Or, The Everyday Duties of Gospel Doctrine
Scripture: Romans 6:5-11
Date: June 5, 2022
Speaker: Sean Higgins
Based on how many signs were posted and how often teachers talked about it, it sure seemed like adulthood would involve being on fire a lot more. Stop, Drop, and Roll really seemed like vital information. It doesn’t seem to be as frequent of a safety message these days, though I believe it still applies. Its value is off the charts if it ever needs to be used.
The first exhortations of the epistle come in Romans 6. It’s not that there hasn’t been a lot to learn or even to apply in the first five chapters, but here is where we read the first explicit commands. We’ll look at verses 5-14 in two parts, but I’ll give you the life-saving instructions up front: Know, Reckon, Yield.
Because of Adam, as long as we are in these mortal bodies we are related to sin in some way. We are either dead in sin, or we are dead to sin. Dead to sin is better, and is only possible for those who are in Christ who died to sin. That said, being dead to sin doesn’t mean that we are unaffected by it. God’s work of sanctification is making our practice more and more consistent with our position. We are dead to sin in Christ, by grace we live more and more like it.
It is not optional, it is the gospel. I am not trying to persuade you that this is a good way to live, though it is, I am urging you to recognize it as your duty.
When we went through the book of Revelation together I wanted to be generous in acknowledging that there are different interpretations by faithful men, and I tried to get us to read the Apocalypse in a consistent way while also trying not to cause needless conflict. So far in our reading of Romans I think there has been a lot to remind us, even to convict us, about the spiral of unrighteousness and the self-smugness in self-righteousness. Because we mostly know all this, maybe it’s possible to be mostly satisfied with our current condition.
Just as Jesus said that we’d always have the poor with us, so we think that we’ll always have sin with us, so we shouldn’t get to worked up about it. But Paul presses the doctrine into our identity. If we believe the gospel then we should behave like it. If Christ has died and risen again then the spiritual realities mean we can’t let ourselves off the hook in the name of grace.
You should expect to get your lusts under control. You should expect to get your emotions under control. You should expect to get your mouth under control. This is how to do it. When the fires of temptation and sin start to get hot: know, reckon, and yield.
Our baptism has lifelong effect. Baptism ministers to us as evidence of our union with Christ.
For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his. (Romans 6:5, ESV)
The statement is conditional but in a way that is assumes the reality. “If we have been united, and we have been united….” The word united means “grown together” (BAGD), brought to share a similar experience, and could be applied to grafting a twig into the trunk. We are joined, we are fused to Christ; to deny it would be like arguing that your left arm had different blood flowing through it than what’s flowing out from your heart.
Our death is like his in that we weren’t physically put to death as Christ was, but there is a connection to it, about which more in verse 6. Something happened when He died that included us; the doctrine is not merely an inspiration but a termination. And our new life is just as guaranteed as His resurrection. This isn’t merely a hope for the future, though it is that, but also a certainty for today.
The historical and objective truth has spiritual and individual application. Here is what we know.
We know that our old self was crucified with him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin. For who one has died has been set free from sin. Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with Him. We know that Christ being raised from the dead will never die again, death no longer has dominion over him. For the death he died he died to sin, once for all, but the life he lives he lives to God. (Romans 6:6-10, ESV)
There are three descriptions that require attention. The old self, the body of sin, and enslaved to sin.
The old self or “old man” (KJV) is contrasted with the “new man” (which Paul uses in Colossians 3:9) and the “newness of life” in which believers walk (Romans 6:4). The old man is not mostly a chronological description, though in one’s testimony it would relate to a before-now existence. The old man is primarily a label that identifies one who exists in another realm where suppression of knowledge about and thanks to God are normal (Romans 1:21), who inconsistently and clumsily applies conscience to his and others’ conduct (Romans 2:1), who exists in anxiety or denial of anxiety rather than in peace with God (contra Romans 5:1). This is not a desirable identity for anyone, and it is not a concurrent identity for Christians.
The old self is at home in the body of sin. The relationship of the flesh-as-substance and the flesh-as-sphere is one of the more ambiguous ideas Paul writes about. This body has to be more than flesh and bones and blood because Jesus had all those and yet was without sin; even Adam had all those without sin for a short time. Yet while the soul/spirit can be separated from the body, which is what death means, our souls and bodies are united in vital ways. There is something about the desires and habits of our bodies that pull us toward sin.
Among other things this means that sin is not principally a product of our environment or education. Sin requires no external help; the loudest temptation calls aren’t coming from someone yelling in the driveway, the calls are coming from inside the house.
Our flesh is not sin, but sin uses the flesh and provokes the flesh and, without Christ, dominates the flesh. This is the third part: sin personified was a master who enslaved us, and more about this analogy and a new master in the rest of the chapter.
Our union with Christ means that as He took on flesh and was crucified in the flesh, so our old self was crucified (see also Galatians 2:20). Our body of sin was brought to nothing, “done away with” (NAS), “destroyed” (KJV), or made impotent. We have been set free from sin.
This is not a back and forth, Jekyll and Hyde situation. Christ is alive to stay, and so are Christians. For us to say that we can’t not live like the old man is to say that Christ didn’t really put him to death or that he got back up on his own. Our defenses against our sanctification are heresies about the gospel.
We know. We know that our baptism was a baptism into Christ’s death (verse 3). We know that our old self was crucified with Him (verse 6). We know that death has no dominion of Christ (verse 9). The gospel is that Christ died for our sins, was buried, and was raised. Gospel doctrine is that believers died with Him, were buried, and have been raised.
Gospel doctrine has duties. Christ died once for all, and Christians must follow that doctrine every day.
So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive in God in Christ Jesus. (Romans 6:11, ESV)
This is the first imperative in Romans. The ESV is fine, but the KJV has, “Likewise reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin.” If it is true about Christ, then it is true about you. Beloved, this is our identity. Consider or “reckon” or take this formula into account. “Imagine” (Tyndale) it so, picture it in your mind.
Reckon when you’re about to say something snarky to your spouse, when you’re about to have a fit at your kid, when you’re driving behind an idiot, when the ad comes up in your timeline enticing you for a lingering look, when you are drawn to a drink too many, when you feel like can’t quit your rivalry with a classmate.
More on these verses next time.
Sanctification is a process; it’s progressive. Our temptations are real, they can be brutal. A man who thinks it’s easy hasn’t had much of a test.
And also the gospel doctrine brings duty to obey every day. It is our duty to know and reckon the truth of our union with Christ. United to Christ, grafted into Him, we obey. Apart from Him you can do nothing. Abiding in Him you must bear fruit of obedience.
A farmer would be foolish for not sowing seed because he knew weeds would also grow in the field. He would be even more foolish for sowing weeds because he thought they were inevitable. Christian, you are united to Christ, don’t sow to the flesh.
Do not be deceived: God is not mocked, for whatever one sows, that will he also reap. For the one who sows to his own flesh will from the flesh reap corruption, but the one who sows to the Spirit will from the Spirit reap eternal life. And let us not grow weary of doing good, for in due season we will reap, if we do not give up. (Galatians 6:7–9, ESV)