CF Bible Study, Romans 6:4: Shall We Continue in Sin? Part 2

Kolb’s living room, August 15, 2007

What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin so that grace may increase? May it never be! How shall we who died to sin still live in it? Or do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus have been baptized into His death? Therefore we have been buried with Him through baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life.
Romans 6:1-4

The Death-Grip of Sin

To Paul, in these chapters, Sin is a person. He is a King who reigns over kingdom and slave-master who drives his subjects to build the very walls and fortresses that cut off their escape. The question is this: What is the strength of Sin that makes it a Master and human-kind no more than slaves? The biblical response is surprising and door-opening.

In chapter five, we uncover some of the answer. Paul, as he displays the preeminence of grace in redemptive history, says “. . . so that, as sin reigned in death, even so grace would reign . . .(v. 21)” Notice the importance of these words. He does not simply say that sin reigned, he also tells us how it reigned. “It reigned,” he says “in death.” What is death? It is the wages of sin. It is punishment, sin’s just reward. Amazingly, the reign of Sin is centered in its result—death.

Chapter one shows, in large part, how this is true. “For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth in unrighteousness . . .(v. 18)” God’s wrath is revealed in many ways, but Paul focuses on only one in this chapter—the punishment of unrestraint. They “exchanged the glory of God for an image . . .(v. 23)” What was the result? “Therefore God gave them over in the lusts of their hearts to impurity . . .(24)” “They exchanged the truth of God for a lie . . .(25)” Again, what was the result? “For this reason God gave them over to degrading passions.(26)” And because they did not see fit to acknowledge God any longer, he “gave them over to a depraved mind to do those things which are not proper” (v. 18-32).

Perhaps the largest part of death (the wages of sin) on this earth is abandonment to more and more sin. This is the strength of Sin’s domination. Sin results in death, and death is more sin, which results in more death, which is more sin. It is like a wheel that spins faster and faster and there is no way to jump free unless death is removed. Sin locked mankind into its death-grip in the Garden of Eden and, as a result, the race of Adam was plunged into corruption. The foundation that supports the kingdom of Sin is its result—death. This truth is crucial to understanding Romans six.

What Does “We Died to Sin” Mean?

The ultimate questions we should ask concerning this passage should be about Paul’s meaning when he asserts that we “died to sin” (v. 2), because that is the basis of his argument against people who abuse justification. “How shall we who died to sin still live in it?”

The first three verses, as we saw last week, make it abundantly clear that our death to sin is intimately connected with Christ’s death on the cross. We were baptized into His death, which means that we died in Him as our representative. So we should first seek to understand the meaning of Christ’s death in order to understand our death in Him.

“For the death that He died, He died to sin once for all; but the life that He lives, He lives to God.”

Jesus’ death was to Sin. This is a very difficult concept. What does it mean? It probably does not mean that he became unresponsive (died) to its control. He never was a slave to sin in the way we are. It also probably does not mean that he became unresponsive (died) to its condemnation. That, as we discussed last week, would be a metaphorical death and this refers to His actual historical death.

I believe Christ’s death to Sin was what we always consider His death to have been. The phrase “to Sin” should give the idea of disadvantage with possibly some reference to disassociation. It was a death, under the wrath of God for the sins of His people, that was to (or “to the detriment of”) Sin. When He died, He utterly crippled Sin regarding Himself and His elect because He removed death. The death-grip was broken because the strength of Sin was drained away. Christ’s death was to (or “for the detriment of”) Sin.

Our death was His death. We died in Him to Sin, totally crippling Sin’s mastery over us by cracking the foundations of its kingdom. The wheel of sin resulting in death and death resulting in sin was shattered because death was done away with. This is our death with Christ to Sin.

Life is the Point, not Death

So many people, when reading Romans 6, miss the most central issue. Paul’s declaration in verse 2 that we cannot live in sin because we died to sin causes them to entirely overlook the emphasis of the text. Being (metaphorically) dead to sin, to them, is central because it is what prevents us from living in sin. But Paul’s statement in the next verse of our study (v. 4) is adamantly to the contrary. “Therefore we have been buried with Him through baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life.”

That we are dead to sin is not only not the point, it is not even true. We are not still under the power of death at all, we are raised to newness of life. Our death to Sin in Christ was once for all (v. 10) and was for a purpose. “We have been buried with Him . . . so that as Christ was raised from the dead . . . so we too might walk in newness of life.” We cannot live in Sin for this reason: We died to Sin, and those who died to Sin live to God. The point is not death. The point is life.

Union with Christ in Death and Resurrection

The passage so far has led us to discuss our union with Christ primarily as is concerns death; we have been immersed into Him as our representative in His death to Sin. But union with Christ is so much greater than that. We have been immersed into Christ Jesus the person (v. 3), not only His crucifixion, and this union extends through His death, into His resurrection, and even into His life now.

Much of the time we think of substitution too separately. In last-week’s illustration, your friend pays your debt and I give you life—separately. Christ dies our death and God gives us life—separately. But this is not Paul’s mindset at all. In substitution, there is true union.

If you owe me $20 and your friend wants to pay it in your place. I must do something for that to work—I must make your friend you and make you your friend. If your friend paid $20 without this happening, I would accept the money but it would not have anything to do with your debt. But if, in my mind, I consider him to be you, your debt would become his. I could look at him in the face and say, “you owe me money.” I would also accept his payment because it is your payment. Remember that I am not speaking of an ontological union (I never forget that I am dealing with two distinct people). I am rather speaking of a representative union (I establish a union with regard to this debt).

But we got that far last week. Here is my point: Union in representation is just as much in freedom as payment. When your friend pays his debt (It was his debt by the way. He is you.) and I look at him and pronounce him free, I am at the same time looking at you and pronouncing you free, because he is you and you are him. And, for the rest of your lives, he is your representative concerning this debt. You are only debtless in his debtlessness; you are only free in his freedom. If he were to ever reclaim that $20 and go back into that debt, you would as well.

Our union with Jesus is exactly the same. In His crucifixion, God viewed Him as us. And in his resurrection and life, God views Him as us and us as Him. When the debt was paid and death was removed, God gave Him life and, in giving Him life, He gave us life as well. And now, forever, our life is bound up in His. We only live in His life.

”For you have died and your life is hidden with Christ in God.”
Colossians 3:3

Summary

-I laid out two general thoughts from the text as whole.

1. Much of the strength of Sin is in its result—death.
2. In Christ we died to (“to the detriment of”) Sin. And since death removed, its power was broken.

-The emphasis of Paul is not death. “We have been buried with Him . . . so that as Christ was raised from the dead . . . so we too might walk in newness of life.” We are not dead to Sin, we died to Sin and are alive to God.

-We are not only united to Christ in His death, but also His resurrection and life.

Bryan Elliff © 2007

CF Bible Study, Romans 6:1-3: Shall We Continue in Sin? Part 1

Elliff’s Living Room, August 8, 2007

“What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin so that grace may increase? May it never be! How shall we who died to sin still live in it? Or do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus have been baptized into His death?”
Romans 6:1-3

The Dangerous Doctrine of Justification

I want to begin by exposing for you one the most dangerous doctrines that exists in Christianity. To some people this doctrine is absolutely fatal. It is this: that God, for the glory of His grace and because all men are sinners and under just punishment, sent His Son to become a man, live a faultless life, die on a cross, and thus take all of the punishment of His elect, redeeming them for Himself. That doctrine, sometimes called the doctrine of justification by grace through faith, is lethal.

Why? Because there are some people (like the false teachers of 2 Peter) who will abuse true and good dogma for the sake of sensuality. These men willfully twist the truth and say, “Every time I sin I am forgiven, and every time I am forgiven God’s grace is exalted. Should I not, then, sin more and more so that grace will abound more and more to praise of His name?” The doctrine of justification, in its beautiful extremity (as displayed in chapter 5), without the balance of chapter 6, can be fatal.

So Paul, in Romans 6, turns directly to licentious men who would abuse the justification of God, and asks the question, “What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may increase?” This question should be the banner you have in the front of your brain for the next two chapters. Because all that follows, from here into chapter seven is in answer to this question and its implications.

The Short Answer

There are two ways Paul lays down his answer; there is a short answer and a long answer. First, the short answer.

“May it never be!” Sinning, for whatever reason, is always abhorrent to God. It is absurdity to think that we ought to honor God by dishonoring Him. Despite the fact that God does use sin for His glory and even decrees it for that purpose, we ought never to think that he would command it. We have only to look at Golgotha to understand His intense hatred of it. This is Paul’s initial reaction and should be ours as well. And for most of us it is enough of an answer already. But thankfully the Holy Spirit did not leave it here, but inspired Paul to push far into the nature of our union with Jesus, justification, and our freedom from sin.

The Beginning of the Long Answer

Verse 2 is a question that summarizes much of what comes after until verse 11. It is the beginning of the long answer. “How shall we who died to sin still live in it?” In this question Paul is not seeking an answer. He is not asking his readers to give a reasoned argument as to how people who died to sin can logically still continue in sin. On the contrary, he is asserting a truth. It’s the sort of question you would ask if you saw a man who complained of soreness in his body jumping out of his second-level apartment twice a day. “How can expect your body to be healthy if you persist in doing cannonballs out of your apartment window?” Paul is not asking a question, he is making a statement—“we who died to sin cannot live in it any longer.”

Died to Sin

What is meant here by the phrase “died to sin?” That is the issue that will be the door to this chapter.

First, let me dispose of what I think is a very common misconception about the above phrase. The bulk of Christians today believe we are now dead to sin, which means to them that we are unresponsive to its control and allurement. Here is an illustration that conveys their view. You, a dog, while walking along the road one day, are run over by a car. It kills you. A few hours later your master comes to you and begins to prod you and issue commands like “Sit,” or “fetch.” But you do not move or even hear his voice. Why? Because you are dead and cannot respond. His next tactic is to allure you. So he places by your nose a medium-rare, half-pound T-bone steak. But again you are completely unaffected. And that again is because you are dead and cannot even smell the enticing aroma of the steak. The problem with that interpretation of “died to sin” is that our death to sin is presented as a metaphorical death or a word picture to illustrate a spiritual reality. Paul, on the other hand, is not speaking metaphorically; he is stating an actuality—our death to sin was an actual death with Jesus. This is clear from the next verse and all of the text to verse 11.

Baptism Provides the answer

Verse 3 is the pillar that will support the rest of the structure. It describes for us the base of what it means to have “died to sin.” “Or do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus have been baptized into His death?” A connection with the previous verse is obvious. The reference to Christ’s death in verse 3 links to our death to sin in verse 2. “How shall we who died to sin . . .” and, we “have been baptized into His death . . .” This observation can be made: somehow our death to sin has to do with our baptism into Christ’s death on the cross.

Paul is not talking here about water baptism. This is true for two reasons. (1) If this were water baptism, Paul would be saying that baptism does far more than just symbolize. He would be saying that water baptism actually unites believers to Christ in some real way. The rest of Scripture, conversely, tells us that baptism is a symbol. (2) Most importantly, there is nothing in the context that forces us to believe that this is a reference water baptism. On the contrary, the context pushes us to a far different conclusion.

The literal translation of “baptize” is “immerse” or “put completely into.” This is what Paul means to convey. “Or do you not know that all of us who have been immersed in Christ Jesus have been immersed into His death?”

When Jesus came to live His life and die His death for His people, there is a sense in which all of those people (past, present and future) were immersed (baptized) completely into Christ; they became one with Him so that when He lived a perfect life, they lived a perfect life, and when He died under the punishment for their sin, they died under the punishment for their sin in Him.

This is extremely vulnerable to misunderstanding because, on the surface, it seems to contradict everything we have been taught about Jesus’ substitutionary work and rob Christ of deserved glory. We bridle at thought that we could have contributed anything to our salvation, a perfect life and atonement for our sin most of all. But that is far from what this passage is saying.

Rather, Paul’s thought is all centered in the idea of representation. Jesus lived and died as our representative before God. And so God accepts His life and death as the life and death of all of His elect. They lived and died in Him. Consider this scenario. If you owe me $20 and a friend pays it for you, I have two courses of action open to me. I can accept your friend’s money as a gift but still consider you a debtor to me. (You have not paid me what you owe, your friend only gave me a gift.) Or, I can accept your friend’s gift as your payment of the debt. I can look on his payment and judge you to have paid in him. This is the situation we are in. Christ became our righteousness. But God must accept His righteousness as being our righteousness. He must look upon Christ’s work and unite us to Him so that His work becomes ours. This is what it means to live and die with Christ and to be baptized into Him and into His death.

Summary

-The doctrine of justification for the glory God’s grace can be dangerous if presumed upon. Therefore, Paul asks the question, “Shall we continue in sin that grace may increase?”

-Paul summarizes his answer to that question with another question. “How shall we who died to sin still live in it?”

-Paul then begins to explain what he means by “died to sin.” “Or do you not know that all of us who have been baptized (or immersed) into Christ Jesus have been baptized into His death?” When Christ died, we died in Him because God credits His death to us.

-Our death to sin is directly connected to our death with Christ on the cross.

I have not fully explained the phrase “died to sin.” But the ground is laid for next week. For this week, rejoice in your union with Christ. Without it, there is no hope.

© 2007 Bryan Elliff