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Romans 6:1-4, What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin so that grace may increase? 2 May it never be! How shall we who died to sin still live in it? 3 Or do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus have been baptized into His death? 4 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.
Many years ago when we were living in North Vernon, Indiana, I had to take our vehicle to a mechanic for service. I pulled up to what looked like a good parking place, but as I got ready to turn off the ignition I noticed a sign on the wall directly in front of me: “Don’t even think of parking here.” Hold on to that thought.
Romans divides into five sections: Sin (1:18-3:20), Salvation (3:21-5:21), Sanctification (6-8), Sovereignty (9-11), and Service (12-16). We’ve just concluded Paul’s section on salvation or justification by faith alone in Christ alone. Paul says God justifies the ungodly in Romans 4:5. God justifies us based on nothing in us. You’ll recall God imputes Christ’s righteousness to us as a free gift of grace, based on Christ’s perfect life and substitutionary sacrifice on the cross. All we have to do is believe. We’re saved by faith alone. We don’t work for justification. God doesn’t make us righteous to justify us. He declares us righteous. Last week we saw in Romans 5:20-21 where sin abounds, grace super-abounds. God is free through His Son to save the worst of sinners, like Paul, the chief of sinners.
If I’ve taught justification by faith alone properly, you should now be wondering, “But doesn’t it matter what we do? If God saved us while we were ungodly and if where our sin abounds God’s grace superabounds, shouldn’t we sin all the more so God’s grace will abound all the more? In verse 2 of our text Paul bellows out, “Me genoita!” Let it never happen! Good heavens no! Or “Don’t even think about parking here!”
TWO DITCHES
There are two ditches in the Christian life: legalism and antinomianism.
Legalism. You can fall into the ditch of legalism like the Christian Pharisees in Acts 15 who said about the Gentile believers, “We need to bring them under the law of Moses.” Or like that Pharisee who was so proud of his religious works, “I pray, fast, and give money to God. Look at me. I’m not like other people.” He was a pure legalist: “Keep these ten things and you’re good with God.” Christians can become legalistic by adding unbiblical dos and don’ts and judging other believers who don’t do what they do. Legalism includes the idea that we can gain God’s favor by our religious deeds.
Antinomianism. Then there’s the other ditch known as antinomianism, “against the law.” Some professing Christians have the idea that since we’re saved by grace, we are not under the law and therefore we are free to indulge in practices that even the world knows Christians don’t do. These Christians are sometimes known as “free grace” or “easy believism” people. They say, “You can have Jesus as your Savior, but living for Christ is optional.” They don’t like the word “duty.” They don’t believe obedience to Christ or following Christ is a necessary consequence of true faith. They believe you can be justified without beginning a life of sanctification. “We’ve taken Christ as our Savior, but submitting to Him as our Lord is optional, maybe later. We aren’t under the law, so we are free to live as we please.” These beliefs are all antinomian attitudes. It’s true we are justified by faith alone and we aren’t under the law for our acceptance with God, but God doesn’t leave us ungodly when He justifies us. He immediately begins the process of sanctification in our lives, changing us more and more into the likeness of Christ. We don’t want to fall into the ditch of either legalism or antinomianism.
And that brings us into the exciting and exhilarating chapter 6 of Romans where Paul deals with the problem of antinomianism. Martyn Lloyd-Jones wrote, “This chapter six has been to me, since I came to understand it, the most liberating chapter in my whole Christian experience.” We’re going to divide our portion this morning into two parts: Why you can’t continue in sin as a believer, and how you died to sin.
WHY YOU CAN’T CONTINUE IN SIN AS A BELIEVER
Romans 6:1-2, What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin so that grace may increase? 2 May it never be! How shall we who died to sin still live in it?
Here is the big question: If grace abounds over sin, why not really go wild sinning so we’ll get more grace from God? Isn’t God glorified by lavishing grace on us? Why shouldn’t we continue in sin? The word “continue” in verse 1 is a strong present tense verb “epimeno” that means let us go on and continue or remain in our sinful way of living so we experience more grace. God saved us freely by His unmerited favor and is glorified in dishing out grace to sinners, so let’s go right on sinning!
Paul’s response is “Horrors no! Perish the thought!” He doesn’t say, “Don’t worry about it, sin’s not that big of a deal.” He says this is impossible. And he tells us why. Why can a believer in Christ not possibly continue in his sinful way of living? For one very good reason in verse 2: He died to sin! If you died to sin, you can’t continue to live in it. Paul isn’t saying you should die to sin or you will die to sin, but you died to sin. It’s a fact. Your relationship to sin has ended once for all and decisively. “We died to sin.”
Let’s think about that for a minute. Dead people don’t sin. No one lying in a casket at the funeral home keeps on sinning. He may have been a lover of filthy lucre, a nasty angry man, a lustful immoral man, a proud arrogant man, a gossipy slanderer, but no more. He’s dead. You can put a five-pound gold bar right in front of his eyes, show him pornographic pictures, call him names and slander him, but he’ll not react in any way. Why not? He’s dead! Dead people don’t sin. And Paul says you can’t continue in sin because you died to sin. How could you still live in it?
“Wait a minute. I’m a Christian and I’m still tempted to sin. In fact, I sinned this morning on the way to church when I hit that pothole. What do you mean I died to sin?” Patience, patience. Let’s look at this carefully and take it as God gives it. Paul is clearly talking to genuine believers in Christ, “How shall we….” This is a teaching the world can never grasp. They only know codes of morality or secrets to a better life or how to improve your image in five easy steps. So, Paul says, “We who died to sin.” He doesn’t say we who are dying or we who are trying to die or we who are crucifying or even we who are dead, as some translations have it. Died is an aorist tense verb and means it happened, it’s a historical fact, it’s not something you try to do. “We died to sin, period!”
Paul isn’t saying believers won’t struggle with sin. We all know we struggle with sin. And sometimes we yield to sin. But the doctrine and truth here is that we died once for all to a continuing life of sin. It’s a fact, count on it. A believer in Jesus Christ will not live a continual life of sin. Every believer has died to sin the moment he or she came to Christ. We’re not talking about never being tempted again or even caving to sin occasionally, but Paul is talking about your identity, your position, your status as a Christian. Who are you? You’re a believer in Christ who has died to sin. You are no longer under sin’s bondage. Remember that. Keep that in your head! Paul is laying down the foundation of all our growing and changing and putting off the old and putting on the new. This is why Romans 6 is the most important chapter on understanding progressive sanctification, that life-long process for every believer of becoming more and more like Christ.
HOW DID YOU DIE TO SIN?
Romans 6:3-4, Or do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus have been baptized into His death? 4 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.
Here is something Paul expects all of us to know, to understand: “Don’t you know that all of us…?” Paul never reserved some truth for the big boys up in seminary and then other truths for us average Christians. Three times in Romans 6 Paul says we should know something, vv. 3, 6, 9. We need to learn to think like a Christian. We’re going to see three words to help us: know your status in Christ, dead to sin and alive to God; reckon or consider this to be true in your life, verse 11; and then in verse 13 present yourself to God as alive from the dead! See that?
This morning we’re looking at five facts about your identity in Christ you wouldn’t know about if God had not revealed this to us.
- #1 YOU WERE BAPTIZED INTO CHRIST
Here’s what Paul wants you to know in verse 3 – you’ve been baptized into Christ. There’s no water in verse 3. It doesn’t say you were baptized into water. Water baptism is important, but it’s simply a public confession of your faith in Christ. You died to sin because (again here’s a fact) you’ve been baptized into Christ or brought into union with Christ. Baptism means to be immersed into something producing a permanent change. It was used of immersing a ship in a naval battle. When the Greeks sunk an enemy ship, I can just hear those sailors yell, “We really baptized that baby!” If you wanted to dye a piece of cloth, you “baptized” it into the dye. It permanently changed the color.
So you’ve been baptized or immersed into Christ, into union with Christ. What does this mean? Here’s where it really gets interesting. Remember the truths we saw in Romans 5? There are two representative heads, Adam and Christ. You’re either in Adam or you are in Christ. In Adam we were cursed with original sin; sin reigns in death. In Christ grace reigns to eternal life (Romans 5:21). This is the story of two men. Baptism into Christ describes this transfer from one status to the other, from one identity into the other. Paul puts it like this in Colossians 1:13, “For He rescued us from the domain of darkness, and transferred us to the kingdom of His beloved Son.”
Notice Paul says “all of us” in verse 3. Every believer has been baptized into Christ. We were in Adam. When we trusted in Christ, God removed us out of Adam and immersed us into Christ. That’s a complete change of status, of spiritual identity. This is a fact, not an experience. It didn’t happen at your water baptism. It happened when you came in faith to Christ. Paul says the same thing in Galatians 3:27, “For all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ.”
You are now in Christ. This is who you are. God now sees you no longer in Adam under the condemnation of sin, but in Christ, clothed with Christ’s righteousness. You used to live in Adam; now you live in Christ. You died to your old position in Adam. Now everything important in your life is because you are in Christ. His story is your story.
Marriage illustrates this perfectly. Before you married Sally, you lived in a realm of girls chasing you and you were sort of interested and maybe even considered marrying one or two of them. You dressed for them and acted like a real gentleman for them. They had lots of influence in your life. You were alive to them because your identity or status was “single.” But then you met and married Sally. he moment you said, “I do” to Sally you died to all the other girls. Sally took your name, you took her debts, God joined you together as one flesh never to be torn apart. Now you no longer dress for all those girls, or even look at them. They may still be looking at you, but you died to them. You were baptized into this new identity called sacred marriage. Should you continue to flirt and chase all those girls? “Don’t even think about parking there.” You died to that realm of singleness. Your new identity is “married.” Those girls didn’t die to you, they’re very much alive, but you died to them.
- #2 YOU WERE BAPTIZED INTO CHRIST’S DEATH
Verse 3b says, “You’ve been baptized into His death.” Now here is why you can’t continue in a sinful way of living and how you died to sin. You died to sin because you’ve been baptized into Christ’s death. Again, this is a fact, not an experience. You are in Christ and when He died on the cross, you died with Him. The cross is at the center of your new status. Through the cross you died to your old status in Adam. When you came to Christ, that was the end of the road for your old life. Here’s how Paul put it personally.
Galatians 2:20, I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself up for me.
- #3 YOU WERE BURIED WITH CHRIST
Paul adds in verse 4, “We were buried with Him through baptism…” When you die and are buried, you have definitely ended your previous existence, right? No question, your earthly life is over. You are dead. There’s a finality and permanence about being buried. Imagine a dog chasing rabbits. One day he catches that little rabbit and kills it. So, you take the corpse, put it in a Walmart bag, dig a hole, lay the poor dead critter in the hole and bury it. Maybe you put a rock over it so the dog doesn’t dig it up. That rabbit will never be bothered by your dog again. Why? He’s dead and buried. The dog didn’t die to the rabbit; he’s still chasing rabbits. But the rabbit died to the dog. You died with Christ and were spiritually buried. Sin didn’t die to you; you died to sin. That’s where Paul is going with this. Paul wants you to thoroughly grasp your identity in Christ, your union with Christ. You are a new creation in Christ. This is your status until you reach glory. Nothing will change this. This is what God wants you to know and remember when sin comes chasing you like that dog chasing that rabbit. The rabbit died to the dog; you died to sin. This is a fact that happened when you trusted Christ as your Savior. God did this when He baptized you into Christ. This isn’t something you try to do or feel, “I feel buried with Christ today.” No, you’ve been buried with Christ so your old position in Adam is forever gone. You are now positioned in Christ.
- #4 YOU WERE RAISED UP WITH CHRIST
Romans 6:4b, 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.
God didn’t leave Jesus in the grave and He hasn’t left us buried in the grave with Christ either. God raised Christ from the grave through His glorious, victorious power as our representative and head. Resurrection is the great final victory note in God’s plan of redemption. Resurrection means sin and death and Satan are defeated. God is saying, “I have provided death-shattering life from the grave for you in My Son. Your enemies are conquered, the tomb is empty, there is new life for you in My Son.” What a victorious statement that is: “Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father” and as verse 5 will clearly tell us, we’ve been raised up with Christ.
- #5 YOU NOW WALK IN NEWNESS OF LIFE
Verse 4c assures us, “so we too might walk in newness of life.” This is just beautiful. Every believer has died, been buried, and resurrected in Christ to newness of life. Walk means you’re going to live differently as a believer. Can you continue in sin? Good heavens no! Instead, you’re going to walk in newness of life. That word “newness” means new in quality. You are walking in a fresh, new kind of life – no longer walking the old life in Adam, but the new life in Christ. The very power of the resurrection is at work in you producing this newness of life. Paul repeated the same thing in 2 Corinthians 5:17.
Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature; the old things passed away; behold, new things have come.
This is your new identity in Christ. Goodbye to the old status. No more in Adam. You’re in Christ now. Your union with Christ is the foundation or basis of all your spiritual growth. This is the gospel applied to your life – Christ’s death, burial, and resurrection. This is why you can’t continue in sin. Don’t even think about parking there!
There is so much more to come in Romans 6. But I want to encourage you to read Romans 6 over and over. You might even memorize it, especially verses 1-14. And if you aren’t a new creation in Christ and you can’t identify with what Paul is talking about here, the gospel of Jesus Christ welcomes you. Talk to Christ today and tell Him you know you have sinned against a holy God and need a Savior. Put your trust in Christ’s work on the cross and you will be placed in union with Christ to live in Him for God’s glory.