GOD'S RIGHTEOUSNESS FOR MAN FROM START TO FINISH

Part IV: God's Righteousness Granted In Sanctification, Romans 6:1-8:39

A. Handling The Issue Of License, Romans 6:1-23

1. Answering The Question Of Continuing To Sin That Grace Might Abound

(Romans 6:1-14)

I. Introduction

A. The Apostle Paul had written in Romans 5:20 that where "sin abounded, grace did much more about" through the salvation of fallen men that is found by faith in Jesus Christ.

B. That statement could be understood by Paul's critics to charge that he taught that once one was saved by faith in Christ, he should live a life of sin, because that would cause God's grace to abound the more to God's glory!

C. Paul reacted to this view negatively, explaining why in Romans 6:1-14, so we view the passage for insight:

II. Answering The Question Of Continuing To Sin That Grace Might Abound, Romans 6:1-14.

A. Anticipating that Judaizer critics would misuse his claim that God's grace exceeded where man's sin abounded, Paul stated their question: "Shall we go on sinning that grace may increase?" (Romans 6:1 NIV)

B. He answered with a strong negative, me genoito, literally, "Let it not be!" that in our American idiom might be rendered, "Perish the thought!" (Romans 6:2a; Bible Know. Com., N. T., p. 461, 448)

C. Paul then explained in Romans 6:2b-14 why the believer is not to sin, but to live righteously (as follows):

1. Since the believer is positionally dead to sin through his spiritual union with Christ Who died to sin on the cross, it follows that the believer SHOULD never again commit acts of sin, Romans 6:2b.

2. Paul then described the believer's position in Christ and how it affects his relationship to sin, Rom. 6:3-10:

a. All who have been baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into His death, Romans 6:3.

b. Salvation is by faith, not by works or faith plus works (Ephesians 2:8-9), so this baptism that unites one with Christ in His death cannot be water baptism, a work, but spiritual "(b)aptism with the Holy Spirit" that "joins the believer to Christ, separating him from the old life and associating him with the new," Ryrie Study Bible, KJV, 1978, ftn. to Romans 6:3. (cf. 1 Corinthians 12:13)

c. This spiritual baptism involves one's being positionally buried with Christ in death, that like as He was raised from the dead by God the Father, the believer should walk in newness of life without committing acts of sin, Rom. 6:4. [Many claim this verse refers to immersion and coming up out of the water in believer's baptism as signifying death and resurrection with Christ, but (a) Paul here wrote of spiritual baptism. Also, (b) the Jews in Jesus' day immersed Gentiles to make them proselytes with no reference to Christ's death and resurrection, so we avoid making this verse reflect believer's water baptism!]

d. If the believer has been planted together with Christ in the likeness of His death, he will also live with Him in the likeness of his resurrection (Rom. 6:5), and, in that death, the believer and his sin nature was positionally crucified with and so died with Christ that the body of sin might be destroyed for the believer no longer to serve sin, Rom. 6:6. If one is positionally dead, his death has freed him from sin, Rom. 6:7.

e. If we are positionally dead with Christ, we believe we shall also live with Him in His resurrection, which resurrection is eternal so that He dies no more and death no more has dominion over Him, v. 8-9.

f. When Christ died, He died to sin "once for all" (ephapax, Wm. D. Mounce, The Analyt. Lex. to the Grk. N. T., 1993, p. 228), but in that He lives, He lives to God, NOT to SIN! (Romans 6:10)

3. With the believer's position in Christ making him dead "once for all" to sin but alive unto God, he is experientially no longer to live in sin, but in righteousness as unto the Lord, Romans 6:11-14:

a. Based on his position in Christ, the believer is to consider himself dead to sin but alive unto God, v. 11.

b. He should thus not let sin reign in his mortal body to obey its lusts nor yield his body's members as instruments of unrighteousness unto sin, but yield himself unto God as alive from the dead and the physical members of his body as instruments of righteousness unto God, Romans 6:12-13.

c. Sin should NOT have dominion over a believer, for he is not under the Law that can only condemn him, but under grace due to his position in Christ, that he might live free of sin (as later explained), Rom. 6:14.

Lesson: When one believes in Christ, he is removed from the Law's condemnation through positionally dying with Christ "once for all," that as Christ is forever risen, the believer as co-risen with Him is equipped and directed of God no longer to commit acts of sin, but acts of righteousness in a life lived for the Lord.

Application: May we believers live righteously in line with our positional death and resurrection with Christ.