1 Jun 2013 ... When Christ rose from the dead he was alive to God. He was free from the reign
of sin and death and once again in the reign of righteousness.
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Sermon – 06/01/2013 pm
Dead to Sin, Alive to God Study Text: Romans 6:11-14
How is your Latin? Augustine wrote in Latin and one of the things he wrote was posse peccare, non posse non peccare, posse non peccare, non posse peccare. Posse mean possible or able. Peccare means to sin. The translation therefore is as follows: able to sin, not able not to sin, able not to sin, not able to sin. Where do you fit in this spectrum? In the first box? Only one man has fitted this box and that was Adam. The second box refers to the human condition after Adam – not able not to sin. It is the category into which we were all born. What about thew third box – able not to sin? If you are a believer in Jesus Christ you have been united to Christ in his death. As such you are in this category. In Christ you have the power not to sin. If you think you are in the fourth box you need to think again. While ever you are in the present body in this present world you are able to sin. Only when you enter heaven will there be no temptation and no sin. When Christ died he ‘died to sin once for all’ (6:10). We know that Christ died for our sin in that he took our sin upon himself there on the cross. But what does Paul mean by saying Christ died to sin? He uses the same expression with regard to us in verse 2 and again in verse 11. Christ had no sin so he could not die in the sense of stopping from sin. In this world he was tempted in every way as we are yet without sin (Hebrews 4:15). When he died he left this world. He left the presence of sin. He left all relationship to sin. When Christ rose from the dead he was alive to God. He was free from the reign of sin and death and once again in the reign of righteousness. He is in fact the ruler who reigns in this kingdom of righteousness. What has all this got to do with our relationship to sin? Paul is still answering the question ‘shall we continue in sin that grace may abound’ (6:1). He is still explaining his answer in verse 2 – ‘we died to sin, how can we live any longer in it?’
1. Dead to Sin ‘Likewise you also, reckon yourselves to be dead indeed to sin’ (6:11). What does ‘likewise’ mean? It means like Christ as in verse 5 – ‘in the likeness of his death’. Like Christ died to sin when he died on the cross you also reckon yourself dead to sin. We have not yet left this sinful world through death but as those who by the grace of God though faith are now in Christ we have died to the reign of sin. Our old man was crucified with him (6:6). We are a new person in Christ. When you became a Christian you may not have changed on the outside but you did inside – some do change outwardly by washing their hair or not being drunk. That inner change will have affected who you are. It will have affected what you say and what you do. Instead of cursing and swearing you will use your tongue to praise God. Reckon yourselves dead to sin. We came across this word ‘reckon’ back in chapter 4; the Greek word ‘logizomai’. We saw it was a bookkeeping term which means reckon or count. It
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refers to matter of logic. Here in verse 11 we can best understand its meaning as ‘recognise’ or ‘consider’ the truth of your situation. Christ's death and resurrection has changed your relationship to sin. Being united to Christ in his death you must recognise that you are dead to sin. Morris writes ‘this does not mean you are immune to sinning. Paul does not say that sin is dead but that the believer is to count himself dead to it. He feels temptation and sometimes sins’. But unlike the situation of an unbeliever who is not able not to sin the believer is able not to sin. This passage is the first exhortation in this letter to the Romans. Paul has spent five chapters teaching about the reality and universality of sin, and about the particularity of salvation by the grace of God in Jesus Christ. Now he urges believers not to do anything to save themselves but to recognise who they are in Jesus Christ. Just as Christ’s death was followed by life so also we must regard ourselves as alive to God in Jesus Christ (not through Jesus Christ as in the King James Version). We are not in limbo land doing nothing – that would indicate we are still alive to sin. We are not dead and waiting to be made alive. We must consider ourselves alive to God because we are united to Jesus Christ our Lord (6:11). Here is the word Lord or Master again. When we were justified we left Adam behind to come under the headship of Christ. God now ‘sees us not as we are ‘in ourselves’ but as we are in Christ’ writes Morris. We should see ourselves in the same way. We should look upon ourselves, and other people, as God looks upon us and them.
2. Do Not This exhortation continues with a couple of ‘dos’ and a couple of ‘do nots’. ‘Do not let sin reign in your mortal body’ (6:12), is followed by do not present the parts of your body as instruments of wickedness (6:13). These are matched by ‘do’ statements but we will look at the 'do nots' first. Note that these statements are meaningless if you think that you cannot sin. Some Christians believe they cannot sin – they are called perfectionists. Paul wrote that ‘our old man was crucified with Christ’ (6:6), but he does not mean that the believer is no longer tempted and cannot sin. ‘Therefore’ means these directions are a consequence of what has just been said, a consequence of reckoning yourself dead to sin. Knowing this to be true, and having this matter settled in your mind, do not let sin reign in your mortal body. You will be tempted but you can stand against it because you are in Christ. As one evangelist said ‘you cannot stop the birds flying over your head but you can stop them nesting in your hair’. You are no longer unde the reign of sin. You are no longer a slave to sin. Murray writes that to say to a slave ‘Do not behave as a slave' is to mock his enslavement, but it is a meaningful and proper thing to say to a slave who has been set free. Jesus told his disciples ‘the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak’ (Mark 14:38). The mortal body is still subject to the lusts of the flesh. You still get thirsty and when you get thirsty you take a drink. But you can rule over this desire – not that you need to in regard to water. But
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what about alcohol? The desire of the flesh is there – I am tired and need a little help to relax. But your renewed mind will say ‘this drink may get hold of me and destroy me and my family. The Bible warns us about the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes (I John 2:16). The mortal body has needs which sin turns into greeds. The mortal body has desires which sin turns into lusts or evil desires. Do not let sin reign so that you obey its lusts (6:12). Let grace reign through Jesus Christ and you will have life, life to the full. The reign of sin, the reign of lust leads to death. Do not present/offer/sacrifice your members/parts to sin as instruments for unrighteousness/wickedness (6:13). Jesus said that if your hand causes you to sin cut it off. Although he was speaking with hyperbole he was indicating the seriousness of sin. That sin done by the hand originates in the mind. You cannot say ‘it was my hand that sinned, not me’. You cannot say it was my hand that hit my wife, or my tongue that abused my child, not me. If you are hungry and steal some bread a magistrate may excuse you but not God. Between your hunger and your hand is your mind, a mind in which Christ and his Spirit rule.
3. Do The ‘do nots’ are followed by a strongly contrasting ‘but’ (6:13). But present yourself to God and present the parts of your body as instruments of righteousness. ‘Presenting’ is in the aorist tense meaning an action done now not one we keep on doing. Morris writes ‘the aorist tense signifies a wholehearted and total commitment’. In view of God’s mercy ‘offer your bodies a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God which is your reasonable service’ (12:1). These words echo what Paul writes here in chapter 6. He goes on to say 'be transformed by the renewing of your mind (12:2). Here in chapter 6 he is speaking to our mind. He is saying ‘know who you are in Christ and then do what is right’. When God made Adam he was good or perfect. He was made in the image of God. When he sinned his mind was corrupted, and he also saw his body in a different light. But we are not told that his body changed in any way apart from being subject to death. What happened was that he used the parts of his body for evil purposes – as seen with his son Cain. Being taken from the reign of sin and brought under the reign of Christ we are to use our bodies for righteous purposes. We are to offer our members to God as instruments of righteousness. ‘You have been bought with a price, therefore glorify God in your body (I Corinthians 6:20). The tongue which you once used for swearing and cursing should be used to praise God. The hands which you once used for stealing or bashing you should use to help and to give. Christ is our new Lord and master. Let us be pleasing him, and not our old sinful self. We have a new heart and mind. Let us be filling our mind with godly things, not with the trash of this world. In our society it is all too easy and all too common to be doing the latter. Some people leave the TV to come to church and then return home to the TV. If you are awake for 100 hrs in a week what is going into your mind during that time. Is it only for one hour in church that you hear what is true and holy? Do you know more about sport or movies than you do about the Bible? If your mind is filled with trash what do you expect the members of your body to do?
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4. Dominion The apostle draws this section of his argument to a close with a ‘because’. He has been exhorting believers to reckon themselves dead to sin and alive to God. He has been telling them what to do and what not to do in the body. He makes this exhortation on the basis of clear teaching about our status in Christ. As he concludes he restates the reason why believers must recognise who they are and what they must do and not do. The fundamental truth is ‘sin shall not have dominion over you’ – this is not in the future but now (6:14). Just as death no longer has dominion over Christ (6:9), so sin must no longer have dominion over you. Sin, as personified by Paul, must not be lord or master in your life because you have died to sin. Christ Jesus is now your Lord and Master. ‘For you are not under the law but under grace’ (6:14). These words take us right back to the reign of grace in 5:21 – as sin reigned in death even so grace might reign through righteousness’, and the verse before this about the law. The law did nothing to stop the reign if sin in death. The law is powerless. Those who think of themselves as under the law are still under the reign of sin. Paul may have been targeting the Jews but many people think of themselves as under the law. They think that by keeping the law they will be saved, or that to be saved them must keep the law. In chapter 3 verse 21 Paul wrote ‘but now the righteousness of God apart for the law is revealed’. Here he writes ‘you are not under law but under grace’. Having been saved by grace (Ephesians 2:8) we come under the reign of grace. If the US army saved us from cruel domination by communist Russia we would not start obeying the Russians would we? We must not return to the law because this would amount to a return to the reign of sin. Clearly we cannot be under the reign of law and grace at the same time. ‘Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes’ (10:4). Just as we are to look at ourselves and others from a new perspective, namely God’s perspective, so we look upon the law from a new perspective, namely Christ’s perspective. Rev. Dr. Dennis K. Muldoon
