Dying to Live, Part 2

Romans 6:5‑10

     We return again tonight to the sixth chapter of Romans.  I trust that your heart is prepared for the receiving of the Lord's Word.  These are great days for me in studying Romans chapter 6.  Through the history of the church, this particular chapter has been much studied and much discussed and there is a veritable wealth of material on it.  And I find myself being enriched day by day as I'm exposed to all that's been said and thought and taught on this marvelous chapter.  And even with all of that, I find the Spirit of God giving me fresh insight and joyous sense of discovery as I go through this great chapter.

     John Newton ran away to sea early in his life, finally arrived in Africa.  And in kind of a reverse of normal roles, he was sold as a slave to a Negro woman.  He sank so low that he lived on the crumbs from her table and his biographer tells us he ate wild yams which he dug out of the ground at night.  His clothing was reduced to a single shirt which he periodically washed in the ocean.  When he finally escaped his slavery situation, he went to the natives and he accepted their rather base kind of life.  It really doesn't seem possible for a civilized educated man to have sunk to the level that John Newton did, but the power of God laid hold on him in that situation through a missionary in Africa.  He became a sea captain.  And later in his life he became a minister of the gospel of Jesus Christ.  He wrote many marvelous hymns.  The most...perhaps the most popular of all, "Glorious things of Thee are spoken," "Zion, city of our God."

     Soon he became the pastor of a church in London.  And there is still and epitaph in that churchyard where John Newton was the pastor.  An epitaph which he himself wrote.  It reads this way: "Sacred to the memory of John Newton.  Once a libertine and blasphemer, and slave of slaves in Africa, but renewed, purified, pardoned and appointed to preach that gospel which he had labored to destroy."

     Now what changes a life like that?  What can so powerfully and so dramatically and so totally change someone?  How does it happen that Paul can say in 1 Timothy 1, "I was a blasphemer and injurious but the Lord counted me faithful, putting me into the ministry"?  How can it say in 1 Corinthians chapter 6 that homosexuals and murderers and adulterers and fornicators and people like that will never enter the Kingdom of heaven and yet say, "And such were some of you, but you are washed and you are sanctified"?  What is it that can so dramatically change a life?

     Well, the answer to that question is found in this sixth chapter of Romans which tells us about the total transformation of a life through the salvation offered in Jesus Christ.  Jesus Christ can totally change a person from the inside out.

     In the book of Galatians, for example, there's a very key verse.  If you haven't memorized it, you should, underline it, circle it in your Bible, put an asterisk by it.  Galatians 2:20, "I am crucified with Christ; nevertheless I live, yet not I but Christ liveth in me and the life which I now live in the flesh, I live by the faith of the Son of God who loved me and gave Himself for me."  What a great truth.  I am crucified with Christ, nevertheless I live, yet not I but Christ liveth in me, a new I.  The old I is gone, dead, a new I lives, one with Christ.  The moment we believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, by a divine miracle we are crucified with Him, we are buried with Him, we die in His death and then we rise in newness of life.  We're transformed.

     And that is Paul's developing theme in Romans 6, 7 and 8.  It is the result of sanctification.  Chapter 5...of justification, the result of justification.  Chapter 5 tells us that the first result of justification is security.  We are secure in our salvation.  Chapter 6 tells us the second one is holiness, a new I.  Chapter 7 goes on to tell us another one of the results of justification is conflict.  And we'll see that when we get there.  But for now we're looking at the fact that when we are redeemed we become a whole new person.  The Lord who saves makes the one He saves holy.  That's why it says in 1 Corinthians 1 verse 2, "Unto the church of God which is at Corinth, to them that are sanctified, habios, holy, called holy ones." 

     Now, it's kind of amazing to think of the Corinthians as being holy, isn't it?  Amazing that they should be called "holy ones."  But even the Corinthians with all of their problems and all of their failures and all of their sins were nonetheless called holy ones, having been made holy in the act of redemption and salvation. 

     Now, through the first five chapters of Paul's epistle to the Romans, he has presented the idea of salvation by grace through faith.  And the dominant theme of all of this has been the grace of God, super abounding grace.  And so the key was in 5:20, we pointed that out last time: "Moreover the law entered that the offense might abound but where sin abounded, grace did much more abound."  In other words, God's marvelous saving grace overrules the heinousness of sin.  Now that is a climactic triumph for grace over sin.

     Now, having said that, Paul‑‑like any good teacher‑‑ anticipates a certain reaction.  And so, as we enter into chapter 6 verse 1, we meet the antagonist.  Paul knows this question will come, no doubt it had.  It may well be that there were even some saying this in the city of Rome as well.  The question: what shall we say then, shall we continue in sin that grace may bound?  Somebody's going to come along and say, "Your kind of gospel, Paul, leads to antinomianism, it leads to lawlessness.  You go around preaching this grace kind of thing and you're turning people loose, you're letting the wraps off, you're taking away the binders and you're giving them more liberty than they're to have.  You can't preach that pure grace stuff or people will run amok and they'll abuse it."

     And so, Paul is anticipating there will be criticism from some who think this is too libertine a teaching.  And may I submit to you that anybody who truly preaches the gospel of Jesus Christ is bound to be accused of this because indeed grace is grace.  Now if a preacher has never been accused of this, it's very likely that he's preaching law because if you preach grace, somebody's going to accuse you of turning people loose, setting them free.  If they can sin and God will forgive them anyway, then, my goodness, why not just go ahead and sin all you want?  That's inevitably going to be asked.  People who hold out for the fact that you can lose your salvation bring this argument.  "Well, you mean that you can go out and do anything you want and the Lord is going to forgive it?  Then we ought to just sin like mad and let God exercise all the grace He wants."

     And so, the antagonist is really directing his antagonism, or the reaction to the issue of grace salvation.  And that brings us to this very important question in chapter 6: can a person be a Christian and go on living in the same relationship to sin he had before he was saved?  In other words, does salvation change you?  Did you get that?  Does salvation change you?

     Some people believe that salvation is just a transaction.  God just writes it down and changes your ultimate destiny but doesn't necessarily change you.  What we're saying is the question has to be answered ‑ does salvation really change you?  Or can we go on living in the same relationship to sin that we had before?  And as I said last time, some people are saying salvation doesn't change you and you can really be saved and still going on living the same kind of life you lived before.  That is absolutely foreign to the teaching of this chapter.  Let's look at Paul's answer in verse 2: "God forbid," me genoito, no, no, no, no, never, never, never, can't happen, no way, impossible...strongest negative that he can give.  And then he says, "Here's the reason." 

     And here's the key to the whole section: "How shall we that have died to sin live any longer in it?"  It's an...it's an indignant thought.  It angers Paul.  It outrages his sense of justification.  The thought that we could go on in sin creates disgust.  "How shall we that are...that have died to sin" is the proper rendering, that have died to sin, "live any longer in it?"  It is a fundamental contradiction. 

     A believer, then, cannot go on in the same relationship to sin.  He cannot live in the same bondage to sin that he had.  He cannot go on continuing to sin at the same level, to the same degree that he did before he was saved.  There must be a basic transformation. 

     And that's why I've been teaching you all the way through the book of Romans, and there have been some interesting reaction to some of it.  But I've been going all the way through the book of Romans saying you cannot have only a forensic justification.  You cannot have a justification that is only a justification by statement and not a justification in reality.  You cannot be saved and not be changed because salvation is a transformation.

     In John 8:34, Jesus answered them, "Verily, verily I say unto you, whosoever commiteth sin, whosoever goes on committing sin, whosoever's pattern of life is to commit sin is the servant of sin."  Now, are you as a Christian still the servant of sin?  Are you still in the same relationship to sin that you were?  Look at chapter 6 verse 18 and you find the answer.  "Being then made free from sin, ye became the servants of righteousness."

     Now, in salvation your bondage changes from being bound to sin you become bound to righteousness.  From the unceasing incessant pattern of sin, you are transformed into one who responds to righteousness...a very important principle.  You have died to sin.

     This principle is repeated again and again in the Scripture.  We talked about it in detail last time so I'm not going to belabor the point.  But let me just stress that a person who is saved is translated out of the kingdom of sin, out of the kingdom of darkness, out of the kingdom of death, out of the dominion of the forces of iniquity, out of the world...we have overcome the world it says in 1 John.  We are delivered from the incessant unceasing, unending bondage of Satan, Ephesians 2, you were under the control of the prince of the power of the air, you were under the direct sovereignty of the ruler of the darkness of this world.  But you have been set free from that, you have come into a new dimension.  And so, there is a new life...very, very important.

     Now, the fundamental question here...keep in mind, beloved...is not in relation to our acts of sin, we'll get to that.  It's in relation to the sin principle as a ruling dominating enslaving principle in life.  Now there are only two dominions in the terms of the Apostle Paul and to see them, all you need do is go back to chapter 5 verse 21.  And here's the heart of his thinking: "As sin hath reigned unto death, even so might grace reign through righteousness unto eternal life by Jesus Christ our Lord."  Now you only have two monarchs...first, sin; second, grace.  And everybody in the world is under one or the other and not both at the same time.  You're either dominated by sin or you're dominated by God's grace.  It's either sin that directs you or grace which works righteousness and eternal life...sin working death or grace working righteousness and life.  And when you were lost, before you knew Christ, it was sin.  And when you're saved, it is grace working righteousness and life.

     So, when it says in verse 2 "we have died to sin" it means we have died to the reign of sin, we have died to the dominion of sin, we are no longer in the same relationship to sin that we were in the past.  Our citizenship is in heaven.  We have a new master, as it says in chapter 6 verse 14 of Romans, "Sin shall not have dominion over you for you are not under the law anymore but under grace."  So, sin is no longer your master.  So, when a person is saved, there is a very great transaction that takes place on the legal aspect.  God declares you righteous.  But there also is a great transformation that takes place.  You are taken out of the dominion of sin and placed in the dominion of God's grace working righteousness and life.

     Now, in order to show the validity of this point, we have the argument in verses 3 to 14.  The antagonist in verse 1, the answer in verse 2, the argument 3 to 14...and we've been developing this argument.  Let me just run by the first part as we've already seen it. 

     In chapter 6 verse 3 we find the first statement of the argument.  Now I'm going to get you back to this so you can follow the flow.  Now Paul says ‑ Let me show you what it means to have died to sin.  Number one, we are baptized into Christ, "Know ye not that as many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into His death."  And the first thing we want you to see in the first part of the verse is that we were baptized into Christ. 

     In other words, when you're saved the idea of baptism is to immerse.  You were literally immersed into Jesus Christ.  It is obviously symbolized outwardly by the baptism of immersion, but he's not talking about baptism here, he's talking about the reality of an intimate living union with Jesus Christ.  You were immersed into Christ.   I could spend a...weeks just talking about what it means to be one with Christ.  There are so many, many scriptures that we are put into union with Him in every sense.  It's just an incomprehensible monumental thought. 

     For example, there's a sense in which we even can identify with Him in His virgin birth because He was born of the Spirit and we are born of the Spirit.  And certainly we can identify with Him in His circumcision.  He was circumcised on the eighth day and when He was circumcised it was a placing of Himself under the authority of the law as He had come to redeem those that were under the law.   And in a sense, we partake in His circumcision.  In Colossians 2:11, "In whom also ye are circumcised with the circumcision made without hands in putting off the body of the sins of flesh by the circumcision of Christ."  In other words, Christ was set apart, He was made pure, as it were.  And we identifying with Him are made pure in Him.

     There's a sense in which we can also identify even with His baptism, for we, too, have been baptized by the Spirit of God.  We can, in a sense, be identified in His sufferings, for we bear in our bodies the marks of Jesus Christ.  We know the fellowship of His sufferings.  We are united with Him in His life.  We are united with Him in His eternal glorious likeness as we are made into His image and conformed to that image more and more until some day we're like Him for we see Him as He is.

     And so, there's a sense of our union with Christ that just could...we could just study that alone for great, great lengths of time.  I suppose it could be summed up, I think it's Hebrews 2:11, "He's not ashamed to call us brethren."  He's not ashamed to identify Himself with us...how marvelous.

     So, first of all, when you became a Christian, you are put in union with Jesus Christ.  Now the second point that he makes is we are identified in Christ in His death and resurrection.  It says in verse 3, "We were baptized into His death," and verse 4, "Therefore we are buried with Him by baptism into death that as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life, for if we have been grown together in the likeness of His death, we shall be also in the likeness of His resurrection."  Notice the word "likeness" there.  We didn't actually die physically, we didn't actually rise physically, but in the likeness of it.  In other words, it happened in that manner that we were identified in His death and resurrection spiritually.  We didn't actually die, but are in the likeness of His death, in the likeness of His resurrection.

     And as we saw last time, the spiritual point here is this, that when you came to Christ and believed in Him, immediately by divine miracle, you died.  Your old life died and you rose to walk in newness of life.  It's just marvelous.  He makes a point of Christ being buried as He was...it says in verse 3 that He was dead.  And then verse 4, "We are buried with Him."  Burial being the proof of death.  When Christ was buried, it was the affirmation that He was truly dead.  And in a sense, when we are buried with Him, it affirms that we really died. 

     Now what is it saying?  It's saying that there old...there's old...there's no old you around, there's no old nature around.  Now I know some people can't quite understand that because they've been taught that all their life, that there's an old nature and a new nature and the old nature's a black dog and the new nature's a white dog and which ever one you say "Sic 'em" to going to be the one that wins.  Now maybe you heard that kind of theology, but the essence of what he is saying here is that there's no old you left.  You were so dead you got...what?  Buried.  And what came out of that grave, "Nevertheless I live yet not I," what I?  The old I, it's a new I but it's not the old I.  What new I is it?  "It is Christ in me."  It's a new I.

     Now, folks, we're not dealing with experience yet, we're not dealing with practical things.  We're dealing with terms, we're dealing with trying to understand redemptive fact.  And it's important or it wouldn't be in the Scripture.  So, we have died to sin.  How?  Buried in His death, risen to walk in newness of life.  Great truth.

     Let's go to the third point and pick it up where we left off last time.  This is really interesting.  A third point in Paul's progressive thought is that the body of sin has been destroyed.  Now this really is difficult for some folks, but look at verse 6, very simple: "Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with Him that the body of sin might be destroyed that henceforth we should not serve sin, for he that is dead is freed from sin."

     Now the third point in his flow of reasoning is that the body of sin has been destroyed...to put it in King James language.  Now let's look at that verse, verse 6.  "Knowing this," what is that?  Well, that's an appeal to common knowledge, we all know this.  Isn't it interesting how here we are 2,000 years later and most of us don't know it?  I mean, part of the problem with Christians not being able to live the Christian life the way it ought to be lived is they don't know who they are.  I mean, I know one pastor who told people when they were going to get married, "Take a shower together so you get to kind of know each other and don't worry about sin because, you see, that's your old nature.  And what you going to do?  Your old nature's going to do its thing anyway, so that's just your old nature."  Oh?  What old nature?  You mean the one that's dead and buried?

     You see, if you hold a dualistic view like that, then you can excuse all kinds of things.  The upshot of what this man believed was no church discipline because when people do evil that's just the old nature.  What are you going to do with the old nature?  It's going to do its thing anyway.  No chastening, didn't believe the passage in Hebrews applied to current time, no chastening of believers.  Why would the Lord chasten the old nature?  You can't correct it, you can't do anything about it and it's still there so it's bound to stick up its ugly head.  And you're not two things hassling back and forth inside because he says here it's common knowledge.  Perhaps it was more common in those days than it is now.  "Knowing this," he appeals to the common knowledge among believers including the Romans.  This is basic to our understanding of our redemption.  This is basic stuff.

     And what is it?  Three facts in verse 6, marvelous things.  Fact number one, our old man is crucified with Him.  Our old man is crucified with Him.  Now it isn't just wounded.  It's dead.  That's what he says.

     You say, "Well, what is the old man?"  What is the old man?  Well, I'd like you to find out what the old man is.  You know, whenever I want to know one of these terms that I can't quite understand, I just look around the Bible till I find it.  And it usually pops up.  This one happens to pop up in Ephesians 4:22.  And here's a definition of the old man.  Ephesians 4:22, look what it says, "That you put off concerning the former manner of life, the old man."  What is the old man?  What is it?  Your what?  Former manner of life.  What kind was it?  Keep reading, "...which is...what?...corrupt."  What is the old man then?  Your old corrupt self...your unregenerate self.  That's what it is.  And it's contrasted in verse 24, "That you put on the new man."  What is the new man?  "After God, it's created in...what?...righteousness and true holiness."

     Now, what are you?  Are you old man and new man fighting each other?  You'll never find that in the Bible.  Are you old nature and new nature hassling?  No.  You have put off the old man, you have put on the new man.  The old man was corrupt according to deceitful lust, your former manner of life.  The new one is created in righteousness and true holiness.  To put it in the terms of Paul to the Corinthians, "If any man be in Christ he is a...what?...new creation."  Now that's the old self.  Now go back to Romans chapter 6.

     Well, wait a minute, stay in Ephesians.  I want to make a couple of comments cause some of you maybe sort of looking around wondering about a couple of things.  I just thought of that.  I probably ought to clear some things there.  Sometimes the Ephesian passage where it says in verse 22 that you put off concerning the former manner of life, the old man, sometimes that's seen as a command.  And it seems to some people that Paul is saying here to you Christians ‑ "Now, you Christians, go ahead and put off that old man.  You just go ahead and put off that former manner of life, that old man."  But you see, in Romans chapter 6, it says the old man's already dead.  So how do we harmonize those?  Well, it fits well into the context to see the infinitive here in verse 22 "to put off," the infinitive in verse 24 "to put on" as what John Murray calls "infinitives of result."  And he's not alone in this.  He translates it this way, "So that ye have put off according to the former manner of life the old man."  So that it is not a command but a statement of fact.

     Bishop Handley Moule(?) long ago translated this verse, "That you were taught in Christ with regard to the fact that your old man was laid aside."  Martyn Lloyd‑Jones translates it, "Do not go on living as if you were still that old man because that old man has died.  Do not go living on on living as if he was still there."  That's the point.

     And I think we are doing justice to the original language and we are making Paul consistent when we see this not as a command but as a statement of fact.  He is saying, you‑‑in verse 20‑‑have not so learned Christ, you didn't learn Christ to continue in your sin, you have put off the old manner of life, the old man and put on the new man.

     But even if you want to fight to the death for the fact that this is a command in the passage, it then only embellishes the earlier fact that if it is true that you have in fact put off the old self, if you have in fact seen the death of the old man, then certainly in practice you ought to be living it out that way.  And we'll talk more about that in the future.  But I'm comfortable with the fact that here Paul is making statements of fact.

     Look at Colossians 3:9 and 10 because here is the thing to me that is so convincing about the proper interpretation of Ephesians.  Colossians is a parallel book and Colossians deals in a parallel sense with Ephesians.  You know that if you've read the two books.  They really do parallel each other.  And in Colossians 3:9, "Lie not one to another since you have put off the old man with his deeds and have put on the new man."  That's a statement of definition about a Christian...since you've done that.  Now let's go back to Romans 6:6 and see if that isn't consistent.

     We've already put off the old man.  Why?  Romans 6:6, "Knowing this, common knowledge, our old man is crucified with Him."  Now let me just bring another thought into this place, the world "old" in the English could come from two Greek words: archaios, from which we get archaic, or palaios.  Archaios means "old in point of time."  Palaios means "old in point of use."  And palaios is used here, old in the sense that it's worn out, useless, fit for the dump, the scrap heap, to be discarded.  It's the old man in that sense, the useless man, the unfit man, the man only fit for the scrap heap, the person we were before salvation, doomed, damned, depraved, unregenerate, useless.

     So, what is the old man?  It is the unregenerate nature.  It is described for us in chapter 5.  It is the in‑Adam man.  Chapter 5 verse 12 says that as by one man's sin entered the world and death by sin, so death passed upon all men for all have sinned.  And then in verse 14, death reigned from Adam to Moses.  Adam was the identifier, in terms of the fifth chapter, of those in sin.  Being in Adam was being in sin.  Being in Christ was being in grace.  As in Adam, all...what?...died, so in Christ shall all...what?...be made alive.  So, it is the old man, the Adamic nature, the unregenerate nature, the old nature, if you like that term.  What I was in Adam, it is the old ego of Galatians 2:20, "I am crucified with Christ, nevertheless I live but not I," not the old I, a new one.  And so it is a serious misunderstanding to think of the believer as both an old nature and a new nature, an old man and a new man and as if you're some kind of a spiritual schizoid, running around saying, "Oh, that wasn't...that wasn't me, that was me...oh, that wasn't me that was me, I'm..."  You're not schizophrenic, I hope.

     And what Paul is insisting in this text and it is germane to his doctrine of justification is that when a person is redeemed, there is a breach, there is a complete cleavage with complete dissection, if you will, of the person from the old sin nature.  It is not a process, it is an already completed reality.  And to suppose that the old man has been crucified and still lives on, or as some people say it's been crucified but it also rose from the grave with us is to contradict the whole point of what Paul is saying.  Our old man has been crucified, not our old man is in the process of being crucified.  Some people are running around saying I'm trying to crucify the old man.  You're wasting your time, folks, it's already been crucified.  You are a new creation.

     Now let me add this.  You are a new creation but you are a new creation not yet perfect...not yet perfect, but nonetheless a new creation.  The old man is the unregenerate man.  The new man is the regenerate man.  You are one new man.  The old man ceased to exist.  That's what Griffith(?) Thomas, the commentator of years ago, said.  So it is clear that through all these statements, justification or salvation is very important, people.  It causes a radical change in the nature of a person.  So when someone comes along and they're living in the same old relationship to sin, under the same old tyranny of sin with the same old life style, no matter what they claim, the fact is if there hasn't been a radical demonstrable change in the reality of who they are, then they have not been redeemed.  Very important, substantial truth.  The old man, the sin nature, is dead and the new holy nature is born.

     Now second fact.  Now whatever was difficult with this passage, that wasn't, was it?  I mean, it's pretty obvious.  Second fact, now that the old man is crucified, it says that the body of sin might be destroyed.  Now what is this?  And we're really getting in deep theologically, folks.  Hang on to your hat here.

     The body of sin might be destroyed...what in the world?  You mean, when I became a Christian the body of sin was destroyed?  Well, that's what it says.  You say, "I don't think I'm a Christian.  I mean, I didn't even know what sin was before I was saved.  Now that I'm saved, all I can see is sin.  What are you saying to me?  You say I'm supposed to be perfect?"

     Well, let's see what he means.  The body of sin might be destroyed...now Paul conceives of sin as associated to the body.  I mean, it's obvious.  If you follow his argument all the way into chapter 8 he...he talks about, chapter 8 verse 10, "If Christ be in you, the body is dead because of sin."  Verse 11, "If the Spirit of Him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, He that raised up Christ from the dead shall also give life to your mortal bodies by His Spirit that dwells in you."  Chapter 8, he's definitely talking about a mortal body, a physical body.  He connects it with sin.  In verse 13 he says, "If you live after the flesh, you'll die, but if you, through the Spirit, do mortify the deeds of the body, which appear to be sinful deeds, you shall live."  And verse 23 he says, "And not only they but ourselves also, we have the firstfruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves waiting for the adoption that is the redemption of our body."  In other words, we face the fact that as long as we're in this body we have a problem with sin.

     So, the body is connected with sin in Paul's thinking.  Not only in Romans 8 but in many other places.  Let me just say to save a lot of time in chasing around with everybody's viewpoint, that the expression "the body of sin" is best seen as referring to our humanness under the absolute domination and control of sin.  Okay?  As conditioned and controlled by sin.  It is, apparently, a genitive of possession.  A person's body before salvation is totally and utterly in the possession of the sinful nature.  So, you've got the old man controlling the body.  And by body I don't think we're necessarily just talking about the physical body, but I think we're talking about humanness which, of course, is manifest through our physical bodies.  And so, because of our union in Christ's death, the body of the believer is no longer the possession of sin, no longer controlled and conditioned and solely dominated by sin.

     And I think that's what Paul has in mind, I'm trying to cover a lot of things and my mind is filled with them, I hope I don't leave any out.  But 1 Corinthians 6 comes to mind, verse 19, "What...know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have of God and you are not your own for you are bought with a price, therefore glorify God in your body."  And this is in that fornication text where he's saying ‑ "Look, your body is not any longer under the domination of sin, it is not any longer conditioned and utterly absolutely controlled by the sin principle.  And so, you don't want to yield to that because your body is now under the control of the Holy Spirit." 

     It's the same thing, I think, that Paul has in mind later on in Romans, chapter 12, where he points out the fact that we are to present our bodies as living sacrifices which are holy and acceptable unto God as an act of spiritual worship.

     So, I think the best way to see this...some commentators see it as the body representing the mass of sin...I kind of lean to the idea that he's referring here to the fact that our old man has been crucified which as a result has destroyed the dominion of sin over our humanness.  It is not to say now that the body is evil all the time and only evil.  That's not true.  I don't see that.  I see the body as potentially good.  How else could it be offered to God as a sacrifice?  How else can our bodies be given to Him for His use?  But in our humanness, before we were saved, sin totally dominated...totally controlled.

     You say, "Well, now that I'm saved, what's the deal?"  Sin is no longer in control.  It no longer is the tyrant.  It no longer calls all the shots.  It no longer is the sovereign.  You no longer are its slave.  And that's why it's so stupid to sin, because you don't have to, see.  The tyranny is broken.

     In chapter...let me save that.  I don't want to give too much away.  Well, I'll tell you...Romans 7:23, I just have to...I'm having a great time sorting all this out in my mind.  Paul looks at his body.  He says I see a law in my members warring against the law of my mind and bringing me into captivity the law of sin, sin which is in my members.  What does he mean by that?  Sin which is in my members.  Then back in verse 18, "I know that in me," that is in my flesh, "dwelleth no good thing." 

     In both of those cases, I think he's looking at his humanness.  It is his humanness.  Inately in that humanness there is the potential for evil and sin.  There are instincts.  There are bents.  There are propensities that become bridgeheads for the attack of the enemy to lead us into sin.  So the body, I think, in Paul's terminology is basically the bridgehead.  It is the vehicle by which sin manifests itself.  And so, the unregenerate person in his humanness is totally controlled by sin.

     Let me put it another way.  An unregenerate person can do nothing really good.  As I told you some months ago, he can do bad good but not good good.  In other words, he can do human good that isn't good as far as God's concerned.  That's bad good.&nb