Message: Dead to sin, Alive to God
Time: Paul wrote Romans from Corinth as he prepared to leave for Palestine. Phoebe (16:1,2) was given the great responsibility of delivering the letter to the Romans believers. At this time, Rome had a population of 1 million, many of whom were slaves. The Romans church was doctrinally sound, but it still needed rich doctrine and practical application. Rome had massive buildings but also slums.
What the Lord is Saying:
Paul here in these verses is addressing the question of how are we to view sin in our life now. And as is Paul's custom he is driving the point home and the point is we are dead to sin, but alive to God. This is the way God sees us. God sees that we are alive to Him. How? In Christ. Adam is the start of our race, but we are no longer in Adam.
Paul obviously believes that we must know what we believe before we obey. Romans spends 10 chapters on the "know" part. Ephesians is broken up into two halves, first 3 chapters is "know", next 3 chapters is "obey."
The phrase "Consider yourselves" really to me puts on the focus that in order to live I must really understand that sin is dead to me. Yes, it is true that every person sins. And I will continue to sin.
Wayne Barber asks: "What facts are we to consider?
- Verse 2: We are dead to the sin of Adam.
- Verse 3: We were baptized into Christ Jesus and into His life.
- Verse 4: We are raised with Him into newness of life.
- Verse 5: We are intertwined into His life and death; forever identified with Him.
- Verse 6: Our old man, what we used to be in Adam, is dead.
- Verse 7: We have been justified from the sin of Adam, declared righteous because of what Christ did.
- Verse 8: We are believing daily that His life is ours now.
- Verse 9: We experientially know that since the death does not reign over Christ, it does not reign over us.
- Verse 10: He has died to the sin once and for all. He ended its penalty and its power to those who have put their faith into Him, and now as He lives unto God, so we do because His life is in us."\
"Growth in holiness—our sanctification—does not constitute an optional addendum to the gospel; rather, it is a necessary fruit of the gospel. Indeed, properly construed, sanctification is part and parcel of the gospel itself. The gospel message is that we become citizens of God’s kingdom and share in all the benefits of this citizenship—peace with God, access to His presence, eternal life, forgiveness—via the imputation of the righteousness of Christ through faith in Christ alone (Romans 3:21-5;21). But just as true citizens of any country have a love for their country and obligations to their country’s law, true citizens of God’s kingdom have a love for their kingdom and obligations to its law. The gospel does not place on us any obligations to get into the kingdom other than acknowledging that Christ alone has earned citizenship for us. Yet the gospel does demand that we recall that we are kingdom citizens and live in a way that befits that status. In other words, we must live in holiness in gratitude for what the Lord has done" (Ephesians 4:17-32; Hebrews 12:14).
At times this may seem daunting, and may we never give the impression that the Christian life is free of trouble. Yet, in one sense the Christian life of sanctification is simple, for God does not call us to do the heavy lifting. Note the passive voice in what the Apostle has said about sanctification this far in Romans 6:1-10: we “have been baptized into Christ Jesus … into his death”; “we were buried… into death”; we “have been united with him in a death like his”; “we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his.” In all of these constructions, we are the ones who are acted upon. Where Paul’s voice is more active—“we who died“; “we will also live with him”—these actions or realities are clearly the result of our passivity, of our being acted upon by God. The Apostle does not tell us to make ourselves die to sin; rather, he says that God has made us die to sin. The Lord has changed our relationship to sin and death; we have not done anything in that regard.
No, the commands that Paul gives us presuppose the reality of what God has already done. The imperative—what we must do—is grounded in the indicative—what already has been done. We are dead to sin in Christ due to God’s work; therefore, we must live in light of this reality. Our Creator has done the hard work of freeing us from sin and making us servants of righteousness. All we need to do is see ourselves properly as dead to sin and alive to God (Romans 6:11). The Lord has made us holy; all we need to do is live out that holiness.
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This is just awesome. Basically, accept God has done it all. Just get out of the way and live out His holiness in our life. Don't mess it up. Our problem in life is we continually mess it up and then have to get back to Him to get it right. Just surrender and realize it is already a done deal and get out of the way and let Him work.
Promise: God has done it all.
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