Romans 6:1-14
Notes
Transcript
1-4 5-10 11-14
1-4 5-10 11-14
1-4
1-4
1
1
After telling us the good news in chapter 5 that we are reconciled and at peace with God through faith and are now under the new covenant of grace through Jesus Christ who’s one act of obedience and righteousness saves all that God has given Him and also being the new and better Adam what are we to do? Are we to continue to sin and live in our old manner of being like we are still sons and daughters of Satan? Are we to sin even more so that God’s grace would be even more abundantly shown? This was what some Jew were accusing Paul and the other Apostles of teaching. Teaching that we can sin without condemnation because God’s grace will be magnified that way.
2
2
But this is far from the truth, as Paul in verse 2 says with great enthusiasm, the Greek word un translated as By no means, God forbid, or May it never be, and can also is translated in other parts of the Bible as just Not. We absolutely can Not continue to live as sinful creatures once we have been made free from sin, we have died to sin, as our Lord Jesus was crucified and died on the cross, we died with him, we are a new creatures, yes we still have our sinful flesh that we must battle with every single day, but our lives and the way we live should be modeled after and seeking to imitate the one who has saved us by living a righteous and holy life, Jesus Christ. This line of false thinking still continues now, John MacArthur pointed out that the infamous Rasputin, who was the religious adviser to the Romanov family and the Czar of Russia in the late nineteenth and twentieth century taught this antinomian view of salvation through repeated experiences of sin and false repentance, believing that the more you sin, the more God gives grace, antinomian literally means against the law. I think we can all see that this idea is not biblical and would never lead to a life that could in any way be said to imitate Christ.
3
3
After asking the hopefully rhetorical question in verse 2 if we can continue living in sin now that we have died to it Paul responds with verse 3, in the ESV it starts with “Do you not know” and the KJV is “Know ye not” but I actually think that the ASV conveys the horror that Paul feels with people that believe that they can continue in a life that is dominated by sin after having received God’s grace, verse 3 in the ASV starts with “Or are ye ignorant” we that have received the grace of God are now IN Christ, and we have been baptized, immersed in him, and have died with him, sin is dead to us and it is now not our ruler. There is some debate of Paul is specifically talking about water baptism in this verse but our observation of the command to be baptized is the outward public sign of our having been saved through Christ. It in and of itself does not bring about salvation or justification just like circumcision did not bring about any redemption, I feel like this verse is more referring to the spiritual baptism we have when we come to faith. So just as Christ died for our sins, we have died to those sins and our new pattern of life should not be that of a habitual and chronic sinner.
4
4
And just as we are in Christ in his death and buried with him we are also in him as He is raised from the dead overcoming death, so we to have been raised, reborn, born again into our new life, our new life modeled after Him whom we are in, Christ. We are to walk now as new creatures, no longer with a heart of stone that is always seeking to glorify ourselves, but new creatures with a heart of flesh that wants to glorify God and to do the will of God, to follow His commandments and statutes, to be Christ like, to be a Christian. If we have been changed, if we are truly a new creature that has been born again how can we live and act like our old dead selves, Jesus said that you will know his people by their fruits and the fruits of a true Christian should not be dead rotten things but good ripe useful fruits that are pleasing in the eyes of the Lord.
5-10
5-10
5
5
Now that we are in Christ we have not only died with him to our sin, but we will be resurrected like He was. We have been made new creatures in this life, now that we have been reborn in the spirit, receiving the Holy Spirit as our ever present helper, but we will also be resurrected at the end of the age with new perfected, or re-perfected sinless bodies as they were designed to be by God so that we will not need to struggle with and fight sin, our new sinless bodies will no longer be under the curse of sin and death so we can spend an eternity with our God, praising and worshipping Him.
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6
Since we are in Christ, our old self, and this Greek word translated old, palaios, is not referring to chronological age, which would have been archaios, but old as in worn out and useless, our old worn out sin stained self, was crucified with Christ, He took the punishment for all of our sins, all meaning all of the ones that were chosen before the foundations of the world and given to Christ as a bride. All of our sins, the whole body of our sins, all of them past, present, and future were placed on Christ on the cross and destroyed so that we can be free of sin, be redeemed, delivered from our old evil master satan to whom we have been enslaved to from birth because we all fell with Adam.
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7
So since we all have sinned, and from sin brings death, and if we have been crucified and died with Christ we are now set free from sin because we have already died in Christ. But we do still sin, so how have we been set free from sin? Spiritually we have been freed from sin, but our spirit still resides in our fallen sin stained bodies, we now have the desire, and with the help of the Holy Spirit, will to fight against sin, and through our continual sanctification this will and desire will become stronger and stronger, as we grow closer and closer to our Lord and Savior Jesus.
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8
Now that we have died to sin with Jesus, and we are free from our slavery to sin, so just as Jesus was resurrected and lives and is seated at the right hand of the Father interceding for us so we will live too. We will not be seated at the right hand of God but just as Jesus overcame the grave in a resurrected body, so shall we be resurrected with new perfected sinless bodies so that we will be able to be in the presence of God in the new heaven and new Earth.
9-10
9-10
This is one of the most glorious truths in the bible, Christ defeated death and lives again, and will never die again his act of atonement is sufficient and will never need repeating, death which came in through sin from the fall of Adam and Eve and propagated to the entire human race and all of creation has been defeated in Christ. His resurrected body is not under the dominion of death and he will, as we said, forever be at the right hand of God the Father on the throne saying these are mine, I paid for them, the ones that You have given me and God will see Jesus’ righteousness when He looks upon us and call us sons and daughters.
11-14
11-14
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11
So as shown in verses 1-10 we are in Christ in his death, and are now dead to sin, we are still battling sin in our fallen bodies but we now have the desire and will power through the Holy Spirit in us to fight that battle and progress in our sanctification, we can also, since we are in Christ and he is risen, consider ourselves to be alive, spiritually alive right now and will be physically alive at the resurrection so we will be able to be in the presence of God for eternity.
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Therefore since now we do have help in the Holy Spirit in us we should not let sin reign in our bodies and life, we have the ability to fight, through reading the word and prayer, reading and praying every day seeking God’s way and asking for help that will surely be given. We are no longer slaves to sin, it and Satan are no longer our masters, He is still trying to tempt us and seeking to destroy us, even more fervently now that we are new creatures in Christ, but sin and death no longer own us, we have been bought and paid for as a bride for Jesus Christ.
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13
So now that we have been made alive and are a bride for Christ we must work to fight temptation in our bodies so that we progress in our sanctification and work for the glory of God presenting ourselves as instruments, or vessels, or conduits for righteousness, so that God would be magnified and his glory will be evident in and through us. The world is watching us, if we claim to be new creatures in Christ, bought and paid for, redeemed and acceptable to God, but they see no change in our behaviour and actions, how we treat others, what we do, then how will that reflect God to the world?
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14
Paul closes this section of thought telling us that sin does not have dominion, authority, or power over us because we are not under the law but under the grace of God because when God looks upon us and since we are in Christ and He in us, God will see Christ’s perfect keeping of the law and His righteousness covering us, a wonderful and saving act of God’s grace.