Life Out Of Death
Introduction
Romans 6:6-7: “…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.”
In Chapter 6 we see how sin still lives within us, waging its “guerilla warfare” through evil desires and deceiving our minds. It may well seem that whatever hope for believers was held out in other chapters was effectively taken away in Chapter 6. “What good does it do,” you may ask, “to be told that the war with sin was won by Christ in His death on the cross, if I am still harassed and often defeated by sin in my heart?”
To experience practical, everyday holiness, we must accept the fact that God, in His infinite wisdom, has seen fit to allow this daily battle with indwelling sin. But God does not leave us to do battle alone. Just as He delivered us from the overall reign of sin, so He makes ample provision for us to win the daily skirmishes against sin.
A key to victory is to realize that we are not only dead to sin, we also are alive to God. God does not leave us suspended in a state of neutrality. He delivers us from sin’s reign into the reign of His Son.
Romans 6:18: “And having been set free from sin, you became slaves of righteousness.”
I. Awareness of the Old Self’s Death 6
“knowing this, that our old man was crucified with Him” – what should be common knowledge; you should be well aware.
That in Christ you are not the same people you were before salvation. You have new life, a new heart, a new spiritual strength, a new hope, that had no part in your former life.
When Christ redeemed us, our old self was crucified, that is, put to death and destroyed.
When Paul speaks of “having been crucified with Christ,” that is, my old “I” is dead and no longer exists, “and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me” (Galatians 2:20).
In other words, our new life as Christians is not a made-over old life but a new divinely-transforms life that is Christ’s very own.
Define – Old Self or Old Man: The unregenerate, in Adam’s man described in Chapter 5, the person who is apart from divine redemption and the new life it brings.
V6 “our old man was crucified with Him” – crucifixion does not simply produce extreme suffering, it produces death. To be crucified is to die. The old self of every believer was crucified with his Lord, or else he has not been saved. There is no such thing as a true Christian who has not died with Christ.
Ephesians 4:20-24: “But you have not so learned Christ, if indeed you have heard Him and have been taught by Him, as the truth is in Jesus: that you put off, concerning your former conduct, the old man which grows corrupt according to the deceitful lusts, and be renewed in the spirit of your mind, and that you put on the new man which was created according to God, in true righteousness and holiness.”
The words “lay aside” and “put on” are infinitives which are infinitives of results.
In other words, Paul is not giving an admonition or command but rather a statement of fact about what has already been accomplished, finished.
V22 translates, so that you have put off according to the former manner of life.”
Another scholar, Bishop Hendley Moule, translated v22 as, “Our old man, our old state, as out of Christ and under Adam’s headship, under guilt and in moral bondage, was crucified with Christ.”
“Do not go on living as if you were still that old man,” Matthew Lloyd-Jones, “because that old man has died. Do not go on living as if he was still there.”
Declaring again that true believers have already been removed from the presence and control of the old sinful self, Paul tells the Galatian church.
Galatians 5:24: “And those who are Christ's have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.”
Here’s good news: Every believer, at any level of maturity, can claim that his old self already has been laid aside. “with its evil practices. In the same way, his new self in Christ is already being renewed into conformity with the very image of the God who has recreated him.
II. The Apprehension of the Old Self’s Death 6-7
6b “that the body of sin might be done away with” – speaks of an already existing fact. Paul is stating the same truth in v6 in 2 different ways in order to make his point more understandable.
“done away with” – destroyed, to render inoperative or invalid, to render something ineffective by removing its power of control.
Romans 3:3 translates this word as “without effect or nullify.” 7:2 “released from”
As every mature Christian learns, the more he grows in Christ, the more he becomes aware of sin in his life.
In many places, Paul uses the term body and flesh to refer to sinful propensities that are intertwined with physical weaknesses and pleasures.
New birth in Christ brings death to the sinful self, but it does not bring death to the temporal flesh and its corrupted inclinations until the future glorification.
Now the body can respond to the new holy disposition but does not always do so.
It’s what Romans 7 is all about: Scripture and experience clearly teaches, the renewing humanness somehow retains certain weaknesses and propensities to sin. The penalty of sin both in and over the Christian’s life has been broken, but sin’s potential for expression in his life has not yet been fully removed. His human weaknesses and instincts make him capable of succumbing to Satan’s temptation when he lives apart from the Spirit’s word and power. He is a new, redeemed, holy creation incarcerated in unredeemed flesh.
To combat that remaining weaknesses in regard to sin, Paul speaks these words.
Romans 6:19: “I speak in human terms because of the weakness of your flesh. For just as you presented your members as slaves of uncleanness, and of lawlessness leading to more lawlessness, so now present your members as slaves of righteousness for holiness.”
“we should no longer be slaves of sin”
NOTE: Romans 6:17-18: “But God be thanked that though you were slaves of sin, yet you obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine to which you were delivered. And having been set free from sin, you became slaves of righteousness.”
We have a new enslavement to righteousness.
Romans 6:22: “But now having been set free from sin, and having become slaves of God, you have your fruit to holiness, and the end, everlasting life.”
The Reason: V7 Romans 6:7: “For he who has died has been freed from sin.”
What characterized the old life has died with it, most importantly slavery to sin.
1 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.” Peter is not teaching sinless perfection in this present earthly life, but no longer a slave to sin.
Martin Lloyd-Jones offers a helpful illustration of the believer’s relation to his old sinful disposition. He pictures 2 adjoining fields, one owned by Satan and one owned by God, which are separated by a road. Before salvation, a person lives in Satan’s field and is totally subject to his jurisdiction. After salvation, a person works in the other field, now subject only to God’s jurisdiction. As he plows in the new field, however, the believer is often persuaded by his former master who seeks to entice him back into the old sinful ways. Satan often succeeds in temporarily drawing the believers away from his new Master with his new way of life. But he is powerless to draw the believer back into the old field of sin and death.
Conclusion
Paul does not teach that a Christian is no longer capable of committing sin but that he no longer is under the compulsion and tyranny of sin, nor will he dutifully and solely obey sin as he formerly did. For all genuine Christians, slavery to sin no longer exists.