Tag Archives: sanctification

Dead to sin, alive to God (Rom. 6:1-14)

Paul has told us that God’s kindness has dwarfed the whole sorry business that started with Adam sinning.

And now, in the light of this abundant grace, he shows how we may live to his glory.

In fact, Paul must respond to some who doubt, or scorn, the good news he has announced because they cannot believe or do not want to rely on God’s amazing grace.

And he does so by answering two questions.

Here’s the first of them. Shall we just let loose and do as we please, given that God is so kind (vv. 1-14)?

Some are actually arguing that Paul is teaching this[i]. If all the goodness belongs to God—and it does—why not let God take all the glory. There’s no point in our trying to be good.

I’ve included references in the following text to make it easier to locate where Paul makes each point.

We’ve heard that Jesus dies for our sins and rises for our justification. This continues to be the starting point for all that we think and do. But we also need to know the goal God has in doing this for us.

There are three purpose statements in this passage. First, God’s kindness to us is not so we can go on sinning (v. 1). Second, it’s so we can live a new life (v. 4). And third, it’s so our old life can be disabled (v. 6).

But first, everything here depends on what happens to Jesus.

Far from merely looking at Christ as a spectacle, or perhaps appreciating him as a benefactor, we have been included in his dying and rising, and in what those events have accomplished. When we say we believe in Christ, usually expressed in baptism, we’re accepting that our new life doesn’t start with us. It starts with what happens to him—and happens to us who are in him.

But Paul is now telling us how this death and resurrection with Christ impacts on our daily living. Jesus doesn’t just die for our sins. He dies to sin (v. 10). We need to know what this means.

Obviously, Jesus doesn’t die to sinning because he never sinned. But when he dies, he so fully exhausts what sin and condemnation and death can do to sinners, that he’s died to anything more it can do to him. He’s died to the dominion of sin.

Think about this a little more. Jesus said before his death, and concerning those who came to arrest him, ‘But this is your hour, and the power of darkness’.[ii] Jesus is engaging, not only sin’s penalty but it’s power to enslave and to kill. And when he says ‘It is finished’[iii], all of this is included in what is finished.

This is important for us because we’ve been united with Christ in ‘a death like his’ (v. 5). Sin can’t do anything more to him. So, it follows that it can’t do anything more to us either! But how can this be? Sin—as we see what it offers, and feel its tug, still seems to have plenty of influence on us.

It certainly doesn’t mean we have no temptations, no inner tendencies to do wrong, no failures. But God’s purpose is to disable our propensity to sinning (v. 6). Paul calls it ‘our body of sin…being brought to nothing’. We’ve been joined to Christ’s crucifixion specifically to bring this slavery to an end[iv].

This almost seems to be too ambitious! But Paul explains how this happens. Someone who’s died is ‘set free from sin’.[v] This should actually read ‘is justified’ from sin’.[vi] The freedom comes because God calls us righteous. We are clean. We are not being condemned anymore. This is the freedom Paul speaks about.

It helps if we think about the opposite of this. Consider the effect that personal failures have on our will to please God. Satan accuses us continually. He knows the effectiveness of guilt to keep us from doing good. Think of the sapping of energy when our conscience tells us we are compromised and contaminated. What can we do to lift our game?

But then, if Christ has stood, or hung, where we compromised and soiled sinners belong, and been raised from the dead, he can rightly call us righteous. And if we, united with him, have been through death and resurrection, we, with him, can live with a clear conscience.[vii]  And someone who has been cleansed like this wants to stay that way and please his or her wonderful Benefactor. We don’t work towards getting a clear conscience. We start with one. And while we look to Christ and not to ourselves, we remain with one.

And so, with King David, we may have felt God’s heavy hand on us as sinners,[viii] and longed to know the joy of his salvation. But God forgives our sin, and upholds us with a willing spirit.[ix] Or, like Isaiah when God cleansed him, we can say, ‘Here am I Lord. Send me!’[x] Or, like the forgiven Peter, we can say, ‘You know that I love you’.[xi]

Paul also says that we are united with Christ in his resurrection (v. 4). Jesus now has a human life (not his eternal relationship to the Father) that is renewed—after bearing our sins.

He rises to live to God. Of course, he has always lived to God, but we couldn’t share in that—as though we could merely copy his example. He’s living to God now after bearing our sins. He’s been where we were before God—condemned and under sin’s dominion. And now he’s alive to God. Death has lost its power over him.

And we’ve been raised up too. We can act and choose and think in the Father’s presence, as Jesus did in his life among us, and particularly, as he does now. We’ve been equipped to live as the righteous people he created us to be!

And we can be sure that if we are included in what he has done by dying for us, we will most certainly will share in being physically raised from the dead as he was (v. 5).

So much for death being in charge of history! Sin, and condemnation, and the threat of death crippled our living (as Paul has shown in his previous section[xii]). But not now! We’re ready to live.

Paul tells us to do three things so that we don’t waste these privileges. They belong together and help us live in the blessing we’ve just considered. Here they are.

We must regard our life the way God is regarding it. We must breathe this new air deeply. We should notice what is controlling our thinking. We should give up our introspection, or living by our own piety, and start with ourselves where God has placed us—in Christ.

We must say no—over and over again— to temptations we used to give way to. Problems don’t go away by meditating, or just knowing things. Sometimes we just have to say ‘No!’ We should tell sin that it’s not in charge. There’s no negotiation here. No hesitation. We might be surprised how powerful our ‘No’ is! It’s backed by all that Christ has won for us.

And we must say ‘Yes’ to God and his will—over and over again—to exercise the new freedom we’ve received. We’re not meant to be overfed consumers. This new life is built for action. We used to be the living dead! But we’re alive to God now.

And just in case we’ve forgotten, we’re not under law’s condemnation, or congratulations! Everything is under the reign of God’s grace. And our humble beginnings are a delight to our heavenly Father.

A sceptics question has yielded a rich feast. Next time, we’ll look at a second objection people have raised about the reign of God’s grace. And we’ll learn how to live as God’s joyful slaves!

[i] Rom. 3:8

[ii] Luke 22:53

[iii] John 19:30

[iv] Jesus has said that whoever sins becomes a slave of his sin (John 8:34).

[v] V. 7

[vi] Every other time Paul uses this word, this is what he means.

[vii] Heb. 9:14

[viii] Psa. 32:4

[ix] Psa. 51:12

[x] Isa. 6:7-8

[xi] John 21:17

[xii] Rom. 5:17, 21

Whose promise counts? God’s or mine?

The promises of God we often turn to are those that offer help with our daily life and its battles. But the promise we look at here is a promise that God will make us holy—that is, like himself. 

This must be the best of all promises. It’s our one chance to be what we really are. We are God’s image, and if we are not reflecting him, every part of us is working hard to be something we are not built for.

This promise that God will make us holy—or sanctify us, is absolutely necessary. It’s like a parent’s confidence that their baby can walk. God believes we can be holy—and will make it happen. That’s what we need to hear.

Like Paul, we can ask God to sanctify young Christians, and keep them so they will be entirely blameless for when Christ returns. And Paul adds, ‘God is faithful. And he will do it’ (1 Thessalonians 5:23-24). To another group, he says God will keep them guiltless—to the very end. And he adds, ‘God is faithful’ (1 Corinthians 1:7-9). This is very different from telling people they are on their own!

If we are going to be godly—that is, trust him and become like him, we will need to know that this is something God has promised to do.

This is illustrated dramatically when Peter promises Jesus that he will be a faithful disciple. The Lord contradicts him. And by morning, Peter knows that his claims have been empty (Luke 22:31-34). But Jesus has prayed for him that his faith will not fail. And this is exactly what happens. He fails, but not his faith. 

He thought he loved Jesus. Jesus knows better (John 14:28). But God’s promises are fulfilled, and, after the resurrection, he knows himself better, and he knows he loves Christ (John 21:15-19). His holiness is dependent on Christ’s prayer and promise.

This is the way with all of us. We fail, even often. But because God makes a promise to keep us, we get up again and make progress. 

What Jesus is doing here is fulfilling God’s promise to write his law on our hearts (Jeremiah 31:31-34). In other words, what God commands will become what we want to do. And God vows to relate to us in such a way that this will happen. He will forgive our sins and enable us to know him. 

God also promises to fill us with his Spirit. Instead of having hard hearts, he will make them clean and will live in them. And what he wants will be what we want (Ezekiel 36:25-28).

These promises are part of a new covenant that God makes when his earlier covenant has been broken. And it is this covenant that Jesus puts into action. Just before his death, he gives a cup of wine to his followers and says ‘this cup that is poured out for you is the new covenant in my blood’ (Luke 22:20). 

This means that if we take the ‘cup’ he offers—if we entrust ourselves wholly to what he does when he dies for us, God will fulfil the promise he made and forgive our sins, enable us to know him, and his law will be written on our hearts. We will pray the Lord’s prayer with enthusiasm— ‘May your will be done on earth as it is in heaven’ (Matthew 6:10).

Don’t underestimate what is going on here. Our situation is hopeless. Jesus must do, for us, what we will not and cannot do for ourselves. We should love the Lord our God with all our heart, soul, mind and strength, and our neighbour as ourselves. But we don’t. And we should suffer God’s judgement for our failure. And we can’t do this without being destroyed forever. 

But Jesus is keeping this new covenant promise. Because we share with Christ—in his body and blood—that is, in what he does with his body and blood, we will know God as he really is. We will want to live as his people. And he will forgive all that has happened beforehand.

We need to know this new covenant promise well. Here’s how it is spelt out by the apostles.

First, the letter of Hebrews tells us that we are forgiven—completely (Hebrews 8:6, 10-12; 9:14, 24-26). Sin has effectively been ‘put away’. 

The sacrifice Jesus offers to God for our sins turns a light on inside our conscience. We can stop debating with ourselves about what we have done. We can stop inventing ways to appear righteous. Instead, our cleansed conscience can tell us what to run from and what to give ourselves to.

And when Jesus enters into God’s presence on our behalf, we travel there with him (4:14-16). We are ‘at home’ with God and want to please him.

Second, Peter, as we have seen, is renewed by this new covenant promise. He says there are many promises—great and precious. They enable us to share in what God is like (2 Peter 1:3-11).

Peter is not suggesting we be lazy. He urges us to give everything we have to pleasing God. We need to get some virtue into our faith, and some knowledge, self-control, steadfastness, godliness, affection and love. All these take work, but we have the enthusiasm for it because we know God is reliable. He’s guaranteed that our godliness is going to happen. 

On the other hand, if we don’t do this, Peter says we have forgotten we are forgiven! God’s forgiveness is not just him emptying our trash can. It’s Jesus showing us that God is totally reliable and gracious. We’ve not just had an experience. We’ve met a person.

Third, Paul tells us how bold this can make us (2 Corinthians 3:4-18). There’s no life in just having instructions. The world is handing out instructions all the time but it has no power to put love in people’s hearts. 

The promise we are living under is actually the outshining of God’s glory in Jesus Christ (2 Corinthians 4:6). And while we keep looking at Christ rather than at ourselves, we are being changed—being made more glorious! 

With hope like this, we have every reason to be confident. And this is what God wants. We can come to him, we can live in this world, and we can look forward to the future God is making.