Studying His Word and His Works

Listen to the study here: Romans 6:4-11

Read here: Romans 6

Review

• Calvin on the theme of Romans: “Man’s only righteousness is the mercy of God in Christ, when it is offered by the Gospel and received by faith.” Romans 1:17 and elsewhere.
• IMPORTANT: Who did Paul write this letter to? To the saints (1:7), and those called, so probably also to those who had not yet answered the call. Main thing though is this letter is written to believers, which is a reminder we need to preach the gospel to ourselves daily. We need to remember this gospel, because the world wants us to forget it.
• Luther: Simul iustus et peccator = At the same time, righteous and a sinner! Romans 3:23-25
• In Ch. 1-3 Paul shows us our unrighteousness, and God’s wrath against that. Paul then switches to Christ’s righteousness as our covering, the propitiation of our sins (Romans 3:25) as the final sacrifice for sin, fulfilling the promise to Abraham, who had faith before any works.
• Faith being “counted” or “credited to our account” as righteousness is mentioned 11 times in Chapter 4! If “none are righteous” as Paul wrote in Romans 3:10, then this saving faith must be a gift from God.
• Ch. 5, We now have peace with God, access to God, and hope, because of what Christ did for us while we were weak(v. 6), sinners (v. 8), and enemies (v. 10). Christ did this “at the right time,” (v. 6), connecting Christ’s work on the cross and God’s plan of redemption to real history (not just a myth or legend).
  • Atonement: Jesus satisfying God’s wrath through His sacrificial death on the cross.
• Ch. 5 and 6 describe federalism, this idea of one man making a difference, for righteousness (Jesus) or wickedness (Adam). One man, who by his sin brought death into the world, versus one man, who by defeating death brought eternal life for all who believe. And this “believe” is more than just believing Jesus lived and said some things. Jews, Muslims, Mormons and demons (James 2:19) believe “in” Jesus. True saving faith is believing Jesus. It is the Holy Spirit in us, reconciling us to God, showing us the true gospel.

Intro

• Paul mentions death and resurrection 6 times. Verse 4, 5, 8, 9, 10, 11. So, 6 different ways of describing the same thing, death and resurrection! Jesus led this, we follow. Adam led the sin march to death, Jesus leads the life march out of enslavement to sin.
• Being “dead to sin” is something I trust, but it reminds me sometimes of like, when I shoot a deer, there is nothing I want more than that deer to drop and immediately die. Zero suffering is the desired goal. But, this is not always the case. Sometimes, you approach, thinking the deer is dead, but then it struggles, so you wait, or maybe even need to shoot it a second time. It’s not like it instantly died, and I feel like that is how sin is in us as well. Christ’s righteousness dealt a one-time kill shot to sin, but it’s still kicking. You’re gonna walk up to it and think it is dead and then it suddenly kicks back to life for a moment. It’s interesting too how this is something I don’t like to see. I much more want to see a “one and done” kill shot. I do not like to see the deer struggling, in the same way I don’t like to see sin struggling to overcome Christ’s righteousness in anyone, myself included. Making one more kick, one more lunge, one more run. Tolkien tried to describe this in the Lord of the Rings, when Gandalf is fighting Balrog, who represents sin. It looks like it’s over, but then one last lunge and the whip gets Gandalf by the heel and sends him plunging into darkness with Balrog. They all think Gandalf is dead, but then he returns in glory later.
  • As we learned in Ch. 5, grace is the “much more” to our sin. But if the believer’s death to sin was instant, then there would be no need for God to have Paul describe sanctification. There would be no need for us to “consider” ourselves dead to sin, no need for verse 6:1 to ask “should we continue in sin that grace may abound?” There would be no need for us to think of ourselves in this way because we are already dead to sin; so much so that we don’t have to exert any mental effort to “consider” our new position, or to “present” ourselves to God as 6:13 describes. Maybe that is what Heaven will be like, a place where we don’t have to consider or present, we just are that way.
• I heard a story once about a man who collects photos of baseball players who hit home runs, and have rounded third and are heading to home with their team waiting to greet them and celebrate with them. Hitting a home run means you have defeated the enemy in the field, but you still have to get home. Running the bases still has to be done, but that is what sanctification should be like, knowing that in Christ we have defeated the enemy, but there is more to do before we make it home. 
• Of course, being saved is much more than hitting a home run! Sproul wrote that “Paul’s great concern is that those who have been justified have been justified unto holiness. We are not justified by our holiness or through our holiness, but unto it so that we might grow in conformity to the image of Christ.” If we are walking in “newness of life”, we are like infants at the moment of salvation, and there is room for growth and maturity, which is what sanctification is about. And sanctification is in part what the “growing strong in faith” of Romans 4:20 is about.
• Verse 4
  • The glory of the Father is a powerful thing, beyond our comprehension. Sin is powerful too, but the glory of the Father is so powerful that it overcame the sin of not just me, but everyone.
    • Sproul “Everyone who believes savingly in Jesus Christ has been raised already from spiritual death.” This walk in newness of life is not for after we physically die, but spiritually, right now. His Spirit now in us transforming our spirit. 
    • We ended the last study with verse 4 by saying we are already participating in the resurrection of Christ, which in baptism is what raising up from the water symbolizes. Walking in newness of life, trusting that is what is happening. We already have a downpayment of eternal life in our souls by having been given the sealing of the Holy Spirit. 
    • The We were buried therefore, is reminding us that we are born spiritually dead, enslaved to sin and enemies of God, too weak to overcome the power of sin and its penalty, death. But by God’s grace, our sin was buried with Him, and eternal life has been granted to us (John 3:16). Baptism symbolizes this for us, reminds us of Christ burying our sin with Him, cleansing us, raising us clean and in new life.
    • Connect to 2 Cor 5:17, that “if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation.” The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.
    • Ephesians 2: Believers were dead, but God made us alive in Christ and raised us up with him.
    • Our spiritual rebirth is a regeneration. Sproul defines regeneration as “that supernatural work of God the Holy Spirit that happens supernaturally and immediately in the soul of a human being.”
      • “Immediately”, not in the sense of an instant, or an infinitesimal, which is zero and not zero at the same time. Regeneration is from death to life, from not alive to alive. It’s not “alive and dead at the same time”, it’s from 0 to 1 in Boolean algebra terms. 0 being spiritually dead, 1 being spiritually alive in Christ. It is important to always connect Christ to our being spiritually alive, it is like we are plugged in now, to Him, pulled from the wild olive tree and grafted into the cultivated one (Romans 11). 
• Verses 5-6
  • Our old self. The Greek is “old man”. Greek for “self” here is “anthropos,” and if you think of words like anthropology, that might help, because that basically means “study of humanity,” which would incorporate more than just a physical body here. Sproul says this refers to our former human nature, born dead to sin, a heart of stone. That is what has been crucified with him.
    • Sproul says Christ did not just die for a list of sins (noun form), he died for our sinfulness, our sinning (verb form, actions). We discussed the noun and verb forms in the Romans 5:12-17 study. Saved or not, everyone and everything dies because of the noun sin. Jesus saves us from our past, present and future verb forms of sin, covering those in his righteousness.
    • Body of sin is an interesting phrase. Sproul is honest here and says he is not sure what Paul means by “body of sin”. The Greek here for “body” is “soma” which refers to our physical body, and “sarx” or “sarka” to our flesh, and really our interaction between our sin nature and our physical body. Sarx often refers to our fallen, corrupt nature, which is what our humanity is apart from Christ. Apart from Christ, our “sarx”, our humanity, is a fallen nature.
      • In Romans 1:3, Paul writes that Jesus was descended from David kata sarka, or “according to the flesh”, conceived by the Holy Spirit, but born to Mary, a sinful human. That Christ was born to someone with a corrupt, fallen nature, that shows Christ’s humanity, as well as the family ties back to David, which fulfills prophecies about Christ. 
      • Sproul says “body of sin” here is more complex than just our physical body, our acts of gluttony and drunkenness and adulterous acts. The “body” here is everything, including our thoughts, our soul, our spirit. As if our “body of sin” is like a book, and the types and ways of sinning were described in the chapters. 
      • The intent is clear though, as v. 6 ends with a charge to no longer be enslaved to sin. And not that we “might” not be slaves to sin, but we “would” no longer be slaves. We will discuss the slavery illustration more in the following study.
• Verses 7-9
  • Believers are set free from sin and its slavery. Believers trust that we shall live with Christ, forever. Buried with Him in baptism, raised from the deadness of sin to walk in newness of life (v. 4).
    • Baptism symbolizes Jesus’s death, burial and resurrection. That death no longer has dominion over Him (v. 9), or us. Sproul says Jesus was only vulnerable to death because our sin was imputed to him, but after He paid the debt of our sin for us, death became powerless. 
    • Statistically, everyone dies, so there is a 0% chance of resurrection. But God is more powerful than statistics! Prov. 16:33, the lot is cast into the lap, but it’s every decision is from the Lord. 
• Verse 10
  • Jesus only had to die once for all. Not an annual “Day of Atonement” thing like in the Old Covenant. This “once” is in the context of baptism, which is a reminder that you only need to be baptized once.
    • Believers are only saved once. It’s not like you gain salvation/lose salvation/gain salvation, oh oops I lost it again, where did it go? No, once saved, always saved. Either that, or Satan is deceiving you. 
• Verse 11
  • Consider yourselves: Sproul’s version (ASV) says “reckon yourselves.” Up to now, Paul has mainly been describing the human condition and what we are like with and without God. He has been describing the character of the three persons of the Trinity, as well as their roles in history and, most importantly, the gospel through history. Now Paul is switching briefly to application, to how we should live as baptized believers. It is good that Paul explains this, because Satan is still there trying to deceive. For believers, the Holy Spirit is now in us, interceding, bringing our dead spirits to life. We can think of the song “Jesus take the Wheel”-which as Christians we don’t really need to ask Him to because He already did- with us as the car and Jesus driving it, but Satan on the outside trying to take over the wheel again. So, I can see how sometimes we might think, “is this really the right direction?”, which is why God had Paul write these words, to help us know what to expect and what it looks like to let go of the wheel, to hand over the reigns and work with Jesus instead of living a life of constantly not being sure this is the right direction, getting distracted by Satan and his minions and our old dying self. 
  • Consider yourselves, reckon yourselves, even though only Christ lived a perfect life, strive to be like Him! Be “Little Christs,” a mindset C.S. Lewis encouraged in Mere Christianity. For the believer, the old self is still on its way out, but it has been dealt a lethal blow, so act like it has.
• Up next, Romans 6:12-23.