Bible Reading Romans 6:1-23

 

 

How many of you like watching Coronation Street, Home and away, Cracker, Casualty, East Enders, Emmerdale, Hollyoaks,

These soap operas all have something in common – every episode is a story in its own right, but all the way through there is an over-arching story that keeps us watching them.

The book of Romans is much the same:

Story so far in Romans …

• ch 1: Mankind is in a dire state before God.
• Ch 2: If God were to judge us now we wouldn’t have a leg to stand on! (ch2) He’d be right!
• Ch 3 The trouble is, we’ve all fallen short of it without any exception.
• The way we get right with God is to have his righteousness imputed to us (i.e. written in to the spiritual account) and how does this happen? It’s received by faith
• Ch 4: a classic example is Abraham – and he’s a good example because he lived by faith and that was counted to him as righteousness before the law even arrived! So living by faith must be the way to go!
• Ch 5: What are the results of living by faith? Peace and joy! Precisely the kind of things that human beings strive for so tenaciously! They are on offer as a gift from a loving heavenly Father!
• the way we live a righteous life is to have God’s righteousness is consistently imparted to us
• there’s a contrast here between the event (imputed) and the process (imparted) righteousness

Imputed righteousness – to do with our status before God – The technical term is justification – a legal term – the debt written off. We’ve been adopted into God’s family

Imparted righteousness – the daily process of living the Christian life – the technical term is sanctification – it’s a pathway to travel along which we’re being freed from sin’s tyranny day after day

So from here on we’re going to see this work out in 3 important ways

• Freedom from the stranglehold of sin (ch6)
• freedom from the condemnation of the law (ch7)
• freedom to live life in the power and vitality of the Holy Spirit (ch8)

Where we were

E.g. Business take-over

• If the predator company can buy more than a half of the shares they are said to have a ‘controlling interest‘. The new company can dictate what goes on in the company it’s just got the majority stake in.
• Before we received righteousness from God, sin had a controlling interest in our lives. A more that 50% share holding!

As a result of mankind’s fall into sin – shown so graphically in the garden of Eden – sin has a controlling interest in our lives

• our power to resist is weak at best and non-existent at worst.

Now we’ve been discovering (in Romans and in life) that one of the great benefits of coming to Christ is that wrong-doing no longer has this debilitating controlling interest

• No longer is Satan the majority Shareholder.

That’s where we start in Romans 6

Beware taking God’s grace for granted

The Roman Christians knew this very well, but it does leave us open to one significant spiritual risk

• If sin can be forgiven and righteousness can be received, Why not just go on sinning – after all it’s now no longer a problem

Rom 6:1 What shall we say, then? Shall we go on sinning, so that grace may increase?

Why not just carry on defying God’s law if we know there’s always going to be forgiveness available.

• The technical term for this – antinomianism
• anti – over against; nomos – the law

therefore if we adopt this attitude we are setting ourselves over against the moral law of God

• Have you ever caught yourself listing your failures with the expectation that “God will forgive me anyway?” that’s antinomianism

What does Paul say about it? … Shall we go on sinning, so that grace may increase?

2 By no means! (= No Way!) We died to sin; how can we live in it any longer?

There’s another reason why antinomianism should not be part of the Christian’s relational vocabulary –

3 don’t you know that all of us who were baptised into Christ Jesus were baptised into his death?

The relationship between you as a Christian and the sin that once had controlling interest in your life should be the same as that between a living person and a dead corpse

• <ppt: coffin image> nothing at all!

Now at what point did this happen? when did the transformation take place?

4 We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life.

It was at your baptism that this happened

Now we have a problem

• are we saying here that something magical or mystical happens at baptism?
• are we treating it sacramentally (i.e. that the action or the process of baptism itself imparts some kind of special grace?)
• No we’re not – and the confusion arises because we tend to separate conversion to Christ (accepting him as my Lord, Master, guide, mentor) and baptism into Christ – we regard them as separate events.

In the NT (by and large) your baptism was of itself the outward sign that you had become a Christian

• and it took place as soon as possible after someone was converted.
• (Don’t forget, of course that other signs of conversion were also expected in the NT – especially evidence of being filled with the Holy Spirit – often exemplified by using one of the ecstatic gifts – but that’s another day’s Bible Study!)

So (to summarise) Christ’s death, symbolised by baptism, marks my death to sin and my receiving of new life and power for God.

And there’s more!

Jesus death would be useless without his resurrection – and similarly our death to sin would be useless without a corresponding resurrection to new life …

5 If we have been united with him like this in his death, we will certainly also be united with him in his resurrection.

So what we have here is a primary theological fact that has enormous practical implications for living the Christian life.

• <ppt> It is the same power that raised Jesus from the dead that is active in us to bring us new life
• and keep us going in it.

slavery and freedom

6 For we know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin–

Body of sin – curious phrase – does it mean our physical bodies must be done away with and regarded as morally bad?

• this is what some people argue – but that idea comes from a presupposition (called gnosicism) that argues that everything to do with the flesh and the body is inherently evil and only the spiritual is good.

In contrast the Bible has a very healthy view of the physical body – after all God made it and designed it!

Paul is here talking about our physical bodies when they are dominated by sin’s appetites

Sin perverts many natural instincts

• turns hunger into greed
• rest into laziness
• sexual desire into lust
• looking after ones self into selfishness

These dark facets of the human personality (Like greed, laziness and lust) are supremely addictive and (says Paul – & me!) we can become slaves to them

by comfort eating .

We don’t always eat to satisfy our hunger, we turn to food for comfort or stress releaf, or a reward.

by being inactive and lazy

It’s one of Covey’s 7 habits – be proactive! – don’t be lazy! – or expecting people around me to provide for me.

sexual addiction

… is an increasing problem today – vast quantity of Internet traffic is pornography – and may men will, if given a safe place to admit it, acknowledge their addiction to sexual imagery.

In 2013 (Figures from covenanteyes.com)

for the Christian, the goal is not merely recovering from pornography, but being remade by God Himself into the image of the perfect Man, Jesus Christ.

This is the work of the Holy Spirit.

Now being in Christ is not a magic cure – these things still require working at – but their stranglehold is broken!

It can be done, release is possible – there is a future without these addictions

It involves living by faith – Live as if it has been broken and you will gradually find that it is!

V11 In the same way, count yourselves (reckon yourselves, assume yourselves to be) dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus.

Live as if sin was not your master (whatever your particular sin happens to be)

7 because anyone who has died (to sin) has been freed from it.

And there’s more!

resurrection

Now, Paul says, if Christ’s death is part of our experience so also must his resurrection be

8 Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him.

9 For we know that since Christ was raised from the dead, he cannot die again; death no longer has mastery over him.

His logic is amazingly simple

• if our spiritual life mirrors Christ’s physical life, then death to sin must lead to resurrection from it
• The old life no longer has power

a new kind of slavery 15 – 21

15 What then? Shall we sin because we are not under law but under grace? By no means!

Clearly this is very similar to v1 where we started – and the same response – “no way” – but now he’s going to develop it very differently

In their day slaves were a common feature of life

• He talks about ‘offering yourself as a slave’
• knowing a little about how raw a deal slaves got we cannot imagine anyone wanting to opt for the life of a slave

The most common reason for people to surrender themselves into slavery in the first century was because the were in debt

• they had – either by mismanagement or misfortune got themselves into so much financial difficulty that the only way through was to offer their bodies as payment.

This had certain inevitable consequences

• if you were a slave you were someone else’s chattel – owned down to the last hair on your head by your master
• consequently you were not able to make choices of your own – no trips home to see grandma – no pleasures that other people enjoyed – except at the discretion of the master
• and over all this – obedience – utter obedience

Now – Paul tells us how good God is to us by contrasting two sorts of slavery

16 Don’t you know that when you offer yourselves to someone to obey him as slaves, you are slaves to the one whom you obey– whether you are slaves to sin, which leads to death, or to obedience, which leads to righteousness?

17 But thanks be to God that, though you used to be slaves to sin, you wholeheartedly obeyed the form of teaching to which you were entrusted.

18 You have been set free from sin and have become <ppt> slaves to righteousness.

So becoming a Christian involves an exchange of slaveries

• and so transforming is this exchange that Paul breaks out into spontaneous praise “thanks be to God!”

Just look at the sequence

• you used to be slaves to sin
• you took on board God’s teaching about Christ – you were ‘entrusted’ with these precious, transforming truths.
• and as a consequence you have been “set free”

Now here is a paradox

• this new slavery is actually wonderful liberation and freedom!

19 I put this in human terms because you are weak in your natural selves. Just as you used to offer the parts of your body in slavery to impurity and to ever-increasing wickedness, so now offer them in slavery to righteousness leading to [ever-increasing] holiness.

And as if to drive the point home Paul gets us thinking about the consequences of other kinds of freedom

20 When you were slaves to sin, you were free from the control of righteousness.

If you’re a Christian here this morning you’ll probably be able to remember the time when we didn’t know Christ and when there seemed to be no restraint on our behaviour

• most probably the ethic you worked to was the situation ethic (very common in our society)
• so long as I’m not hurting anyone I’ll just carry on doing what I’m doing – and hope I never get found out if it’s a bit underhand – i.e. the situation determines my ethic

but what was the result of that? – that’s the question Paul is asking

21 What benefit did you reap at that time from the things you are now ashamed of? Those things result in death!

22 But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves to God, the benefit you reap leads to holiness, and the result is eternal life.

conclusion – the starkest comparison

23 For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Comparison between wages and gifts

wages are earned, gifts are received

• the results of sin are earned by me because I am a sinner – they are the natural a rightful reward for sinful behaviour

But God is the greatest giver known to man!

Comparison between death and life

Comparison between Satan and evil and Christ and righteousness

Message “remember who you are!”

• a child of God
• a slave to righteousness
• a person set free!

[Story from JRWS – “the message of Romans, p187] On 28th May 1972 the Duke of Windsor, the uncrowned King Edward VIII died in Paris. The same evening a TV programme was broadcast rehearsing the major events of his life. Extracts from earlier films were shown in which he answered questions about his upbringing, brief reign and his abdication. Recalling his boyhood as Prince of Wales, he said “My Father [George V] was a strict disciplinarian. Sometimes, when I had done something wrong, he would admonish me saying “My dear boy, you must always remember who you are”‘

I am convinced that our heavenly Fathers says the same to us every day

“My dear child – remember who you are!”