WANTED: DEAD AND ALIVE
Old West justice was black and white. Where there was an absence of government appointed law, settlers had to take matters into their own hands. Most problems were solved with capital punishment. If they had a problem with cattle rustlers, they caught the rustlers and hanged them. Stealing of any kind was usually dealt with this way.
The principle behind this extreme punishment was that stealing another person’s property or food was tantamount to a death sentence. Life was hard enough on the frontier without someone threatening your livelihood. So death was the cure for such transgressors. Within a two year span in 1860s Montana, fifty men suspected of robbery and murders were hanged. Crime, as you might imagine, decreased.
According to Western lore and legend, when the criminals were beyond apprehending by normal means, a poster was hung in the local hangouts reading “Wanted: Dead or Alive.” Mostly dead.
It may seem like a bizarre application of an unusual sermon illustration, but God also wants us dead and alive. Not dead or alive; dead and alive.
Our passage this morning is the beginning of a section, Romans 6-8, that teaches us about sanctification. Paul has taught us in the first five chapters about justification, or how we are saved by faith in Christ’s work on the cross. This section now teaches us how we who are justified must now deal with the problem of sin.
Romans 6 begins our study on sanctification by teaching us what it means to be dead to sin and alive in Christ Jesus. This is why God wants us dead and alive. The only way to deal with sin is through death. It is only by killing the sinful nature that wants to rule us that we can begin to grow in Christ.
So what does it mean to be dead to sin? And how do the “dead” live on in Christ?
1. Does Grace allow us to sin?
When we last studied Romans 5 we ended with a couple of strange statements. One was that the law was given so that sin would increase (5:20). The other, from the same verse, was that you cannot out-sin grace.
Now Paul responds to the unseen questioner who thinks Paul is anti-law and promoting a sinful lifestyle. The question is this: “What shall we say, then? Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase?” (6:1).
This is a good question. If I cannot out-sin grace, and if God forgives me whenever I sin, will I not be inclined to sin more?
Let’s say someone generously tells me I can use my credit card up to a million dollars a month and will pay all my debts, won’t I be tempted to go on a spending spree? If God’s grace is so abundant, doesn’t that encourage me to sin all the more? I can sin and just confess it later.[i]
Paul’s answer is emphatic: “By no means!” Other versions have him saying, “God forbid”[ii], “No, no”[iii], “Certainly not”[iv], or “What a ghastly thought”[v]. This is an expression of shock, horror and disappointment. It disturbed Paul greatly that someone would take this truth – you cannot out-sin grace – and use it to do more evil. How could we who have been saved from sin through Christ promote a lifestyle that continues the sins of our former life?
Our justification was not meant to be a license to sin but to free us from sin. It is how God not only declared us righteous but empowered us to live righteously. As Paul said, “We died to sin; how can we live in it any longer?” (6:2).
I remember a children’s record I listened to when I was a wee child. It had a story about a piggy who loved to roll in the mud. Its owner would bath the pig and wash the filth off daily. But the pig always returned to the mud and had a good time getting dirty again. Finally the owner put the pig to sleep and removed the piggy’s bad heart and replaced it with a lamb’s heart. That piggy never rolled in the mud again.
We have been saved from sin and darkness and self-destruction by the blood of Jesus Christ. Do we want to continue in sin and darkness and self-destructive habits so that grace can increase? Absolutely not!
We have died to sin. Now what does that mean?
2. What it means to be dead to sin
A popular misunderstanding of being dead to sin is in comparing it to being physically dead. When someone dies the senses cease to function – they cannot see, hear, taste, touch or smell. A dead body cannot feel or respond to stimuli. In the same way, it is said, that to die to sin is to lose all sensitivity to it. Sadly, many believers then conclude that they are not victorious Christians because they are still tempted.
What the Bible actually teaches is that death to sin is more legal than physical. It is not so much a state of physical motionless but as the grim though just penalty for sin. We have not died to the power of sin, but have died to its guilt.[vi]
How does this happen?
a) We identify with Christ through baptism – As Paul explains it, “Don’t you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were therefore buried with him through baptism unto death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life” (6:3-4).
When Jesus died on the cross he died under the penalty of sin. He himself was not susceptible to sinning, but having taken our place he died a death that cancelled the power of sin. In some sense we died with him.
When we believe in Jesus and receive baptism we are buried with him. We need to note three things about baptism. Paul is definitely speaking of water baptism here. Secondly, baptism does not symbolize our being buried with Christ; it is the means “through” which we were identified with him.[vii] And thirdly, we were not buried as Christ was buried; we were buried with Christ. So Paul presents water baptism here as the means by which we are brought into relationship with Christ. Paul would not understand why a believer would not be baptized. It is through baptism that we identify with Christ.
Curiously, having talked about being saved through faith in Christ for five chapters, Paul does not say those who have faith died with Christ. He says those who were baptized into Christ have died to sin. Baptism is represented here as pointing to a larger experience of faith. It is not the “be all; end all.” But it is a partner in faith, repentance and the gift of the Spirit in the life of the believer.
b) We join him in his death – Through baptism we have joined Christ in his death. “For we know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body of sin might be rendered powerless, that we should no longer be slaves to sin – because anyone who has died has been freed from sin” (6:6-7).
We have been crucified with Christ. This is something that has happened to us. The NT speaks of crucifixion in two ways; what has happened to us and what we do ourselves. What Paul is teaching in Romans 6 is that which happened to us when we died to sin as we identified with Christ.
The other crucifixion is a result of the first. We imitate Christ daily by putting to death the sinful desires that rage within us. We have been decisively crucified with Christ. But on the other hand we daily take up our cross and follow Jesus to our crucifixion. The first is once for all and unrepeatable; the second is something we do every day. I died to sin once in Christ; I die to self daily like Christ.
It is the first death, the death in Christ, that Paul focuses on. But it leads naturally to the second death, and the application Paul will make later.
c) We join him in his life – Through baptism we have joined Christ in his resurrection. “Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. For we know that since Christ was raised from the dead, he cannot die again; death no longer has mastery over him. The death he died, he died to sin once for all; but the life he lives, he lives to God” (6:8-10).
Death could not hold our Lord in its grip, and so he was raised from the dead. As he was raised to new life, we who have been united to him in baptism are also raised to new life.
It is not enough to die to sin and put the old man in the grave, we need to be raised to new life. There are two senses of this new life. One, based on the phrase, “we will also live with him,” gives the sense that this new life is future. When Christ comes again to claim his church and introduce the new heaven and the new earth, we will have new bodies that will never wear out. This is the new life we look forward to with hope and expectation.
The other sense based on the same phrase is more present. As we join Christ in his death and resurrection we are given new life here and now. Where our spirits were formerly dead because of sin, we are made truly alive in the Spirit and to the Spirit.
This life then is lived for God who made it possible. As Paul said, “the life he lives, he lives to God.” New life is lived for the glory of God. Back in v. 4 we read that Christ was raised from the dead “through the glory of the Father.” God’s glory raised Jesus and Jesus lives for God’s glory.
As people saved by grace through faith, united to Christ through baptism, we seek to imitate Christ. Therefore, according to Paul’s argument, we can no longer allow sin to dominate our lives. We have died to sin, how can we live in it any longer?
3. How do the “DEAD” now live?
Having made his point, Paul now proceeds to give us some practical instruction on how to live victoriously over sin and temptation. The fact that Paul includes this section (11-14) indicates the truth that Christians still struggle with sin. Though we have died legally to sin, we wrestle morally with the temptations. As Jesus was about to raise Lazarus from the dead, the mourners warned him that the body had begun to stink. We may be dead to sin but the body still stinks, and we have to deal with that reality.
How do the dead now live?
1) First, “count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus” (6:11). We need to change the way we think about sin. The word “count” has to do with how we see our sins, bad habits, temptations and so on in the mental sense.
There is a false philosophy prevalent today that people use when they do something wrong. Either they say they couldn’t help themselves, or they seek to blame others for their problems. In either case they play the “victim” card. When it comes to sin we are not victims. We need to take responsibility for our sins, confess them and ask the Lord for strength to fight them. This is the mental readjustment Paul is talking about.
Counting ourselves alive to God will help that readjustment. Spending time in his Word and fellowshipping with Christ in prayer really does strengthen you.
2) Second, “do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its evil desires” (6:12). Sin can slip in so quietly and innocently you don’t even realize it’s there until its right in your face.
Sometimes sin is always in your face. As David said in Psalm 51 “I know my transgressions, and my sin is always before me.” Many believers struggle with the shackles of sin. They can’t seem to get free; they feel like slaves to their addictions. Just when they think they have victory over it, it comes back with a vengeance. The more we fight it the more it hangs on. Some Christians even give up fighting. That’s no good either because then they start to grow cold in their faith, they’re disappointed because God didn’t free them, and they feel like losers.
It’s not easy. We must continually say “no” to sin. Don’t give up. There is victory in Jesus and triumph over sin. Sometimes we need to turn sin on its head and thank God for the struggle we are having, believe in his grace, and wait for his deliverance. But don’t let sin win.
3) Third, “do not offer the parts of your body to sin, as instruments of wickedness, but rather offer yourselves to God and offer the parts of your body to him as instruments of righteousness” (13). Sin begins in the mind. We must train our minds to reject sin. But sin manifests itself in physical ways. Maybe you say things you shouldn’t say. Do you control your food intake or does your food control you? If certain company or environments cause you to sin, avoid them. Instead of hiding your computer away in a locked room, put it out in the open where everyone can see what you are doing.
Physically remove the temptation to sin. Walk away. Stop going to that place where sin grabs you. Refuse to open that book or that website. Bite your tongue if you have to, or pause to a count of ten before speaking. Whatever it is, do what you have to in order to keep from being an instrument of sin.
4) “Offer yourselves to God.” This is a repeat of the last instruction but it needs repeating. First thing when you wake up in the morning take some time to pray. Okay you can’t spend an hour praying – not everyone can. Pray this at the very least, “Almighty Father, I humbly present myself to you this morning as your servant. Make me a tool in your hand to do good things today and not evil. In Jesus name.” Lord, here is my mouth, my eyes, my hands, my feet, my brain. I dedicate my body as a living sacrifice to you.
5) Finally, remember that sin does not own you. Paul wrote, “For sin shall no longer be your master, because you are not under the law, but under grace” (6:14). You did not defeat sin; Christ defeated sin on the cross. The battle belongs to the Lord. Jesus Christ has broken the back of Satan, sin and self on the cross. It is he who overcomes sin in your life. It is he who has won the victory. Jesus is now your Lord and you are under his grace.
Martin Lloyd-Jones illustrated the truth of Romans 6 with a picture of two fields. Think of a typical British country scene with two fields enclosed by high rock walls. Every person begins life in one of those fields – a field ruled over by Satan and sin. We have no way of scaling the walls and escaping the field on our own. But God, in his grace, reaches down and takes us out of that Satan-dominated field and sets us down in the adjacent field – a field ruled by Christ and by righteousness. A decisive change has taken place – we are in a whole new relationship to sin.
However, Lloyd-Jones points out, we can still hear Satan calling across the wall from that old field where we used to live. Out of long habit, we sometimes still obey his voice, even though we don’t have to. This captures well the combination of decisive change in status along with continuing openness to sin that we see in Romans 6. We learn to overcome sin by moving further and further away from the wall dividing the fields so that the voice of Satan grows fainter.[viii]
God wants us dead to sin and alive to Christ. Not dead or alive; dead and alive in Christ, which is represented in baptism. Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase? What, are you insane?
Rather, “Prepare your minds for action; be self-controlled; set your hope fully on the grace to be given you when Jesus Christ is revealed. As obedient children, do not conform to the evil desires you had when you lived in ignorance. But just as he who called you is holy, so be holy in all you do; for it is written: “Be holy because I am holy”” (1 Peter 1:13-16).
AMEN
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