CF Bible Study, Romans 6:11-13: Do Not Let Sin Reign
September 8, 2007
The McDonald’s basement, September 5, 2007
11 Even so consider yourselves to be dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus.
12 Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its lusts,
13 and do not go on presenting the members of your body to sin as instruments of unrighteousness; but present yourselves to God as those alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness to God.
Romans 6:11-14
In some ways this is the most important lesson we will get from Romans 6:1-13. All that has come before these three verses—the doctrine of our union with Jesus in His death and resurrection—is meant to be behind and beneath what Paul says here. This is the practical outworking of that doctrine.
Building Your Life on Theology, Not on a Beach
A few days ago on our local Christian radio station, I heard a song that will demonstrate some of what I want to talk about tonight. The author of the song is probably speaking her disgust with the divisive pride that she sees in some so-called lovers of doctrine. But, in doing this, she runs to another extreme which I think is far more dangerous than the one she is working against. And it is far more prevalent in our society.
(v. 2) I am weary of the answers
More theory and cliché
They raise the letter of the law like a banner
‘Till You’re small and far away
(Chorus) Be real to me now
That’s all I’m asking
Be real to me now
(v. 3) Every scribe and every scholar
No winners in this debate
Everybody seems to stand up taller
When You’re easy to explain
I don’t need to know what I don’t know
Just got to let it go
(v. 4) So lay down the sword
And put away the doctrine
Love a little more, love a little more
‘Cause everybody’s broken
Here is the point: there are so many people who do not want doctrine, and as a result they have founded their lives on a foundation that will not stand. Often even devoted Christian young people do not want theology. They may not say it out loud, but at their core they just want to be told to love God, and love people, have a devotional quiet time every morning, and be a servant. And they are pragmatists. They do not want deep, complex truth, but rather, five practical steps for overcoming depression, or six practical strategies for resisting temptation, or three ways to love God with all your heart. And they don’t understand that when depression does come, and temptation hits, and they find that to love God means to bear a cross, all their foundationless, ungraspable ideas of love, and their shallow practicality, will completely crumble.
Do you know how Adoniram Judson, the nineteenth-century missionary to Burma, survived the sorrow and suffering of his life of preaching in that country? He survived it because of theology. He said this: “If I had not felt certain that every additional trial was ordered by infinite love and mercy, I could not have survived my accumulated sufferings.”1 Judson understood and experienced the complex, irrevocably true doctrine of the sovereignty of God. And it was the rock on which he stood through the loss of two wives, and six children, and imprisonment, and years of hope-crushing work before the first Burman man believed because of his preaching.
So which would you rather have—the contemporary song that tells to put away doctrine and “love a little more ‘cause everybody’s broken,” or the rock-solid, hope-sustaining confidence in doctrine of a man who had every reason to be broken? Do not build your house on the sand. Do not build it on shallow practicality and “loving a little more.” Build your house on the rock. Build it on the words of Christ—on theology. I long for us to be people who, fifty years from now, after the waves of affliction and sorrow and temptation have broken again and again over our lives, will still be standing. And I long for us to be people who have blisters all over our hands from digging into the Bible to comprehend the doctrine that we have built our lives upon.
Over the past few weeks, you have listened to all we have been talking about from Romans 6. Have you thought, “This is really good for the deep thinkers here. But I’m just not a deep thinker; I’m not a theology kind of person. I would rather just go home and try to love God and take care of my pets, and play sports, and be a good friend, and play piano or guitar in church, and invite people over for dinner, and wash dishes, and just be servant. ”? Do you know what you are saying? You are saying. “I want to build my house on the beach. Because beaches are fun! You get to wiggle your toes in the sand, and swim, and build sand-castles, and get a tan, and play beach volleyball. I want to have a beach-house because beaches are fun!” That is what you are saying. And, fifty years from now, when the rain and waves of sorrow and temptation have slammed against your life, you will not be standing.
So will you come with me? Will you build your life on doctrine? Let’s look at Romans 6.
Some Preliminary Observations on Verse 11
The first thing I want you to see in verses 11-13 is the link between verse 11 and verse 10. (v. 10) “For the death that He died, he died to sin once for all; but the life that He lives, He lives to God.” (v. 11) “Even so consider yourselves to be dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus.” How can Paul tell us to consider ourselves to have died and to have been raised? The last phrase is the key. In Christ Jesus, you died to sin, and now live to God. This is really a summary of all that he has said before in this chapter. In Christ your representative you died beneath Sin’s mastery in order to destroy its kingdom. And in Christ your representative you now live to God.
Consider one secondary point before going on to the main point of this verse. Why does Paul say, “consider yourselves to be dead . . .?” You would think, after all he has said so far, that he would say, “consider yourselves to have died . . .” In fact, the weight of the rest of this chapter is so great in that direction that I am going to argue that “have died” is still his meaning. I think this is probable for two reasons.
1. There seems to be some idea of contrast in verses ten and eleven. Christ died to sin, but lives to God. And in Him, we should consider ourselves dead to sin, but alive to God. There seems to be a chronological contrast; in His death we were dead, but now in His life we live.
2. The whole point of chapter 6 is life, not death. We were “buried with Him though baptism into death . . . in order that we might walk in newness of life.” Christ “is never to die again; death is no longer His master.” “The death that He died, He died to sin once for all . . .” And we are to present ourselves to God “as those alive from the dead.”
Perhaps it is best to think of this verse chronologically. “Consider yourselves dead to sin [in Christ’s death and when He died], but [now] alive to God in Christ Jesus.”
Fight Sin with the Truth of Resurrection
This is what I mainly want to derive from the verse: Sin is not conquered with superficial pragmatism, but with belief in truth. Christian, do not fight your battle against indwelling sin mainly with shallow strategies and accountability partners. Please do not misunderstand me. They are often very helpful; I use them. But sin is a powerful enough enemy that, if they are your main support, it will eventually crush your strategies and render your accountability partners ineffective. Rather, fight your battles by understanding, believing, and saturating yourself in the truth of your justifying union with Christ.
How did Judson fight his battles against depression? By contemplating, and understanding, and believing, and experiencing that God is a God who is sovereignly good toward all of his children. How should you fight against sin? Not with lists, or strategies. Fight it by climbing as high as you can into the nature of your justification and union with Jesus in death and resurrection. That is how you wage war on sin. “Consider [Or reckon. That is the key word] yourselves dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus.” This is true practicality—the outworking of deep doctrine. When you are tempted with lust, or anger, or pride, or envy, consider yourself to be a justified sinner, having died and been raised with Christ, over whom sin has no mastery.
Do you see the power of justification? Do you see the power of the cross? It is not only your salvation from a future hell. It is your salvation from sin now, because he who has died has been justified from sin, and he who is justified is and will walk in newness of life. So, consider yourself to be alive to God in Christ Jesus.
Lay Hold of That for which You Were Laid Hold of
Ephesians 1:3-4 says, “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ, just as he chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we would be holy and blameless before Him.”
Before the foundation of the world, God chose a people to be holy and blameless before Him. This is the plan. The creation of the world, the fall of Adam, and everything that has happened and will happen is ultimately moving toward this goal, for the glory of God’s grace. Every war, every murder, every heretical sermon, every baseball game, and every airplane crash is for the ultimate purpose of saving and purifying the Church of God for His glory. In the end God will fully gather this Church and purify Her and present her to His Son as a bride so that He might be exalted by her eternal, awestruck praise and joy and also by her very spotless, pure, God-wrought existence.
And it was for this that Jesus died. The final object of the justifying death of Christ is to save out of this world a pure and glorious bride for His Name’s sake. Colossians 1:22 says “And although you were formerly alienated and hostile in mind, engaged in evil deeds, yet He has now reconciled you in His fleshly body through death, in order to present you before Him holy and blameless and beyond reproach—“
So, our resurrection in order to be the spotless bride of Christ is the eternal plan of God and is accomplished through justification. But while this ultimate object is already accomplished in Christ for believers, it is not fully accomplished. We are indeed raised with Jesus—sin’s power is broken—but God, to further glorify Himself in us, has seen fit to have us fight a battle against the sin that still indwells us. So that, in the end, He will be so much more exalted through us. And therefore we must strive for the end that we have been called and justified for. Paul brings all these ideas together in Philippians 3:10-14.
“. . . that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship [or participation] in His sufferings, being conformed to His death; [Here is a Roman’s six—“united to Him in the likeness of His death”—concept] in order that I may attain to the resurrection of the dead. Not that I have already obtained it or have already become perfect . . .”
He desires to know Christ in union with His death in order to attain a resurrection that he has not fully attained. And we say, “Paul, haven’t you already attained resurrection? You said that all who are in Christ’s death are raised to newness of life, and that we should consider ourselves alive to God in Romans 6. And you said in Colossians 3 that because we have been raised up with Christ we should seek the things that are above. Why do you say that you have not obtained it?”
Here is the truth that Paul knew so well: we are raised already in Christ, but we are not yet fully raised. Christ bought for us resurrection. But that resurrection has three stages—(1) newness of life on earth with sin’s dominion gone but sin remaining, (2) the full resurrection of the soul to be present with God after the death of the body, (3) the final resurrection of the body and soul and all of the church to be the bride of Christ in a new heavens and new earth.
Though Paul was a man joyfully in the first stage of resurrection, his hunger and thirst was for the final stage. “I press on so that I may lay hold of that for which also I was laid hold of by Christ Jesus.” And like him we are already resurrected but not yet completely—triumphant in life but longing for fullness. And therefore we must fight with all that we have for the final stage of perfection, true worship and joy for God’s glory. We must strive to lay hold of that for which we have been laid hold of by Christ—holiness and blamelessness for His fame.
This is what Romans 6:12-13 is about. “Therefore, do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its lusts, and do not go no presenting the members of your body to sin as instruments of unrighteousness; but present yourselves to God as those alive form the dead, and your member as instruments of righteousness to God.” Because you have been called to newness of life, and because Christ’s sin-bearing death and your union with Him in it was to fulfill that calling, fight for full newness of life.
We must be a group of young people who are blood-earnest about attaining the resurrection through the power of Christ’s resurrection, because it is for that we have been called and justified for the exaltation of Christ.
Bryan Elliff © 2007
1 Quoted in Giants of the Missionary Trail (Chicago: Scripture Press Foundation, 1954), 73.
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