were forgiven,
but the palsy that was the consequence of sin whether you think it was
his sin or his parents' sin or Adam's sin, that sickness, that
illness, those consequences of sin, that deterioration of his
body, that was still there when his sins were forgiven. And so it was two miracles that
were done. It was the forgiveness of his sins and it was the changing
of his body. And every elect child of God
has two miracles granted to them. The first is that our sins are
forgiven by the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. That sin principle
is overthrown. But the effects of sin remain
until Our bodies of flesh are raised
up again from the earth. And we are taken with changed
bodies into the presence of our God. That renewal in the resurrection,
that change of our bodies into a body like unto Christ, that
is the second part, if you like. That's like the man being told,
now rise, take up your beds and go into your house. His sins were forgiven, but there
was a time, it was just a short time, but there was a time until
the body was healed. Ephesians 1.14 speaks about that. It speaks about the redemption
of the purchased possession. There is a redemption, happens
to the people of God in time when the gospel comes to us and
we see that the Lord Jesus Christ in his death has redeemed us
from our sins. And that sin principle is overthrown
in our lives. Satan no longer has control. He no longer has dominion in
the believer's life. But there is still to be the
redemption of the purchased possession at that time when our bodies
are gathered also into the presence of our Lord. And until then,
the consequences of sin, the consequences of our nature are
going to continue in our lives. These bodies, though we have
been brought to a knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ as our
Saviour, though the sin principle has been dealt with in the new
creation, in the coming of the Holy Spirit into our lives, yet
our flesh continues to carry the scars, to bear the marks
of the old nature, the carnal nature, and the old man. These are words that are used
in scripture to speak about this fleshy desire that still is there
to contend with the new principle that has been implanted in the
believer's life. Indeed, the Bible tells us, Paul
tells us that the old man wars against the new man. And the
flesh, again, he says, in which dwells no good thing. Wars against
the spirit. So those who have been quickened,
those who have been made spiritually alive, they don't discover that
they don't sin anymore. Wouldn't it be wonderful if we
did discover that? But we discover that the scars,
the marks of that old sin principle continue with us in our bodies. and that there's a fight begins.
It's not a case of one is deposed and another is installed and
the world changes. No, that's just not the reality. The old fights against the new. What Paul here in Romans chapter
six, verse six, has previously called the body of sin. The evil nature is deposed, and
we are free indeed, because that's what the Lord Jesus Christ said
we would be. If the Son shall make you free,
you shall be free indeed. And he has, and we are free.
And Paul has emphasised this. He says we're free from the law. He says we're free from sin. But that sin principle tries
to regain control. And these final verses from Romans
chapter six that we've read this evening, they are designed to
give the believer comfort. And that's what I want you to
take away from this evening. I want you to be comforted in
the face of the trials that you still have with that scar, with
that flesh, with that ongoing resistance that you feel even
to the things that you know are wrong and you would long to be
a different person and yet you have to struggle with these things.
And I want you to know that Paul understood I want you to know
that Paul is speaking to you this evening with respect to
that struggle that you feel in your heart, in your breast, in
your life, in your conduct and the challenges that you have
every day. It's designed to comfort us.
That's what the apostle is saying here. He's telling us that we
have been changed. He's telling us that we have
been justified. He is showing us that as far
as God is concerned, he regards us as cleansed from sin. We are
they to whom upon the shed blood of Jesus Christ and
the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, salvation has been bestowed.
Not because we deserve it or our works or anything like that.
It's a gift. It's a gift of God to us. He has gifted salvation to his
people. He has given us faith in the
Lord Jesus Christ by which we are able to understand the significance
of the death of Christ in enabling God to forgive our sins and to
bestow His righteousness upon us, to view us and regard us
as a righteous, holy people. And being under grace, Paul has
told us in the first part of chapter six, the old man has
been crucified. He has been dethroned. That sin
principle has been dethroned in the believer's life. Being
free from the law, The power of sin has been drained because
we see that Christ has fulfilled all requirements of God, that
he has satisfied everything as far as God is concerned towards
us and we are no longer under any condemnation. The law has
been satisfied and the blood of Christ and the righteousness
of God have been applied to the believer. and in our justified
state, in our free salvation, in that deliverance from sin. These things are facts as far
as God is concerned towards us. It speaks of the divine promise
and the divine purpose in the church of Jesus Christ, in the
people of God. And these facts, which we preach
in the gospel, which we speak about regularly, these facts
lead us to thank God for his rich mercy, for his forgiveness,
and for the sin-sensitive hearts that he has placed within us.
And yet we feel that sin in our bodies. Yet we know that we don't
live perfectly. Yet we feel that there is still
that dragging experience as if we're hauling along a great ball
and chain behind us. At the very same time, we know
that sin persists in our nature. And we lament our weakness under
temptation and we detest that fleshy lust which we still find
rising up within us. We realize that we're at war
while inwardly we have a desire to honor Christ. And this is Paul's purpose all
along. to explain and to comfort the
believer in that daily struggle which takes place, that seemingly
constant battle in which we are engaged. The frequent sense of
failure that we feel, the weariness of spirit, the weariness of the
flesh, the weariness of our body, the trials of life which all
seem starkly contrary to the victory of grace. And we find
almost that there's this ambiguity, this schizophrenia in us, that
we're believing one thing about the cleansing blood of the Lord
Jesus Christ, but dealing daily with the effects of that old
man within us. Where is the glorious liberty
of the children of God? And yet that's what we are called
to believe, that's what faith, that's what the preaching of
the gospel tells us, that Christ has dealt with this problem. Our sins are forgiven, the old
sin principle has been overthrown, and Christ now reigns in our
life. But his reign is an enabling
reign in order that we might contend against this fleshy body
in which dwells no good thing. Once we were servants to sin,
but that rule has been overthrown in the Lord Jesus Christ. Now
we are servants of righteousness and we are called to live to
the glory of our new master and we desire to do so. We desire
to live righteously as that new creation but we realise that
we still have to live in this world of sin, in this fleshy
body, and to contend for that righteous principle in our hearts. Because sin still besets us. Though that sin, we are taught,
is not imputed to us. So as far as God is concerned,
though we feel that sin besetting us, he does not see that sin
in our souls, on our account, because he sees the Lord Jesus
Christ and he sees the blood of Christ cleansing that sin. And that's the point that the
apostle is driving at here. That is why he's saying, I have
told you that you are justified. I have shown you from scripture,
from the Old Testament, from David, from Abraham, from Moses,
how that these things are so. I have shown you how that the
Lord has brought forgiveness and justification, therefore
being justified. And that justification means
that we are at peace with God. But that justification brings
a new principle into our souls, and a principle which seeks after
the glory of God in the following after of righteousness. We continue
to sin, but sin no longer rules over us. We regret our sin. We repent of our sin. When we sin, the Holy Spirit
quickly tells us that that's just not how we should live.
And there is a desire to become more and more conformed to the
image of Christ. That desire speaks of that new
rule, that righteous rule, which is in our hearts, so that the
very Feelings of weakness and weariness which shows us that
we are still in the flesh ought to be an encouragement to us
because it is testimony to the fact that the old sin principle
has been dethroned and a new principle of righteousness has
been established in our hearts. Sin returns to us frequently. but it should also, every time
it comes, return us more frequently to the blood of Jesus Christ
that cleanses us from all sins. So that our daily experience
of sin is what drives us to daily experience the efficacy of the
cleansing blood of Jesus Christ. And that's what faith does. It
shows us our weaknesses, but it shows us Christ's strength.
It shows us our failures, but it shows us his victory. It enables
us to see that while we are weak, he is strong. And it drives us
into the arms of our loving Saviour. I think that that's one of the
interesting things that that verse 17 tells us here. It's
an odd thing for Paul to say. Paul says in verse 17 of chapter
6, God be thanked that ye were the servants of sin. Why should we thank God that
we were the servants of sin? Because being the servants of
sin Seeing that sin principle at work in our lives, we know
what Christ has done. We would never be able to honour
and praise Christ as much had we not been the servants of sin.
And this conversion, this change, this transformation teaches us
the majesty of the way of salvation, the glory of this plan, this
great reconciling work that the Lord Jesus Christ has accomplished. We confess our guiltiness and
we rejoice at the very same moment in our guiltlessness. Do you
get that? We confess our guiltiness and
rejoice in our guiltlessness. And that is the experience of
the believer every day. Shall we sin because we are not
under the law but under grace? God forbid. That's not how people
who have the new principle of righteousness think about these
things. We know that the wages of sin is death. We know that
because we were under that condemnation in our own hearts and in our
own souls. We have been saved from that. We have no desire to pursue sin. We have no desire to indulge
ourselves in sin, to give this old man any oxygen that he might
draw breath and live again in our souls. We're constantly endeavouring
to put our hands around his neck and throttle the life out of
him. but he kicks hard. We've been saved and we lay hold
upon that free and full gift of eternal life which the Lord
Jesus Christ has won for us. And we are both sorry and thankful
at the same time. We're ashamed and emboldened
at the same time. We're weary in the flesh and
we're refreshed with living waters from above as our faith rests
in Christ and the completed and finished redemption of our souls. These are truths that the believer
should draw comfort from. because this is a hard life for
the child of God. We live in a world that is opposed
to us, a world that is endeavouring constantly to assert its dominion
and its power over us. That sin principle that so positively
responded to those overtures in the past has been taken away. And the principle of righteousness
which has been given to us is a principle that leads us into
truth and life and liberty. But we will struggle day by day.
But as we do, we are turned ever more frequently to rest in the
Lord Jesus Christ and the completeness of his salvation and the power
of his blood. And that is where our strength
lies. Our boldness is to be found and
our blessings are to be enjoyed. So let us be men and women who
understand these things that go on in our lives and realise
that the Apostle Paul provided a description and an explanation
of them, that when they occur, when they happen, when we discover
it to be the portion and lot of our Christian experience,
we understand why it's taking place. And we're able to rejoice
in the Lord at the same time. Amen.