Dying to Live, Part 3
Romans 6:11‑14
Open your Bible, if you will, to the sixth chapter of Paul's epistle to the Romans. We're progressing through this wonderful epistle. For those of you who might be with us for the first time or the first time in a long time, we are studying Romans, the great Magna Carta of the Christian faith. We find ourselves in the sixth chapter.
We're looking particularly at the first 14 verses. And we've divided it up into three parts, this being the third of those three parts. And tonight we're going to title the section from verses 10 through 14, actually verses 11 to 14, "The Life of the New Man...The Life of the New Man." If there's anything that God wants from His people, it is that they be holy. Peter in his first epistle made that abundantly clear when he quoted God as saying, "Be ye holy for I am holy." That's basic to the will of God. And if we are really the people, as the choir said we were, who desire to do what He wants us to do, then what He wants us to do is be holy. And that's what we're going to find about...out about in our study tonight.
Look at verse 11 and let's set the text in mind. "Likewise, reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord. Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body that you should obey its lusts; neither yield ye your members as instruments of unrighteousness unto sin but yield yourselves unto God as those that are alive from the dead and your members as instruments of righteousness unto God. For sin shall not have dominion over you, for ye are not under the law but under grace."
The account of our Lord's raising of Lazarus from the dead came to mind this week as I studied this passage. It is a marvelous story of God's resurrection power. You remember that Lazarus was four days dead. He was so dead that when Jesus approached the tomb and asked that it be unsealed and opened, Lazarus' sister in horror said, "Lord, by this time he stinketh." She didn't say it in good King James English, but that's the way they translated it. What she meant was he's too dead to even be bothered with.
But Jesus came and demanded that in spite of her protest, the grave be open. He spoke the word and Lazarus rose from the grave and walked out. And when he came out where everyone could see him, the text says that he still had on him the grave clothes and our Lord said, "Loose him and let him go."
That event, for some reason, stuck in my mind as an analogy. I see many people who have been lifted out of the deadness of being separated from God, who have been redeemed and yet they still have on the grave clothes. And the Lord would say to them, "Get off your grave clothes, be loosed, be free."
If I can borrow that truth of resurrection in Lazarus' case as an analogy, let me do that and leave it with you in that regard. Like Lazarus, we need to shed the grave clothes. We have been raised from the dead. We walk in newness of life. We need to get rid of that which remains of our deadness.
And I think that's the essence of the truth in the text I just read to you. We know by the time we reach verse 11 that we have died and risen again, don't we? We've already taken care of that in the first ten verses. We've studied it in depth in the last two weeks. And now we are to learn in verses 11 to 14 that having been raised from the dead and having experienced in our position victory over death as to its penalty and its power, victory over sin as to its penalty and its power, we are now ready to move on, take off the grave clothes and live to the fullness of life. Now I really believe that Christians want to do this. I believe that Christians want to know real victory over their conquered enemy sin.
If you look in Romans chapter 7, just to help us in our thinking at this point, we find in verse 15 Paul saying this: "For that which I do, I don't understand. For what I would, that do I not. But what I hate, that do I." And what he tells us there is that as a believer he has a desire to do what's right, he has a desire to see victory in his life, he has a desire to conquer sin. And then we hear him saying something very similarly in verse 18, "For I know that in me, that is in my flesh, dwelleth no good thing; for to will is present with me but how to perform that which is good I find not, for the good that I would I do not, but the evil which I would not, that I do." And here is a man struggling with sin.
But I really believe that he like other believers desires the victory. As of yet in Romans 7, he may not know the secret to that victory. But I think if he were not only to go into chapter 8, but to go back to chapter 6, he would find that reality, that secret‑‑if you want to call it that.
Now, how do we get off the grave clothes? That's what we want to talk about. How do we really strip ourselves clean? How do we, as Peter said it, lay aside the old, put off, as he said it in 1 Peter 2:1? How do we put off that which shouldn't be there in our lives? We're going to find that to be answered very graphically, I think, in this text.
Now, remember, just as a sort of a background to this passage, Paul is speaking of the great theme of justification by faith. He has discussed how one is justified, or how one is redeemed in chapters 3 and 4. He presents the security of that redemption in chapter 5 and now he presents the effect of that redemption in chapter 6, 7 and 8. And the effect of redemption is to produce holiness. First of all, holiness in our position before God and then holiness in our practice. First of all holiness in our state, as the old theologians used to call it, and then holiness in our behavior.
Now, three key words are necessary for us to understand how to overcome sin. I'm going to give them to you and then I'm going to go back over them as we study together. In fact, you can follow your little outline, if you like. The three words are in the text: know, reckon and yield. And the force of this whole passage collects under these three terms. Everything that we've said in the last two lessons is going to come back to collect itself under the first term. So, let's take that first term.
It is the term "know." Would you notice, first of all, verse 3, the first word, "Know." Verse 6, the first word, "Knowing." Verse 9, the first word, "Knowing." The first ten verses of Romans 6 are doctrinal. They're cognitive. They're presenting to us foundational data, substantive truth upon which we can build. And so, as we look at our text, chapter 6 verse 11, the first word is "Likewise." And that takes us back pulling us all the way through the first ten verses again. The term could be translated "Things having been thus settled, we now move on." The term "likewise" simply means "now after all of that is well in mind and in hand, we pursue the next truth." And that's its intent. You cannot come to verse 11 without the first ten verses. And we've learned, I think, in the years that we've taught the Word of God and studied together that duty is always founded on doctrine, isn't it? That exhortation never comes in a vacuum, it always comes built on a precept, built on a divine truth. Because this is true, this is how you are to behave. And so, we have had ten verses of solid foundational doctrine.
And what has that doctrine been? Let me just give it to you as rapidly as I can. That the believer is one with Christ, right? When He died, we died. When He was buried, we were buried. When He rose, we rose. As He walks in newness of life, so we walk in newness of life.
In other words, Paul has been saying that we are united with Jesus Christ in His death, therefore we, too, have fulfilled the penalty for sin. We have risen with Christ in His resurrection therefore we walk in newness of life. Every demand of the law was met. Every demand of sin was met. The power of sin has been conquered. Christ will never die again. He says that very clearly in verse 9 and 10. And because He will never die again, we will never die again. Because His death so effectively conquered sin, we dying in Him effectively conquer sin as well.
So, what he has said is that when you become a Christian and you place your faith at that moment in Jesus Christ, by a divine miracle you enter into His death and resurrection, your old life dies and you rise to walk in newness of life. In dying in Christ, the believer pays the penalty for sin so that sin and death make no more claim on that believer. Not only is the penalty paid, but the power of sin is broken. And sin has no more dominion over Him. We now live in new life. We are a new creation...a new man, a new nature, if you like. We're not what we used to be.
Chapter 5 ended, you remember, from verse 12 on, telling us basically that we were in Adam. And when we were in Adam we all died. But when we come to Christ and in Him we all are made alive. So it is that the whole human race can be identified as being either in Adam or in Christ. If they are in Adam, when Adam sinned, they sinned. When Adam fell, they fell. When Adam died, they died. And if we are, by faith, in Christ, when Christ dies, we die. When He rises, we rise. That's the essence of the theological solidarity that the Apostle Paul is teaching in this great text.
And so, to begin with we want to know that this is true. And we've been giving that to you in the last two lessons. If we are to live out, I believe, the fullness of the new life in Christ, if we are to really live as new creations, then it begins with the knowledge of that fact that I am not what I used to be. I am new. And I have to know that to begin with. And what is the essence of that newness? I am no longer under the tyranny of sin, you remember that? Sin is no longer my absolute master. I need to know that.
Now, I believe it is a basic principle of the Word of God that people, first of all, have to know what's true. You remember back in Hosea where the prophet Hosea said of the people of God that they were destroyed because of a lack of knowledge not a lack of dedication, not a lack of consecration, not a lack of commitment, not even a lack of worship activity, not even a lack of religion, not even a lack of revelation but a lack of knowledge? They didn't know so they couldn't function. You'll never be able to live out what you don't know. You remember in the very special indictment of Isaiah chapter 1 verses 2 and 3, Isaiah sums up his indictment of the people of God and says, "Israel does not know?" They don't know.
And if you look in the New Testament, you find the same thing. In fact, in Philippians 4 verse 8, "Finally, brethren, whatever things are true, whatever things are honest, whatever things are just and pure and lovely, whatever things are of good report, if there be any virtue, if there be any praise, think...think on these things." Count on what you know to be true.
In Colossians chapter 3 and verse 8, very important word to us. He talks about putting off anger and wrath and malice and blasphemy, filthy communication out of your mouth, lie not one to another. Since you have put off the old man with his deeds, the old man's been put off, we saw that already, and you have put on the new man, then he says, "Which is renewed in knowledge." It is renewed in knowledge. You can't function on what you don't know. And so, we begin by knowing. And, beloved, we know that the power of sin to tyrannize us has been broken, don't we? We know that we do not have to be prey to sin's power. We know that we do not have to fall victim to it. We do know for certain that it cannot force us to do that which is against God.
Now, once you know that, I think you're on your way to victory. Because it puts confidence in your heart, the doubt is gone, the fear is gone, you know you are dealing with a vanquished foe, you know you are dealing with a monarch who has been dethroned. The tomb is really open and we have really come out of the grave and we can get off the grave clothes and get on with the victory.
So, it begins with knowing. Now let's go to the second word in verse 11, "Likewise," now that you understand the knowing part, now that the foundation is laid, "reckon," that's the second word...reckon. "Reckon ye yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord, let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body that ye should obey its lusts."
Now, the second term is reckon and here, beloved, doctrine gives way to faith. The word "know" dealt with the mind. The word "reckon" deals with the heart. You know it to be so intellectually, and now you believe it to be so, you reckon.
Now what does it mean to reckon,logizomai? The word has many translation possibilities. It is used of a mathematical kind of expression. In its literal sense it means "to number something, or to count something, or to account something, or to estimate something." But it is also used in a figurative way. In fact, it's been used quite extensively in chapter 4, I think. Eight times it's used there. Basically translated "to impute," or to put to someone's account where the Lord says that in salvation, God puts to our account righteousness. But it also can be used in a figurative sense to refer to calculating in the mind, or reasoning in the mind, or affirming in the mind that something is so. And that's the way it's used here. We could translate it simply "affirm." You know and now affirm that it is true. Or conclude that it is true. Or if you want to put it in the category of the genuine Christian term that is all encompassing, "believe that it's true." You know it is because the data says it is, now believe it with a heart belief. Come to that settled confidence.
Now at this point, somebody might say, "Well, you know, this is hard. It's hard for me to believe that I am a person who no longer possesses a sin nature. It's hard for me to believe that I am a person who no longer is a victim of the old man. It's hard for me to believe that I have died and nevertheless I live and yet not I but Christ lives in me. It's hard for me to believe that I possess the divine nature. It's hard for me to believe that planted within me is an incorruptible seed. It's hard for me to believe that I'm a new creation and behold, all things are new. It's hard for me to believe that I am already fit for eternity and that translation into glory for me will be less of a change than salvation was. It's hard for me to believe that the life of God lives in my soul. It's hard for me to believe that Jesus Christ dwells within me. It's hard for me to accept that. I know that's what it says there, but for me to affirm it is difficult."
Well, I understand that. In fact, I'll tell you why it's difficult. You want to know why it's difficult? I'll give you four reasons why it's difficult. First reason is maybe you've never been taught that before. I think it's difficult for a lot of folks cause nobody ever told them that. I mean, they just think that they're going to be victims of sin all their life. There are a lot of folks who believe when you get saved, all the Lord does is save you transactionally and leaves you in the same mess you're still...you've been in all along. And you just sort of hack your way through the jungle of sin and its tyranny the rest of your life. And they don't know any different. And that's a tragic thing to tell people
Or else they're told that when you become a Christian, it isn't transformation, it's addition. You were an old man, an old nature, you just get a new one added to it and now you've got a big war going on inside of you, you poor thing, you. You see. No, it may well be that you've never been taught what the foundation is. And now you're just sort of getting it taught to you and maybe it's coming slowly.
Let me give you another reason. Another reason it's hard to believe that sin has no tyranny over you, and sin does not have power to utterly control you is simply because Satan doesn't want you to believe that. I don't think he wants you to believe that. I don't think you...he wants you to believe that he and his forces and sin are vanquished in terms of their ultimate ability to control you. If I read my Bible right, Satan always shows up as the accuser of the brethren, doesn't he? He really does. And he not only accuses the brethren before God, but, believe me, he accuses the brethren before the brethren. And Satan will do everything he can to put Christians on a tremendous guilt binge. And some Christians kill themselves because of it. We see that, Christian people who commit suicide. And a lot of Christians are under tremendous anxiety. Satan doesn't want us to believe that sin is a vanquished foe. And maybe we haven't been taught that. That's two reasons.
Let me give you a third reason. And this may be a surprise. The third reason that you may not know this, and hang on, is because basically the redemptive recreation that God did in you, are you ready for this?, was non‑experiential. That's right. It was a divine transaction. It was not experiential. When you were saved, there was not a real death and a real burial and a real resurrection, it spiritually occurred. But all of that truth was non‑experiential. We know that because there are people who've been saved for a while and they still don't know that even happened. Maybe you didn't know till two weeks ago. See, it's not experiential. Salvation in its purest essence is non‑experiential. You can't define a person's salvation by some kind of external experience.
I've seen people come to an invitation response to a prayer room and cry their eyes out and it wasn't genuine. Haven't you? And I've seen people who look like were very cold and calculating in the whole process and it was as genuine as it could be and the divine transaction really occurred.
You see, basically, redemption is non‑experiential. It is a faith fact. You can't experience dying in Christ actually. You can't experience your burial. You can't experience being raised. You have to take it by faith. You want to know something? The people who are always running around looking for signs, don't have great faith they just have little faith. The people with the great faith can accept the fact of the Word of God without having to have some external proof. People running around looking for external verifying phenomena to the reality of Christ in their life don't have great faith, that's doubt looking for proof.
But we have not objective external verifiable things that we can see as our evidence of death, burial and resurrection in Christ. We can't see the fact that sin is a vanquished foe. God doesn't give us this vision of sin lying down having been knocked out. We don't have that. And so, that makes it hard.
But let me give you the fourth and the best reason. It's hard for us to realize that we have had the victory over sin, as I said, number one, because maybe we've never been taught that; number two, because the enemy doesn't want us to believe that; number three, because the whole thing is non‑experiential; and number four, and here's the best reason, because the fury of the conflict with sin in us makes us wonder how that could be true. Did you get that? That's very important. The fury of the conflict with sin in us which we many times lose, don't we, makes us wonder how it can be so.
And when I started this series in Romans, the first message I gave was very interesting. I purposely didn't say anything about this, I just presented that we were dead and we had come alive and the power of sin was broken. And, believe me, people came and say, "Oh, you can't believe that. You can't believe that the power of sin is broken in our lives. Well...well...well...well, we have such a battle with sin. You've...where does that...where do we put that? Where's our theological category for that?"
And, people, when I said there are...there's not an old nature and a new nature, some people just really had theologically apoplexy. I mean, they couldn't handle it. They said, "Ehhh, if there's no old nature, wherrr...where's the sin coming from? I mean, I used to knew...I used to know where it was, I mean, I had a name for it. I had a box. Now you took away my box and I don't know where it's coming from."
I'll give you a box, the very one Paul's got, but wait till we get there. That's in verse 12. So, that's legitimate. I mean, here's Paul a Christian. I believe in Romans 7, and what's he saying? "Oh, I'm so sick of the battle," isn't he? The things I don't want to do I do, the things I want to do I don't do. O wretched man that I am.
And so, it is hard to believe that the tyranny of sin is broken because there's a real struggle going on with sin and we lose a lot. But we have to believe it anyway. You say, "Well, how we going to believe?" Because the Bible says so. It's a faith fact. Count on it. Affirm it. Believe it.
Now, I'm not talking about psychological games. I'm not talking about what that old thing that they used to say back in the twenties and thirties, "Everyday in every way I'm getting better and better." I'm not talking about that. I'm not talking about getting up every morning and saying, "You're really wonderful, you're really holy, you're really righteous," until finally you've got a case of self‑hypnosis and you've convinced yourself of something that isn't so. I'm not talking about playing mind games. I'm not talking about that. I'm not talking about fooling ourselves. I'm saying we have to believe God's Word. Sin in its power is broken. You've got to believe it.
I mean, let's face it. Abraham had a hard time believing that he was going to have a son, too. That's right. He was 99 years old. Sarah was 90. They were both long over the hill...as far it came to production. And he looked at Sarah and he must have had a snicker and a smile and she just flat out laughed. But in Romans it says he believed God. I mean, it was a...it was a faith fact. You just had to believe it because there was no way it was basically possible.
But, beloved, we have to believe this. As one writer put it: "What could be more frustrating than