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This message is part of a sermon series. For the rest of the sermon series go to Dead to Sin
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| Image @ CreationSwap/Jeff Miller |
What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound? Certainly not! How shall we who died to sin live any longer in it? Or do you not know that as many of us as were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death? Therefore we were buried with Him through baptism into death, that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life. For if we have been united together in the likeness of His death, certainly we also shall be in the likeness of His resurrection, knowing this, that our old man was crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves of sin. For he who has died has been freed from sin. Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him, knowing that Christ, having been raised from the dead, dies no more. Death no longer has dominion over Him.” (NKJV)
The question in verse one and Paul’s attempt to answer it in verse two sets in his mind such a tension that he would want his listeners and readers to get the correct view. Let us remind ourselves of the question: “Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound?” In answering the question Paul said: “God forbid! (Certainly not!) How shall we who died to sin live any longer in it?” That answer was a question for the reader to think over and offer his own answer.
But in verse 3, he began to introduce the right view and this view is based on three words- Know, Reckon and Yield. Today, we want to look only at one of these three words – KNOW. In the passage we read he used it in three verses – 3, 6 and 9.
In verse three he asked “Do you not KNOW that as many of us as were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death?Therefore we are buried with Him by baptism unto death.” Paul offers baptism as a commentary on the Christian life. Baptism sets forth the believer’s relation to sin to the old self, to Christ and to the resurrection life. I wish to point out that though Paul would later speak of water baptism, he is here not talking of water baptism.
Baptism is first of all a burial. It is the burial of the body of sin that died with Christ on the Cross through faith. It is noteworthy that the article “the” is before the word “death” in the original Greek text. It is “the death” not a death of the believer. It is the death of the Son of God. We were buried with Christ in baptism not in order that we might die to sin, but because we were already dead to sin. We do not bury living people so that they may die, no we bury the dead. Likewise the believer is baptized, not to save him, but because he is already dead to sin, and alive to Christ; and he is baptized to proclaim publicly the inward work of grace.
In verses 4-5, we read: “that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life. For if we have been united together in the likeness of His death, certainly we also shall be in the likeness of His resurrection” If we are to know victory over sin, in our lives, we must first of all know that we died with Christ on the Cross. When He died, we died! When He was buried we were buried!(in the mind of God!) This passage does not discuss water baptism only in so far as water baptism stands behind as a symbol of the thing he is talking about here. Paul is talking about the Spiritual reality. When Christ died, we died; and when we believe, He baptizes us by the operation of the Spirit of God immersing us into the body of Christ. So the first thing we should know is that every believer died when Christ died on the Cross and was buried when He was buried and was resurrected a Spiritual being when Christ was resurrected. This new Spiritual being cannot continue in sin that grace may abound for Spiritual beings in Christ do not sin.
Then we come to verse 6 where we read: “knowing this, that our old man was crucified with Him,” The old man here denotes the unregenerate person of our past. We are said to have been crucified with Christ in order that we understand that the time of our dying with Christ was when He died for us. And yet we talk about “crucifying the old man”. Do we not? The fact is that “the old man” has been crucified, if you are a Christian. It has died; but again and again, it stirs up our pride for us to try to do something by “crucifying the flesh of the old man” but Christ has already gotten the victory! The old man was crucified with Christ at the Cross, and the task is finished, in the mind of God. It is this fact that Paul was reemphasizing when he wrote to the Galatians in Galatians 2:20-21: “I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me. I do not set aside the grace of God; for if righteousness comes through the law, then Christ died in vain.”
See also First Peter 4:1-2: “Therefore, since Christ suffered for us in the flesh, arm yourselves also with the same mind, for he who has suffered in the flesh has ceased from sin, that he no longer should live the rest of his time in the flesh for the lusts of men, but for the will of God.”
When we exercised faith in Christ, we entered into that crucifixion “that the body of sin be destroyed”. Here some people run into problem when they try to substitute destruction here with annihilation. It is not the same. Every one of us knows that although that old man is crucified with Christ, there is still with us the sin nature. “If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us” (First John1:8). Sin is still here with us. The word destroy simply means “that the body of sin might be made of none effect, rendered him potent and powerless.”
But what is the body of sin? It is the body we have, in which sin finds an instrument: the tongue, the hands, the mind, - sin does not find its source in the body, sin finds its source in the will, but uses the body as an instrument. Because we were crucified with Christ the body of sin is actually powerless in our lives. “That henceforth we shall not serve sin, for he that is dead is freed from sin.” (v.6) Here imagine a corpse lying before us. It does not matter how great a sinner that corpse was, it is now free forever. We are not to doubt the transaction back there when we died with Christ. “He that is dead is passed from sin.” You cannot take a man that is dead and punish him anymore. When he died back at the Cross with Christ the question was settled. The penalty was paid. Sin has nothing more to do with us, because we are dead to it. “If we be dead with Christ, we believe, that we shall also live with Him.” Death is past and believers are now alive in Christ and should conduct themselves as dead to the past. This is the second thing we should know: that we are dead and dead man has no memory of the past.
Then finally in verse 9: “knowing that Christ, having been raised from the dead, dies no more. Death no longer has dominion over Him.” We all know that the resurrected Christ can never die again. We now see that we cannot make distinctions between the life of Christ and the life of the believer. Thus what is said of Jesus likewise is virtually true of the redeemed. Therefore, the believer having died to death once does not die any more forever. If Christ does not and will not die, anymore do we? Certainly not! Some people say we can but we died with Him, were buried with Him, raised with Him. He will not die anymore; where in the line did Christ leave us to die again? Nowhere, so we die no more. That is security. Death has no dominion over Him When He went to the Cross; He paid the debt of sin in full. And when the debt is paid in full, the creditor has no more power over the debtor. We are in Him; therefore death has no more dominion over us.
The other day, after a message like this, someone challenged me outside and said: “Silas the other day, I saw you in the funeral of a Christian brother who died; what are you talking about that a Christian cannot die?” Yes, the problem is that there are two deaths –Spiritual death (eternal separation from God) and physical death (separation from the things of this world). We still will be finally liberated from the things of this world when we die physically. We are now talking of Spiritual death.
Verse 10 sums the matter in a few words: “For the death that He died, He died to sin once for all; but the life that He lives, He lives to God.” (NKJV)
First of all, when Christ died, we died. When we died back there with Him, our old self was crucified. Second being identified with Him, we are risen from the dead, to die no more.
So last week we ended with a note of despair as we recognized the presence of wrong and the absence of victory. But now it is all because we do not know what we ought to know – that we have died and baptized into Christ’s death, that the old nature, the old man also was crucified and so has no power to make demands on us and finally that we have been raised with Christ and that as the risen Christ cannot die again, neither can we.
Next time we begin our look at the two other words – RECKON and YIELD for in them is our final victory.
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