So in this afternoon service I want us to look at Romans chapter 6 verses 1 through 5 and I'd like to start by reading this passage and I'll remind you that I think the whole sixth chapter is a closely related unit. I think verses one through 14 form another unit, while verses 15 through 26 form a second unit. And the teaching in this passage is absolutely essential to living to please God. And understanding, there is, I would say that there is Some mystery involved here in these 14 verses, but it is not a mystery that is beyond our ability to comprehend with the teaching of the Holy Spirit. And we're trying to take it in bite-sized pieces week by week. So beginning in chapter 6 in verse 1, the Holy Scriptures read, What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound? Certainly not. How shall we who died to sin live any longer in it? Or do you not know that as many of us as were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death? Therefore, we were buried with him through baptism into death, 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. For if we have been united together in the likeness of his death, certainly we also shall be in the likeness of his resurrection. Let's pray again. Dear Father, we do ask for your divine assistance, both upon myself in communicating the teaching of this. I pray that you'd assist me to communicate it in the clearest and most understandable terms possible. And I pray that you would cause all of us to have ears to hear. your holy word and to receive it into our hearts and minds and help us to internalize it and live by it and appreciate it and receive significant benefit from it this very week that what we're seeing week by week from Romans 6 that we might add each thing to our lives and make application of it that it becomes second nature to us. I pray this in Jesus name. Amen. So. These verse one really gives us the pressing question that's on the mind of the Apostle Paul and then verse two and following, and I think in a very real sense, we could say to verse two to the end of the chapter, but primarily verse two. to the end of verse 14 gives us a profound answer. But we're only going to look at the part of the answer that Paul gives in verses 2 through 5 this evening. So let's take just a second to think about the pressing question of verse one, what shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound? And as I've already noted last week, the we that he's talking about there are the people from the fifth chapter who are no longer in Adam, but they're in Christ. That is, he's talking about we, he is concluding himself and all the believers in Rome, all who are saved, shall we who are saved continue in sin And of course, the part of the question that really is pressing us is that grace may abound. This is the emphasis, shall we who are saved, and we are eternally saved, and we're saved apart from works, and we're saved as sure as if we were already in heaven, shall we continue in sin? And shall we do that in order that grace might be abounding even more? You can see how pressing this question is on the mind of the apostle and on the flow of this epistle. Now, just take a second with me and turn back to chapter three of Romans and verse eight. And you'll remember when we were there, I said, we're gonna come back to this question. So this is what he asks here. In chapter 3, verse 8, he says, And why not say, Let us do evil, that good may come? As we are slanderously reported, and as some actually affirm that we say, their condemnation is just. Now, the question is a little bit different here, but the same idea is behind the question. So even in the middle of not even having finished an explanation of the sinfulness of man and taking up the work of Christ and justification, he raises this question. And the we here in this verse is we the apostles of Jesus Christ. So somebody's making accusation that the apostles of the Lord Jesus Christ are saying let us do evil that good may come. And Paul says some people have even slanderously reported and others are affirming that they heard us say that. And he says their condemnation is just. Because he did not say it, Peter didn't say it, John didn't say it, and we got testimony in all of these epistles, nor James, the brother of our Lord and pastor of the church at Jerusalem. None of them said any such thing. So again, we're seeing the pressing nature of this question. Basically what's happening is Paul and the other apostles are being charged with being antinomian, which is a big word to mean against the law. They're being charged with, okay, you're saved by grace. You don't have to keep the law. You don't have to do anything. You're free to do whatever you want to. And maybe even some people, these ideas of libertarianism and legalism and all these, these are not modern terms. The world has been arguing about these things from way back. Don't think that these are something new that has come up just recently. Paul's teaching on justification, and he and this is important for us as we think about the pressing nature of this question, is not novel. Just like the issues associated with this were not novel, nor is his teaching on this subject. Now, we're not gonna go back and read chapter four, verses one through eight, but let me just remind you. Romans 4, 1 through 4, Paul quoted as his key argument, Genesis chapter 15 and verse 6, and that verse is found in verse 3, and that verse says, Abraham believed God and it was accounted unto him for righteousness. What Paul is doing is he's basing his teaching not on something that a vision that he received. or upon a new philosophy that as a Pharisee, he's rejected legalism and he's come up with, you know, libertarianism and he's given, nothing of the sort. His teaching is based on the book of Genesis and it's based on the father of the Jewish nation and the fact that Abraham was saved on the basis of his faith in the word of God and not according to works of righteousness, which he might have performed. And then he builds it on even another foundation, that of David. So in Romans 4, there in verses 5 through 8, he quotes from Psalm 32, verses 1 and 2, where David is writing, he says, blessed are those whose lawless deeds are forgiven and whose sins are covered. Blessed is the man to whom the Lord shall not impute sin. So he's using two of the three key heads of the Jewish nation as proof positive that salvation is by grace through faith in Christ alone. That men are justified by the imputed righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ and not by anything that they do or say. So it's vitally important for us to understand that This is the same old truth that's always been basically communicated through the Holy Scriptures, through God to mankind. The message that Paul proclaims is the gospel of God. He started off in verse 1 telling us that Paul, a bondservant of Jesus Christ, called to be an apostle, separated to the gospel of God. And then he gives us a brief little description of the gospel in verses 2 and 3. and for information about that. Then when he gets to verse 16, he says, for I'm not ashamed of the gospel of God, for it is the power of God unto salvation to everyone who believes. And so Paul is now going to answer the pressing question, the charge that is being leveled against him and the other apostles, and show how salvation, which is by grace, does not approve of sin. So that brings us then to the profound answer that we want to think about for a little bit this evening. There are basically two concepts which answer the pressing question in verses 2 through 5. There's other answers to come, but we want to see these two. The first one we talked about last week, we died to sin. And let me just remind you that We died to sin is past tense It's not present tense. It's certainly not future tense. It's past tense So he's Paul is writing to people and he said how shall we who daddies including himself in there? We who died to sin? How should we live any longer in it? I? So the meaning of dead to sin I presented last week, and basically I would say in its bare bones essence. Some of you probably went away saying, I wish he had taken a little more time with that and fleshed that out for us just a little bit. And that's what we're going to do this week. And we're gonna do it with the next concept that is given in verses three through five, which will actually shed more light upon the meaning of what it means to be dead to sin because dead to sin and this second concept are closely related and we might even say inseparably connected together by the Apostle Paul in this very context. So his first answer is, we died to sin. And if you're dead to something, it means something. Well, what does it mean? Well, the second concept, which helps us, is we are in union with Jesus Christ. Now, obviously, we have to unpack that. That's another phrase that would be quite a bit more difficult or quite a bit as difficult as we died to sin. We are in union with Christ. So we need to explain what that means. Now, sometimes we read over passages and we'll read little words that we learned when we first started to learn to read and miss the place of those words. So verse three starts with the word or. So verse two says, how shall we who died to sin live any longer in it? And then he says, or, and what does he mean when he says or? He says, what basically it means is that what he's about to say is very similar to and connected with we died to sin. The original readers were just as perplexed, we might say, as to what would be meant by we died to sin as modern readers would be perplexed by it. So he says, or do you not know that as many of us as were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death and so forth? So there's something else that we need to see here besides the or that we might pass over, showing the connection between dead to sin and union with Christ. And that is the past tense that's also found in verses three and four. So let's look at them again. Verse three, or do you not know that as many of us, he is including himself in there, as were baptized? again, past tense, into Christ Jesus, were, past tense, baptized into his death. Therefore, we were baptized with him through baptism into death, that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in him. So we've got a number of statements that are all past tense. This is what's happened. You were united with Christ and you died with him and you were buried and raised with him And then we have present tense right at the end. Even so, we also should present tense walk in a certain way because of what has happened in the past. So, union with Christ is another way of saying that you're dead to sin. It's just another way of saying, and that's a different way, but it's similar and it's maybe even very helpful in understanding dead to sin. So what I'm going to do is I'm going to prove that union with Christ and being dead to sin are the same by answering six questions. And that'll take up our time for today. First question. When did we die to sin? And some of you have one answer, and some of you might have a different answer. This is actually more challenging than you might first think. So some of you are going to think immediately, and if we were having an open discussion, you might answer, we died to sin when Christ was on the cross. And you would answer it that way because that's what's being discussed here. the death of Christ in the place of sinners. That answer is taking into account the fact that we were present with Jesus Christ when he died upon the cross. And you would probably say, knowing your theological position, your understanding of the teaching of the Bible, you might say that actually, yeah, we can understand that we died with Christ and we're in union with him when he died upon the cross because we were the elect of God. And as the elect of God, he knew every one of us. And we were in union with Christ according to the eternal plan of God. And you know what I would say if you brought that up? I'd say that's exactly right. But some of the others of you might say, well, wait a minute for a second. We died to sin when we were individually brought into a saving relationship with God. We were living for sin. And you could point some verses out in this chapter, like verse six or seven, I forget which one. And I think verse 17 later, before we were saved, we were slaves to sin. We weren't dead to it, we were slaves to it. Why? I wanna say, no, We died to sin when we were brought into a saving relationship with God, when we individually were regenerated and received Christ and His atoning sacrifice on our behalf by faith. And you might choose the language of the context, and you might say, no, we died to sin when we were no longer in Adam, but when we were then in Christ. And I would say an answer to that question, that's right too. So while some Bible teachers pick one or the other of these, I'm convinced from my study and thought of this, not over this past week or even this past year, but my study of this for the whole of my life, that this is, that both of these are true. And good Bible teachers have also seen that both of these are true. They're not contradictory. The teaching of the Bible needs to be seen in its totality. And many times, truths that don't always just mesh together so perfectly and may seem to, you know, be two different things actually are communicated together in a passage. And I think that's the case here at this point. So the crucifixion of Jesus took place over 2,000 years ago. It took place literally in history and in time. It took place in Palestine, at Calvary. But experientially, the significance of the death of Jesus Christ in the place of individual sinners is realized in their own personal salvation. when we each exercise faith in Christ, which is, of course, the result of the work of the Holy Spirit within us. So, the first question, in many ways, is the most important question. When did we die to sin? We died to sin in Christ, at Calvary, 2,000 plus years ago, we also died to it at the time we received that work of Christ for us and were born into the kingdom of God. Second question, how is our death to sin pictured? And this really helps us to see how dead to sin and union with Christ is so important. Verses three and four, are saying that our union with Jesus Christ in His death, burial, and resurrection is symbolized in baptism. Our union with Christ is symbolized in our baptism. So every time we have a baptismal service, you hear me quoting this passage of scripture, and the purpose of this passage, though, I want you to understand something. The purpose of this passage is not to teach on baptism. Baptism is simply mentioned at this point by the Apostle Paul to show us the symbolism of union with Christ. And what better picture, so our baptism is we're immersed in water in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and we're raised to walk in newness of life in Christ. The baptismal formula's drawn from Matthew 28 and this passage right here because the teaching of this is we were in union with Christ when he died on, literally died upon the cross in space and time. And we've become believers in him at another space in time. And then we're baptized in the wake of that. symbolizing that union that we have with the Lord Jesus Christ. And this symbolism is not insignificant. It is extremely significant. It is extremely important. It is communicating to us some of the highest and most lofty and we might even say the most wonderful truths. You and I are the children of God because we're in union with Christ. We're one with him. Third question. What is the purpose and meaning of the death of Jesus? Now, this question is not answered in verses two through five, but it is answered in verse 10. And it's so important to what we're discussing at this juncture that we need to jump over to verse 10 where it says, for the death that he died, that is the death that Jesus died, he died to sin once for all of us. Once for all. So the death that Jesus died, he died for sin. He died as a substitutionary atonement. We're in union with him because our sins are placed upon him and he suffered in our place and took our sins upon himself. So if you died with Christ, you also died to sin. You see, these two can't be separated. Death to sin and the death of Christ are together. They're one event with one great purpose to remove our sins from us and for him to pay for those sins on our behalf. Fourth question, what does it mean then to be dead to sin? So, at the decisive moment of our salvation, we were literally removed from the dominion of sin into the dominion of grace. Now this is the main point of verses 1 through 14. And it's found in both of these answers that are given to us here. We died to sin and we're in union with Jesus Christ. Both of those metaphorical phrases communicate to us Before salvation, we were under the dominion of sin. Sin ruled over us. We were a slave to it. But when we were saved, we were taken out of the dominion of sin. We were taken from out of that realm and that reign. And we were brought into a new kingdom, into a new realm. And we were given new life in the Lord Jesus Christ. In this passage, and I learned this from Jerry Bridges 40 plus years ago, in this passage, Romans 6, one through 14, we have two kingdoms. That's the best word, two nations, two kingdoms, two spheres or realms. And one is the realm of sin, and one is the realm of grace. Notice I didn't say one is the realm of sin and one is the realm of works or anything like that. No, it's sin and grace. And that is really what verses one through 14 are telling us, that the believer no longer lives in the realm or kingdom of sin. He doesn't have the badge, he doesn't have the uniform of a soldier of Satan in the realm of sin and evil. It's been stripped from him. He has now the robe of righteousness. He's in the kingdom of the Lord Jesus Christ, and he's one of the children of Almighty God. Verse 14 captures this for us, where it says, for sin shall not have dominion over you, for you are not under law, but under grace. Now, I want to reflect back for just a minute to the end of chapter five. And the reason for this is Dr. Linsky in his commentary, basically a Greek exegesis of the New Testament and on the book of Romans, he makes this observation that I think is extremely helpful. In verses 20 and 21 of chapter 5, and then of verse 1 of chapter 6, he says, the definite article is given by Paul to both sin and grace in these verses, and he believes that they should be retained in the English translation. Now, in English, the difference between the Greek language and the English language, we don't have to have the definite article in every place that it's found in the Greek language. And there's a lot of reasons for that, discussion related to that. But, sometimes it's important theologically. to point this out because it greatly assists us in the proper interpretation of a passage. So I'm going to read verses 20 of chapter five through chapter six in verse one, and I'm gonna insert the definite article into the places where it's found in the Greek text. So if you look back with me there, it says, moreover, the law entered that the offense might abound, but where the sin abounded, the grace abounded much more. So that as the sin reigned in death, even so grace abounded. Even so, the grace might reign through righteousness to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. What shall we say then? Shall we continue in the sin that the grace may abound? Now what I want you to see is this, from that reading and seeing the definite article, the sin refers to the realm of sin, the reign of sin, the kingdom of sin. And the grace refers to basically what we normally call the covenant of grace. It refers to this kingdom that we're in through the Lord Jesus Christ saving grace and power in our lives. And so we come back to chapter 6 and verse 14. The meaning here is for sin shall not have dominion over you. You're not in that realm anymore. It does not control you any longer. You were in slavery to it, but you're liberated. You're not in slavery to sin anymore. Now he's not saying that you don't still have remaining sin in you because in this very context, verse 13, he has said that you're gonna be tempted to sin. Yield your members to instruments of righteousness and not to unrighteousness. And he's gonna deal with it in even greater detail in the seventh chapter. But he's saying you're not in that realm any longer. Don't sin. That's what he's saying. Don't do it. You're not in that realm any longer. You're in the realm of grace. understand that and receive that and appropriate that. I could put it in little different terms. When we were in our first birth, we were dead in sin, according to Ephesians 2. And in our second birth, we are dead to sin. We were born into this world dead in sin, committing it and addicted to it and enslaved to it. But in the second birth, we're dead to sin and we shouldn't commit it any longer. And then we have our fifth question. What does union with Christ mean? And very simply as verse three says, it really means to be baptized into Christ. So we ask ourselves, what does it mean to be baptized? And at this point, don't think of our religious ritual or the sacrament of baptism, but think about the original meaning of the Greek word, baptizo. It means what? To dip, to immerse, or to place something into something else. So to be in union with Christ means to be placed into Christ. It means to be, and that's why we have the phrase in union with Christ, and why it's one of Paul's most popular phrases, in Christ, into Christ, being in Christ. Because this is where all of our benefits come from, being in Christ. They don't come from you doing a good job, you witnessing to the laws, giving money to missions, and being present on the Lord's day and worshiping God. No, all of your benefits come from being in union with Christ. That is being in Christ, being baptized into Him, and connected to Him. And verse 5 makes it very clear that this union with Christ is not some otherworldly kind of mystical type idea. Look what verse 5 says, For if we have been united together in the likeness of His death, Now, the very fact that he adds this word to what he's previously said in verses three and four, he says, in the likeness of his death, certainly we shall also be in the likeness of his resurrection. By adding likeness, he is saying that the quality or state of being that we have presently is like this, is like, being in union with Christ. There is this similarity between the two. We're really living in space-time continuum here. And Christ is physically, literally, historically, at this instant, at the right hand of the Father. but he suffered and died in our place and we died with him and we were united together with him and we were raised with him when he was raised and we were raised just as he was raised to never die again. We are raised to live for him and to live in the likeness of him. This might be illustrated, I got this somewhere years ago, I don't remember where. This would be illustrated this way. Seeing the image of the sun, the S-U-N, in a pool of water. So we're standing beside a pond or a lake and the sun is up there and we can see the sun reflected in that water that's there. is the likeness of the sun. It's not the sun, but it is the likeness of the sun that we see reflected in the water there. And we also have been raised and united with Christ in the likeness of his death and in the likeness of his resurrection. And so this word likeness really clears up any notion that we actually died with Him and was actually buried with Him and actually rose with Him. But this was all what He did for us on our behalf. God saw all of the elect. in Christ in his death, burial, and resurrection. And then our sixth and final question is this, how is our death to sin and we might say our union with Christ of spiritual and practical value? In many ways, this is the most critical question, and we're not gonna answer it fully today, but we're gonna begin to think about it and answer it more fully as we progress forward. But let me say this much. The answer to this question is we are no longer under the dominion of sin, and it has no power over us like it had over us before we were saved. Its halt upon us has been broken. so much so that we are free to live a holy life. And we, in living this holy life, are to say no to temptation and sin, and we're to say yes to righteousness. And Paul is going to develop that further as we go along in this chapter. So in closing, The price which Jesus paid for our salvation in his death, burial and resurrection is the single most important motivating factor for the living of a Christian life. That could possibly be the most important thing that I could say to anyone who is a Christian. When you and I are faced with a temptation, this is exactly what we should do. We should weigh the issue. Do I want to lust for this woman or do I want to worship and love the Savior who suffered and died and rose again from the dead for me? Do I want to say something ugly? to someone who's been mean to me, or do I want to honor and worship and serve Jesus Christ who suffered and died for my sins? And on we go with all the lust, greed, and all the temptations and enticements of this world. We need to weigh them with loyalty, love, and devotion for Jesus Christ. I'm gonna tell you, I believe, and this comes not original with me, from the great saints of God, the Puritans of old, that the most powerful motivation for living a holy life is to keep Jesus Christ in his death, burial, and resurrection, our union with him in that, in the forefront of our hearts and minds. And if you profess faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, you say that you're a follower of His, and you remain in sin, and you live a life of sin, and you have no thoughts of His glory, and are not motivated by His death for you, I can say with relative confidence that something is seriously amiss in your life. Since Jesus was crucified for us, we should willingly crucify every lusts of the flesh for him. Let us pray. We thank you so much dear father for your holy and precious word. And dear Father, we all feel, beginning with myself and going to everyone under the sound of my voice, we feel the weight of our sin. We feel conviction for our sin. We know that we have often chosen some selfish, sinful action rather than Christ and relying upon him and denying our flesh. So we come confessing that in general to you and also as much in particular as we possibly can, knowing that you're faithful and just to forgive us of all of these sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. And we pray that you would further equip us to really resist all of the fiery darts of Satan with the shield of faith, that is, faith in our Savior through whom we have union and salvation by. For it's in His name we pray, Amen.