Definitive Death to Sin (Romans 6)

Return from Seasonal Digression and Review of Sanctification

0:02 After a digression of two Lord's Day mornings, during which time our meditations in the Scriptures were conditioned by the specific seasonal preoccupations, that is, the thought of our Lord's coming, and then the thoughts pertaining to the entrance upon a new year and a new decade, we return this morning to our regular Sunday morning studies in the Word of God,

0:33 And as most of you know, for a lengthy period of time, these studies have found us examining what I have called the cardinal blessings of salvation in Jesus Christ. And again and again, I have sought to emphasize that although these blessings have one common source, the grace of God, one common orbit of conferral, namely union with Christ,

1:03 the Word of God does teach that they come to us in a specific order. And the great blessings of salvation in Christ do not simply come to us all at once or all in the same form. And so we have examined what I have called the threshold blessings of calling and of regeneration, those mighty works of God by which dead sinners are quickened to life,

1:31 and brought into a vital living union with Jesus Christ. And once they pass over the threshold of the kingdom of darkness and into the kingdom of God's dear Son, then other blessings are immediately conferred upon them. We consider the first of those blessings God's justifying act, and then His great work of adopting us, another act of God, a once-for-all, primarily forensic, act or legal transaction in which we are given the status of sons. And now we have begun to consider the third of these great blessings that comes to us when we pass over the threshold, the blessing of God's sanctifying grace. Having noted the central place of sanctification in the salvation of God, and then the fundamental biblical idea bound up in the word sanctification,

2:30 separation unto God. In our last study, we gave what I tried to call our wide-angle view of the doctrine of sanctification, likening the doctrine to a massive mountain with three great peaks. And we saw as we looked at that subject with our wide-angle lens that God's sanctifying work has these three basic categories, sanctification begun and

2:59 what I have called, using the terminology of another, definitive sanctification, sanctification continued, and then sanctification completed. So we examine some of the key texts dealing with definitive sanctification, progressive sanctification, and climactic sanctification. Now we're going to take out our wide-angle lens this morning, put in our zoom lens, and we're going to focus upon the first of those peaks, Now, these are not three different blessings. They are three peaks on the one mountain of God's gracious work of sanctification in the hearts and lives and even the bodies of His people. And our Zoom lens is going to focus this morning and again, God willing, next Lord's Day morning on definitive sanctification or sanctification begun in a radical cleavage with the dominion

Romans 6 as the Watershed Passage

4:02 Now, the way in which we will think our way through this glorious biblical teaching is to concentrate this morning on the most strategic passage in all of the Word of God relative to definitive sanctification. If we carry on the imagery of the mountain, as we put our zoom lens on that first peak, we see that standing in bold letters of the is Romans chapter 6. Now there are other passages in which the letters are a bit smaller, and God willing next week we'll examine the other pivotal passages which teach this doctrine, and then seek to bring the teaching together by way of application of the whole aspect of this teaching. So this morning we have but one concern in hand, and that is to examine the most strategic passage

4:57 relative to definitive sanctification. What 1 Corinthians 13 is to the subject of Christian love, what 1 Corinthians 15 is to the subject of the resurrection, Romans chapter 6 is to the subject of definitive sanctification. Namely, it is the key passage in all of the Word of God. So please open your Bibles to that passage that was read in your hearing. Now just a word about the setting in which this chapter is given to us. Paul has demonstrated, as I earlier alluded, that righteousness and acceptance before God is based upon the work of another. The summary of his argument is given in Romans 5, 19 through 21.

5:56 As through one man's disobedience the many were made sinners, even so through the obedience of the one, that is Christ, shall the many be made righteous. And the law came in besides that the trespass might abound, but where sin abounded, grace did much more abound, or grace did abound more exceedingly, that as sin reigned in death, Even so might grace reign through righteousness unto eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. Well then, having stated that wherever sin abounds, grace superabounds, the apostle anticipates what I call the devil's logic.

6:45 If grace is more greatly magnified where sin is intensified, why not sin the more that there may be more and greater manifestations of grace? Chapter 6, verse 1. What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound? To which the apostle answers, God forbid.

7:10 And then he is going to demonstrate why the devil's logic cannot be applied to the doctrine of imputed righteousness. Why we cannot add the devil's logic to the wonderful heart of the gospel proclamation that we are saved by the obedience and righteousness of another. Now in answering that objection of the devil's logic, the entire heart part of the Apostle's argument is bound up in verse 2. Verse 2 is the distilled essence of the entire chapter that follows. We who died to sin, or better translated, we who are such as have died to sin, how shall we any longer live therein?

The Distilled Essence: Verse 2

8:06 And if you're to understand the teaching of the Word of God with respect to definitive sanctification, you must come to grips, first of all, with this distilled essence of the teaching of Romans 6, and then understand the chapter as an extended explanation and application and illustration of this teaching. Very well, then, what does the Apostle tell us in this passage verse that contains the distilled essence of the entire teaching? Well, he gives us first of all the fact, and then the inescapable result from that fact. The fact is this. We, that is the people of God, are such as have died to sin. Whatever it means,

8:58 the apostle describes all Christians in their specific identity as the ones who died to sin. And this then becomes the dominant idea as he begins to open up his thought. And you will notice if you just read through quickly that in the first eleven verses there are no fewer than a dozen references to died, death, crucified and dead. You will find those four words used no fewer than a dozen times in the first eleven verses. Are ye ignorant that all we who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death, buried with Him through baptism into death, that like as Christ was raised from the dead? Verse five, likeness of His death. Verse six,

9:59 Crucified with him, verse 7. Died, verse 8. If we died, verse 9. In that he died, he dieth no more. Death hath no more dominion. We may say without in any way being irreverent that these first eleven verses reek with death. Now life is there. We'll see that in a moment. But the prevailing emphasis is an opening up of the statement of verse 2.

10:30 We who are such as have died to sin. He does not state it in any other form but a fact that is true of all Christians. And as surely as Christians can be described in their identity as believers, as they can be described in their identity as disciples, as they can be described in their identity as the saints or the holy ones, They can be described as those who have died to sin. And then verse 2 shows that there is an inescapable result from this fact. And it is this. We who are such as have died to sin, how shall we any longer live therein?

11:22 we have died to sin, the inescapable fact is that we can no longer live, that is, carry out our personal, spiritual, and moral existence in a realm to which we have died. And this is why, again, in these first eleven verses, set over against this prevailing emphasis of death is a contrasting emphasis of life. And you find such words as these, newness of life, resurrection, released, sin done away. And there are no fewer than eight or nine references in this category. So you see the contrast. Though the passage oozes with the atmosphere of death, it is also resilient with the emphasis upon life.

Death as Radical Cleavage from a Realm — Analogy

12:15 And it's because of the simple fact that is bound up in verse 2. We who are such as have died to sin, how shall we any longer live therein? Now, making this statement and the inescapable result from it, the very heart of his argument, Paul is using the word death and dying in a very common way. And in a very observable way, when a person dies, what happens to him? Well, he is immediately cut off from that entire realm that constituted the context or the setting of his life. This is true of both man and a beast. Now, that's not all death does. So when your Jehovah's Witness friend tries to prove something about the state of the soul from this fact, he's

13:11 trying to prove the wrong thing from the wrong passage. And when you read in Scripture that man and beast are alike in death, there is a sense in which that is true. And it's in this sense. Here's the successful 43-year-old businessman. Every morning with his juice and toast, he reads his Wall Street Journal, puts on his coat and goes out and catches the 753 and makes his way into his executive suite and And there he has lined out the priorities of the day and people look to him for leadership and direction. He's in constant contact with his subordinates, with his secretaries and rushes home on the 537 and belts down a couple of Scotchian waters to try to cope with the evening hours. And then he has his meal and spends his few hours in front of his TV and goes to bed. And this is the basic pattern of his life. And suddenly one morning

14:06 running for the 7, whatever I said he caught, the 737. He has a heart attack and he dies. Well, immediately, what happens? He is radically and irrevocably cut off from that which constituted the realm of his life. It will do no good for his wife to set out his orange juice in his Wall Street Journal the next morning at 710. It will do no good...

14:35 for the bus to stop at the corner at 737 to pick him up. It will do no good for the secretary to ring the buzzer and ask him for the list of his appointments for the day. To die is to be cut off radically and irrevocably from that entire realm that constituted the context of life. That's true of beasts. Some of you kids maybe have a little jerk or you have a hamster.

15:02 And the world of your hamster is his little wire cage within which he has his little wheel that he gets on and runs and exercises. And you don't like him when he does it at night because he goes and keeps you awake. But that's his world, running on his little wheel and getting off the wheel and burrowing down in his wood chips for his little naps. Maybe occasionally you take him out and he crawls in your pocket and your pocket is part of his world.

15:31 Scurrying around the floor and being put back. That's his world. One morning you come and you find that he's dead. What's happened? Well, you see, he's cut off from his little wheel. It will do no good anymore to have his little cage. He's cut off from burrowing down in his little wood chips. No longer is your pocket part of his world, so you take him out in the backyard amidst your tears and you bury him. He's died. What's happened? What's happened?

16:00 He has died to that entire realm that constituted his life. Now it is precisely this that the Apostle has in mind when he says, We who are such as have died to sin, as one has so accurately stated in accord with this analogy of death, The person who lives in sin or to sin lives and acts in the realm of sin. It's the sphere of his life and activity. It's his orange juice and his Wall Street Journal. It's his little wire cage and his little personal wheel to exercise upon. It's the sphere of his life and activity. And the person who died to sin no longer lives in that sphere. His tie with it

16:49 has been broken, and he's been translated into another realm. This is the decisive cleavage that the apostle has in view, and it is the foundation upon which rests his whole conception of the believer's life. And it is a cleavage, a breach, a translation as really and decisively true in the sphere of moral and religious relationships,

17:18 as death is in the realm of physical and ordinary relationships. Now there's the pith of the apostles' argument. You say, Pastor, I've got a thousand and one questions. So do I. But hold off. Do you see what the text says?

Application: The Believer's Identity Is Death to Sin

17:36 The answer to the devil's logic, if we are saved by the doing of another, and where sin abounds, grace superabounds, let's continue in sin, he says, this is utterly impossible for one who by faith has laid hold of Christ and His righteousness. For not only is the believer to be seen in his identity as a believer who possesses a righteousness in Christ, But he is to be understood as one who has died to sin. How he dies, in what relationship, in what way, hold off those questions. He's going to deal with them. But the fact is there on the threshold of the passage, we have died to sin. That's our identity as Christians. And if you have not died to sin, you're not a Christian. You are still living in sin.

18:33 and there is no neutral ground. You're either alive in your wire cage, running on the wheel of your own sinful activity, belting down your orange juice and imbibing your Wall Street Journal of your worldly sinful perspectives, or you have died to those realms, and you are alive in Jesus Christ. Well, there is the distilled essence of the teaching. Now consider in the second place

Paul's Extended Analogy: Two Slave-Masters

19:04 how the apostle gives us an extended analogy to help our poor, feeble, weak human understanding. He says in verse 19, I speak after the manner of men because of the infirmity of your flesh. And I'm so glad he did. And what he is referring to is that he has been using an extended analogy. Now for you kids, analogy means a likeness.

19:33 Something is like something else. It is analogous to it. An analogy is something that finds a parallel in another realm. And so the apostle, conscious that he was writing to believers who would feel something of the frustration that I feel and you feel trying to lay hold of this reality, what does it mean we have died to sin? He says, I speak after the manner of men because of the weakness of your flesh.

20:01 I'm going to accommodate myself to your frailties by an extended analogy. And you know what the analogy is? The analogy is one of sin being personified. That is, being given human characteristics and attributes. Sin is personified into a slave master. And on the other hand, righteousness is personified into that of a different master.

20:30 And so he uses this analogy all the way through the passage. Now he says that before we became Christians, before we died to sin, sin was our slave master and we were its willing slaves. Look at verse 6. Knowing this, that our old man was crucified with him, that the body of sin might be done away, that we should no longer be.

20:59 Be in bondage to sin. Until there is this death which brings release, we are in bondage. We are literally the bond slaves of sin. Now that bond service is very, very real. Look at verse 17. Verse 20.

21:28 When ye were the bond slaves of sin. And how do we know that slavery is real? Well, what does a slave do? Well, he does the will of his master. Like it or not, he's forced to. And that's exactly what Paul teaches in this passage. He says, when we were sin slaves, we did the will of our master. Verse 12. Let not sin reign in your mortal body, that you should obey the lusts thereof. That was your pattern. Sin's desires you obeyed.

21:56 You presented your members instruments of unrighteousness unto sin. That's what you did. He describes it in the first part of verse 13. He goes on to say again in verse 16, Know ye not that to whom ye present yourselves as slaves unto obedience, his slaves you are whom ye obeyed.

22:20 So you see, this analogy is one that he presses. We are not only the bond slaves of sin conceived of as our master. That servitude was real. It was one that resulted in our actually presenting the members of our body, internal and external, our minds, our eyes, our ears, to do the service of our master. It was a slavery that was real. It was voluntary. And it was exclusive. Look at verse 20.

22:48 When ye were the slaves of sin, you were, as one has translated it, footloose in regard to righteousness. Righteousness could bark out orders, and you said, I don't need to pay any attention to his orders. He's not my master. My master is sin. When sin gives his orders, I'll obey. Righteousness gives orders. I have nothing to do with him. I'm footloose with regard to righteousness. And not only so, but sin was...

23:18 waiting for his payday. Verse 23, the wages of sin is death. And there sin is pictured, you see, as coming to the time when he brings his slaves before him and he pays out the wages. And the wages would be death, even eternal separation from God. But now, something marvelous and wonderful has happened.

23:42 In this analogy, Paul says, we who were the slaves of sin, who gave a voluntary and real allegiance to sin, an exclusive allegiance that would result in death, a radical change has happened or has occurred, we died to sin. In other words, in this entire analogy, he says that our release from bondage to this master came from The door of death.

24:36 Sin no longer can lord it over us. Verses 12 and 14. We now present our members to our new master, which is God and righteousness. We now, according to verse 22, have our fruit unto holiness. Now you say, Pastor Martin, it's an awful lot of facts and it's hard to get hold of my friend. I didn't put them here. The Holy Ghost did it.

25:01 And I'm just laboring to try to lay out the broad lines of thought. And I urge you to labor with me in girding up the loins of your mind as we seek to develop this. We died to sin. That's the fact. The inference, having died, we can no longer live therein. Well, in what sense were we in bondage to sin? The extended analogy. Sin was our master. We were its slaves. We've been released from his claims through death.

Parable of the Gracious Sovereign Reclaiming the Rebel Slave

25:29 Now let me try to use an illustration that summarizes the teaching of this analogy. Picture with me a gracious master whose subjects, when they think rightly about him, love his rule, love his commands, his precepts, for they are all just, they are all righteous. They are in the best interest of his own purposes as well as in the best interest and good of his own.

25:57 in the best interest of his subjects. Then, through the intrusion of a twist of mind, one of these subjects begins to think ill of this master and rebels against him, wants nothing to do with his laws. And he flees the realm of his domain and joins himself to the master in a neighboring country. This master is a tyrant. He's a master whose commands are unreasonable, unjust,

26:26 and unholy. His commands are such as to bring ultimate ruin to all of his subjects, but he does a brainwashing job on everyone who comes within the sphere of his domain. And he so brainwashes them as to convince them that his tyranny is liberty. And so all of his subjects

26:52 Though they are destroying themselves in obedience to His commands, they think they're really living. So they willingly yield obedience to Him. Because of the twisting of their minds and the perverseness of their thought processes, though He is a cruel taskmaster who will ultimately slay them, they love His service. And once having given themselves to Him,

27:22 There is no release from his mastery except by death. And it's only when a slave dies that he strikes him from the role of those over whom he exercises control, takes them out to a place outside the town and buries them. Well, the good master had compassion on the slave that threw off the yoke of his gracious rule

27:53 And one night, desirous of returning the slave to his gracious rule, he sneaked into the slave's quarters and slew the rebellious slave. The next morning, when the administrator of the master's will comes to the slave's quarters, he finds this man dead. He orders that he be taken out and buried in the burial place of the tyrant's slaves.

28:22 And when the tyrant is informed of his death, he strikes him off from the role of those over whom he exercises dominion. Now the gracious and good master has been given an unusual power, even the power to raise people from the dead. And so he comes to the burial plot of the former subject who had become a rebel, whom he had slain in the slaves' quarters,

28:50 And he raises him to life. And in raising him to life, he now instructs his mind concerning the reality of his former master. And what the former master's rule was indeed leading to, even a cruel and an untimely death. And the eyes of this former servant are enlightened. And he asks the question, of His original Master. Why? Why would you do this for the likes of me? I turned against your rule that was kind and just and righteous and upright, that not only secured your glory, but my best interest. It was an act of foul and unreasonable, totally rational rebellion. Why would you ever do this for me and release me from my former Master by death and then give me new light?

29:48 And the answer of his master is, because I loved you. At that, he falls at the feet of his original master and says, if you can love a rebel who, in the madness and perversity of his mind, would throw off the yoke of your gracious rule only to serve a tyrant who would kill me eventually,

30:14 And there is one thing I can do. And he throws himself at his feet and says, Make me your willing bond slave. I embrace your government as good and right and wise. Now then, a few weeks later, after he's in the new service of his master, the old master happens to make a trip abroad, and he sees him, and he recognizes him. And he said, Ah!

30:42 You're my servant, so-and-so. I thought you were dead. You can face him and say, I did die. And all your claims over me were finished in my death. And now I am alive to another master. And you have no claims over me. Now, you see the point of the little parables?

31:10 Every human illustration breaks down at some point, but that's the pith of the Apostle's argument and his analogy. That the deliverance from that Master to whom we gave ourselves because of sin has come through death. And it is the very One who made us in His image, made us to know Him and love Him and serve Him, the One against whom we rebelled in Adam and throughout His gracious yoke and rule. It is that very one who has come to us in the slave shack and bondage of servitude to sin. And in His Son He put us to death. And by His own almighty power He has raised us to newness of life. And we have died to sin.

How the Change of Masters Comes About: Union with Christ in His Death and Resurrection

32:06 Now that's the essence of the apostles' teaching is set forth in verse 2, the extended analogy as given in the slave-master relationship. Now that brings us to two very basic questions with which I want to round out our study this morning. Question number one, how does this change of masters come to pass? How does this change of masters come to pass?

32:34 And having addressed ourselves briefly to that question, then finally, what are the practical implications of this fact? How does this change of masters come to pass? Well, the answer of our passage is by union with Christ. Verses 6 and 8 are the key in answering that question. Notice, we must know this. This is something we are to know, that our old man was crucified with him.

33:03 that the body of sin might be done away that we should no longer be in bondage to sin. The no longer being in bondage to sin rests upon this fact. Our old man was crucified with Him. Verse 8, But if we died with Christ, we believe we shall also live with Him.

33:32 And so the heart of the biblical answer to that question, how does this change of masters come to pass? A change in which through death we are released from the claims of our former master. The answer is by union with Jesus Christ, particularly union with Him in the virtue of His death and of His resurrection.

33:59 So that the teaching of Romans 6 is basically this. Christ's death for sin becomes our death to sin. And it is the cross that forms both the power and the pattern of our liberation from sin as our former master. Did Christ die once for all to sin?

34:25 Does he now continually live unto God in resurrection life? Why, we say yes. Well, we need to know that because that's the pattern of God's dealings with us. Verse 9, Knowing that Christ being raised from the dead dieth no more, death no more hath dominion over him, for the death that he died, he died unto sin once, but the life that he liveth, he liveth unto God. Even so reckon ye also yourselves to have dominion to have died to sin, to be dead unto sin, I'm sorry, but alive unto God in Christ Jesus. How does this change of masters come to pass? The answer of our passage is that in union with Christ, we enter into the virtue and power of His death and resurrection in such a way as they are constituted our death and our resurrection for newness of life.

35:21 Oh, you say, but pastor, that creates a greater question. When did we die and rise with Christ? Well, we died and rose with Him when He died and rose. Christ is so identified with His people, the whole teaching of the fifth chapter. When did we sin? We sinned in Adam. Before we had any being in personal existence, we yet sinned in Him.

35:46 And in the same way, the Lord Jesus, the great surety and representative of His people, was from eternity bound up with His people. We were chosen in Him. And when He came in the incarnation, He took upon Him, Hebrews says, the seed of Abraham, not the seed of Adam. But He became identified with His own.

36:12 And in that close identity as our representative, our surety, and our substitute, when Christ died and rose again, He did not die and rise as a private person, but He died and He rose again. As the surety of His people, we were in Him so that His death for sin is constituted our death. To sin, His resurrection from all of the discharge of sin's claims and its power is our resurrection to newness of life. And so in answer to the question, when did we become united to Christ? We were united with Him in a sense from eternity.

36:57 We were united with Him in His once for all act of death and resurrection. Yet according to verse 17, we do not become free from sin's bondage until we are united with Him in the bond of faith. Under the preaching of the gospel, verse 17, But thanks be to God that whereas ye were the slaves of sin, ye became obedient from the heart to that form of teaching whereunto ye were delivered, and being made free from sin, ye became servants of righteousness. And here the apostle says...

37:31 You were still sin slaves until in time the gospel came and by the power of God you were cast into the mold of the gospel. That's the teaching of verse 17. You were delivered unto that form of teaching. That's the gospel came as a form of teaching.

37:49 proclaiming the righteousness of another, proclaiming God's mighty power, not only to forgive and pardon and accept sinners as righteous in His sight, but to break the chains and the claims and the dominion of sin over all who come to the Savior. And so we are united to Christ by faith when we are effectually called and regenerated. And there is in our own life experience this change of masters through the liberating power of the gospel. And he says at the beginning of the chapter, he says, that's what you were bearing witness to in your baptism. Are ye ignorant that all, verse 3, who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried therefore with him through baptism into death.

Practical Implications: Refusing the Old Master's Claims

38:40 that like as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, even so we also might walk in newness of life. He says to these Romans, you bore witness to this reality. The great and fundamental symbol of baptism is union with Christ, but union with Christ in terms of what? The virtue and the power of His own death, burial, and resurrection. And so it is in this way, that the change comes to pass by union with Christ, a union effected by faith, a union born witness to in baptism. Well, what are the implications then of that great fact? Well, the implications are since we died to our old master, we have grounds to refuse all of his attempts to bring us back under his dominion.

39:36 When that tyrant of a master comes to the slave who was released from his claims by death and begins to bark orders, that slave can look him straight in the eye and say, Sir, you have no claims over me. You can bark all the orders you want. I was released from your authority and your power and your tyranny through death. And isn't that exactly what this passage says? Verse 11, "...Reckon ye also yourselves to be dead unto sin." It doesn't say sin is dead unto us, but we are dead unto sin. The implication in verse 12 is that sin, as this deposed tyrannical master, will seek to regain lordship and kingly rule. "...Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body."

40:30 Present your members as instruments of unrighteousness unto sin. Sin will continue to extend its claims. It will seek to usurp its former rule. But if you know this, Paul says, if you as a Christian know by the instruction of the Word of God and by the implanting of that truth in the heart through the Spirit, if you know that your former master has no claims over you, You do not need to comply with His orders and His demands, but conversely, you are to present all of your faculties to your new master. Present yourselves, verse 13b, unto God as alive from the dead, your members as instruments of righteousness unto God, verse 16, to whom you present yourselves, servants to obedience, His servants you are, whom you obey, whether of sin unto death,

41:28 or of obedience unto righteousness. You see, Christ's death not only constitutes the ground of our acceptance with God, but it constitutes the very pattern of God's gracious dealings with us in sanctification. We were so united to Christ, That when he died, sin exhausted all of its claims. The wages of sin is death, and they were paid in the person of our substitute. All of the claims are exhausted. Now this, I suggest, is the heart of the teaching of Romans 6, the watershed of the entire New Testament with regard to the teaching of definitive sanctification.

No Justified Person Who Has Not Died to Sin

42:18 And I trust whatever has not been clear, this much has been clear, that all who come within the orbit of the saving power of the gospel of justifying and adopting grace come within the orbit of the sanctifying power of liberating grace. Have you got it? All who come within the orbit of the gospel of justifying and adopting grace

42:49 Come within the orbit of the liberating power of sanctifying grace. There is no such creature as a justified adopted sinner who has not died to sin. No such creature exists. Now he exists in the teaching of many segments of the Christian church.

43:16 which write their books and form their theories of the Christian life, assuming that the great problem with Christendom is that the majority of Christians are justified and adopted, but they haven't learned the secret of how to be sanctified. And so they either need a baptism in the Holy Spirit, or they need a second work of grace called by various terms, the higher life, the abiding life, entire sanctification, eradicate, all different terminology, but it has this

43:44 Bottom line, the common denominator is the assumption that a man can be justified and adopted and yet not have died to sin. This passage precludes that possibility. The identity of every Christian is, he is one who is such as has died to sin.

44:08 Oh, but you say, Pastor, he goes on in chapter 7 and speaks of his own struggle with remaining sin. I know that. He goes on in chapter 8 and says that Christians have to mortify remaining corruption. I know that. And don't you think he knew it? He wrote this. Granted, he wrote it under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, but he didn't write it as a confused man who would contradict himself. He wrote it as a sane, rational man.

44:38 And whatever Romans 7 teaches about the awful, the awful reality of remaining sin and the struggle within in the light of that remaining sin, and it is an awful reality. And whatever Romans 8 teaches about the problems connected with mortifying sin, Romans 8, 13, and whatever the rest of the Bible teaches about the possibility of a Christian lapsing into the most heinous of sins, the Bible that teaches us of Peter's denial and David's adultery and murder, whatever those things mean, whatever they imply, they do not cancel the teaching of Romans 6 and verse 2. Every Christian is

45:35 That means that even when a Christian sins, he's out of his true element. His sin is real. His sin is a disgrace to God and a grief to his own heart. But in a sense, he is acting in a realm from which he's been delivered.

45:55 And we must allow nothing of what we see in the professed experience of professing Christians to water down the clear teaching of this passage that every Christian has died to sin. Sin which was once the realm in which he lived and moved and had his being. The atmosphere that he breathed. The climate in which he existed.

46:24 He is with reference to that whole complex of life. He is as a dead man, like that 43-year-old businessman in relationship to his orange juice, his Wall Street Journal and his secretary in the 837. He's cut off from it. He's died to it. And child of God, this is what we mean by using the term definitive sanctification. There is a radical breach with the power the service, and the love of sin that meets us on the threshold of the Christian life. And when Paul said the gospel is the power of God unto salvation, this was included, because this is part of his gospel. He didn't mean the gospel is the power of God unto a salvation that lets people go around irresponsibly, giddily, claiming, oh, my sins are forgiven, I'm happy, happy, happy.

The Gospel's Power and Closing Appeal

47:20 while they are still the bond slaves of sin, albeit in a more refined form. No, no. He's speaking of a gospel that is the power of God unto salvation. What kind of salvation? A salvation, thank God, that not only meets all the legal demands of the courts of heaven, so that a sinner's acceptance is based completely, completely,

47:44 On the obedience of another, his acceptance before God and His law is grounded solely, and I want to underscore that, solely, exclusively, unequivocally, on the doing and the dying of another. It's an alien righteousness. But the faith by which we appropriate the Savior in whom we have that righteousness,

48:12 the faith by which we are united to Christ and through the mighty operation of the Spirit, the virtue of Christ's death to sin becomes our death to sin. And the power of the gospel is seen not only in its legal and forensic privileges, but in this dynamic, powerful operation of grace that causes us to say with delight, in terms of that illustration I tried to use, When we see our former master, you are no longer my boss. There are many of us, I'm sure, sitting here this morning who can say from the heart, Thank God, in union with Christ, I died to sin. There was a time when I willingly gave myself to sin as my master.

49:06 I've been so brainwashed by the darkening power of sin upon my mind that though my sins were destroying me and though my sins were leading me to ultimate and eternal death, I willingly obeyed such a cruel tyrant as sin. I was so demented. But God opened my eyes to see that that master was a cruel man.

49:33 And He gave me eyes to see that my true and rightful Master is good and gracious. And His ways are perfect. And I gladly own myself this morning to be the bond slave of God in Jesus Christ. I take His law as the rule of my life. His precepts as the guide for my existence. And I count such bondage my liberty. Can you say that this morning?

50:03 Can you say my liberty is to be defined in terms of bond service to Jesus Christ? Can you say that? The psalmist could. He could say, I shall walk at liberty when I have respect unto all thy commandments. That's the mark of a true Christian. Conscious of his failures.

50:29 deeply grieved and inwardly mourning over his lapses and his dullness and his backslidings and all the rest, he can say from the heart, I am never more what I really am than when I am most obedient in love to my Savior. Can you say that this morning? Can you? Only a heart touched by the grace of God can say it. But what of you who cannot?

50:57 You are still the slaves of sin. My friend, my plea to you is in the language of Psalm 34, which struck me with such power in my own reading of it earlier this morning. David has been testifying of all the privileges that he has as a believer, speaking of the protection and the grace and mercy of God to him. And in the midst of it, he breaks out with these words, Oh, taste and see.

51:26 That the Lord is good. Happy. Blessed. Are all they. That take refuge. In him. And as I thought of preaching on this theme this morning. And wondering how I could bring it home. To the conscience of those of you. Who are yet. In bondage to sin. This text. Was my answer. Taste. And see. Oh my friend. Some of us had known.

51:56 the two masters. You've only known the one. In Adam, you revolted against your rightful Lord and sovereign. And in your own consciousness, all you've known is servitude to sin. And in the demented state of sin's blindness, you think that in that servitude there is liberty. Oh, will you listen to us? Taste and see

52:26 That the Lord is good. Many of us have been where you are. But we now stand with those. Who have died to sin. Christ in righteousness. Are now our master. And we have proven. To the delight of our souls. That his yoke is easy. His burden is light. Some of us have sung that little chorus. His yoke is easy. His burden is light. I found it so.

52:57 I found it so. Oh, my friend, you may find it so. Taste, taste and see that the Lord is good. Flee to Christ. Say, Lord, there's much that was preached this morning I don't understand, but this much I know. If your word is true, then I am a slave of sin, and the end of that is death. Oh, Lord Jesus, break my slavery.

53:26 Flee to the Son of God and find in Him that blessed emancipation that is the glorious privilege and promise of the Gospel. And child of God, live in the light of what you are, Christ's free man. Sin shall not have dominion over you as long as you are bound to the law, bound to it in terms...

53:56 of a righteousness that could be worked out on the grounds of your obedience, bound to it in terms of its curses, for your failure to keep it. You were sin's slave, but Paul says you're no longer under law, but under grace. He doesn't mean the law is no longer a guide to our conscience in the practice of righteousness. No, no. That would contradict what he says further on in the chapter 8.

54:22 but he means that no longer are we under its frightening condemnation. No longer are we looking to it as the means of our standing before God. May God grant that we shall understand and experience that first great mountain peak of God's sanctifying grace, definitive sanctification of radical breach from the dominion, the power, and the service

Closing Prayer

54:52 Let us pray. Our Father, our hearts stand in awe of grace and of mercy, of wisdom and of power that would ever be channeled

55:21 To our release from our willful and wicked bondage to sin. How we thank you that in Christ you have shown us that your love, your wisdom, your power have indeed been exercised graciously to our release and our delivery.

55:47 We pray that the Holy Spirit will take the truth that has been preached this morning and make it effectual in the heart of every listener in this place. For those who are yet alive to sin and in that state dead in their trespasses and sins, grant that to them the gospel may be this day your power unto salvation. And oh, help us who are your people to understand

56:17 with greater clarity than we have ever understood before, what it means for us to be dead indeed unto sin in union with your beloved Son. Hear our prayer and grant that by the power of the Spirit, these truths may continue to work in us. To the praise of your name, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.