Sunday Morning Sermon Notes

Romans 6

Theology of justification to practical ramifications

What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound?

Charge: If we’re freely saved by grace and not our effort, what’s top stop us from committing sin?

Indeed, is sin good seeing as it means more grace is received to cover it?

Antinomianism- no law

 2 Certainly not!

A sense of outrage.

How shall we who died to sin live any longer in it?

Not our daily struggle, but the one-time event of our conversion

We are in Christ; Christ died in our place; therefore we ‘died in Him’

3 Or do you not know that as many of us as were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death?

 4 Therefore we were buried with Him through baptism into death,

Could refer to actual baptism, but probably doesn’t. Saved people don’t have to be baptised.

‘Immersed in his work; - immersed, submerged.

We are immersed into the person of Christ, we are united to him, we are his.

That just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life.

The final three days of Christ’s life are a picture of the believer

We are in Him, so we died in Him, we are also resurrected in Him

A picture of our new life-

Ez 36:26: I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; I will take the heart of stone out of your flesh and give you a heart of flesh

2 Cor 5:17: 17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new.

5 For if we have been united together in the likeness of His death, certainly we also shall be in the likeness of His resurrection,

Eph 4:24: 24 and that you put on the new man which was created according to God, in true righteousness and holiness.

Eph 2:1: And you He made alive, who were dead in trespasses and sins,

6 knowing this, that our old man was crucified with Him,

• Our previous unregenerate natures.
• ‘Old’ as in worn out and useless, not old in years.
• At our conversions, our old sinful selves died and our new life in Christ was given us
• that the body of sin might be done away with,
• Although our natures are new and redeemed, we live in physical bodies still weakened and tempted by sin.

 that we should no longer be slaves of sin. 7 For he who has died has been freed from sin.

Slavery very real in the 1^st Century.

Owned, controlled and dominated by sin- but we have been released from its power and dominion.

Galatians 5:1: Stand fast therefore in the liberty by which Christ has made us free

Human slavery only ever had power in this world- death frees the slave from his master.

Death frees the Christian from the fallen body; the death of Christ in whom we are found frees us from the power of sin.

8 Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him, 9 knowing that Christ, having been raised from the dead, dies no more. Death no longer has dominion over Him. 10 For the death that He died, He died to sin once for all; but the life that He lives, He lives to God. 11 Likewise you also, reckon yourselves to be dead indeed to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Referring to the afterlife we shall spend with Him

But also holy living in the here and now

12 Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body, that you should obey it in its lusts.

Don’t let it have power over you. Absolute vs Constitutional Monarchy

Before you were a Christian, you had no option but to obey it. Now you have a choice

Titus 2:11: 11 For the grace of God has appeared that offers salvation to all people. 12 It teaches us to say ‘No’ to ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright and godly lives in this present age,

13 And do not present your members as instruments of unrighteousness to sin,

Body parts. Hands. Feet. Minds. Eyes.

Instruments- means, tools, methods of achieving its goal.

 but present yourselves to God as being alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness to God.

• If we died to sin, why do we continue to struggle? Solutions: Reckon. Present
• Reckon: Know with confidence; embrace by faith that God has made you holy.
• Present: a decision of the will; before sin has power over a believer, it passes over his will.

Phil 2:12-13: Therefore, my dear friends, as you have always obeyed – not only in my presence, but now much more in my absence – continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling, 13 for it is God who works in you to will and to act in order to fulfil his good purpose.

14 For sin shall not have dominion over you, for you are not under law but under grace.

Often used to promote antinomianism.

But Paul uses it to have the exact opposite meaning:

The law is good, but condemns those that cannot keep it. We are under grace: all the more reason to be holy!

V1: What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin that grace may a