I guess some of you are wondering where we got that bell from, but I think Washington Fellowship, D.C., was the influence. They ring the bell, and a few of us would visit other places. So that’s more effective than those of us getting up here and yelling at you. You probably think it’s a more refined way to get your attention, but if that doesn’t work, we’ll start yelling again. Okay?
If you would, please turn with me to Romans 6. I think most of you got the email; possibly a few of you read it. Romans 6:1-14—the first part of Romans 6. And I’ll read these verses.
What then shall we say?
Should we continue in sin, that grace may abound? Far be the thought.
We who have died to sin, how shall we still live in it?
Are you ignorant that we, as many as have been baptized unto Christ Jesus, have been baptized unto His death?
We have been buried therefore with Him by baptism unto death, in order that, even as Christ has been raised up from among the dead by the glory of the Father, so we also should walk in newness of life.
For if we have become identified with Him in the likeness of His death, so also we shall be of His resurrection; knowing this, that our old man has been crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be annulled, that we should no longer serve sin.
For he that has died is justified from sin.
Now, if we have died with Christ, we believe we shall also live with Him, knowing that Christ, having been raised up from among the dead, dies no more. Death has dominion over Him no more.
For in that He has died, He has died to sin once for all; but in that He lives, He lives to God.
So also ye reckon yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.
Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body to obey its lust; neither yield your members instruments of unrighteousness to sin, but yield yourselves to God as alive from the dead, and your members instruments of righteousness to God.
For sin shall not have dominion over you, for ye are not under law, but under grace.
Shall we pray?
Lord, we’re so grateful for these words. We recognize, just in the pure reading of them, how full they are, how comprehensive they are. And we know these are beyond our being able to communicate all that they mean and all that You have done in Christ Jesus.
But we’re asking for a special visitation of the Holy Spirit to meet us, to open our hearts, to open our ears, that we might hear what the Spirit says to the churches; to open us and grant us anointing, that we may speak with all boldness what we ought to speak of the mystery; and that You, who have the words of eternal life—You alone—would make those words alive in us.
We don’t want to go away from here just apprehending what’s written on the page. We want to go away from here captured—captured by the Spirit of the Word that is upon these pages.
For this, we ask together in the mighty and only name of the Lord Jesus. Amen.
They told me they were going to get me a mic. Okay. All right. Do I trade this one?
Thank you. Oh, don’t trip. We have to lay hands on you and pray for you.
So most of you know we’re dealing with this matter in Romans 6, these first fifteen verses, on the foundation of sanctification.
Pay close attention to this chapter. Pay very close attention to these first fifteen verses. These are of monumental importance to our life as a Christian—our walk as a believer. So I would ask you just to pay very much attention to it.
As a matter of fact, I like what Griffith Thomas said. He was talking about the importance of these verses, and he said, “In chapter 6, we are arriving at a turning point in this epistle.” So, a turning point.
Let me put that maybe in my own words, and maybe to help: it is a monumental transition. This chapter 6 moves from the first of God’s solutions for man’s deficiencies to the second grand divine solution for man’s utter and complete inadequacies.
Let me repeat that. It is a monumental transition from the first of God’s solutions for man’s deficiencies to the second grand divine solution for man’s utter and complete inadequacies. I believe that’s what these fifteen verses are dealing with.
If you want to look at Romans and maybe have an understanding of the first eight chapters, I think you could say chapters 1 through 5 are reconciling the past.
Now, we had a wonderful opening, and we had a wonderful time of worship at the Lord’s Table where we were dealing with reconciliation. It is full reconciliation with God—not partial, not incomplete. It is full reconciliation with God. That is what Romans 1 through 5 deals with.
Now, chapter 6 is how the redeemed of the Lord live in the present. You notice the difference. Chapters 1 through 5 deal with reconciling the past. Something needed to be reconciled. You would never have a start.
Well, really, when you’re looking at chapters 6 through 8, it is the same thing. But chapter 6 has to do with how the redeemed of the Lord live in the present—how we’re going to do that. I think that’s an important distinction that may help you when you study this book.
The last time we talked about Romans 5:12-21, and we gave the title In Adam or in Christ. These two men are the lens through which God looks at all of humanity.
You only have two choices. You’ve heard me say that for years, and I don’t want to bore you too much, but there are only two choices. You can think there are millions of choices—I have millions—but you really don’t. You have a lot of choices to make, but it gets down to just two: are you in Adam, or are you in Christ?
God makes it simple. Thank God. I make it far too complicated when I read the Word of God. God makes it utterly simple. How marvelous. These two men are how He looks at humanity.
The great work of redemption through justification, which is what the first five chapters are about, by faith completely deals with our past in Adam. Completely. It’s done. It’s a work that’s finished for those who have believed. It grants full reconciliation to God for those who are placed in Christ.
You remember 1 Corinthians 15:45. Let me read you a verse. This might help.
And so it is written, The first man Adam was made a living soul. The last Adam was made a quickening Spirit.
Notice the distinction and the difference. The last Adam, who is Christ, was made a quickening Spirit. So this gets into how we are able to start to live the Christian life.
First, we must be justified. That makes us reconciled. Secondly, we must come into what is called, following justification, sanctification.
Now, sanctification really means being made alive—being made holy. Being made, let me put it to you in a distinct way, as you’ll understand from Romans 8: being conformed to the image of Christ. It’s a process. And that’s what we’re looking at today: the beginning of this new division in this book, the foundation of sanctification.
Understand, this is the change. That’s important. First Corinthians 15:22 says:
For as in Adam all die, so in Christ shall all be made alive.
That was God’s secret. It wasn’t to make you just alive. It was to make all alive in one man, the last Adam, the second man. That’s the way 1 Corinthians 15 refers to them.
So this is what we’re dealing with today. Today we see how God makes it possible for us to begin to live the Christian life through that second man, in Christ Jesus.
Everything is in Christ Jesus. We’re brought to life in Christ. All the divine resources are made available to you and me in Christ. Everything that lacked in Adam, all the ruin that we see, is dispensed with on the cross; and in Christ, something new is completely done. That’s the glory of sanctification.
Well, we’re going to look at a few things. I think you know already, some of you who read the email. I would like to get people to raise their hands, but I won’t do it. I’m tempted to do it: how many read the email? But I won’t do it.
We’re going to look at justification versus sanctification. That’s important. We need to, for a moment, pause when we’re making this transition and understand what really happened in those first five chapters and what is happening now in chapters 6 through 8, which all deal with sanctification.
If you want to divide up this chapter, you can do it this way:
The fact of our death in Christ is very important. You have to understand how God deals with this matter of us living the Christian life: it is through the fact of our death—not just His death, but our death in Christ.
Third, the fact of our resurrection in Christ. Not just that you die, but that you have been made alive in Christ Jesus. And there, all those infinite resources that are His alone are made yours through this process of sanctification.
And then finally, the power of two responses. I always think responses are important. I’ve said it before. You’ve heard me say it before: the Bible is, to me, a book of call and response. Okay? That’s all it is.
God is always calling, and God is always looking for human beings that He will save and give the glory of His life to, to respond to the divine call. If you can keep two things, remember? Just remember two things: call and response.
So that is the important reason that Paul ends in verses 12 through 14 with two responses. I hope that helps.
Now let’s begin with justification versus sanctification and clarify a little bit the difference between these two essential things that alone make the Christian life possible.
Justification deals with our past actions. In other words, if you read the first five chapters, you’ll begin to notice the word sins. I repeat with emphasis: sins, with an “s” on the end. It is plural because it is dealing with our acts or our actions. It is dealing with what we do or what we have done—our actions.
Sanctification deals with our nature. It’s different. It deals with our sin nature. Therefore, when you go out of chapter 5 and come into chapter 6, you begin to notice that sin is always referred to, pardon me, in the singular: sin. It’s no longer what you do; it’s who you are.
God has to do something big in His deliverance plan. He has to deal with your past, because that eliminated you if it was not dealt with. And He has to deal with who you are so that you can currently live the Christian life. Do you understand the distinction? It’s a very real distinction for us to understand.
Justification is concerned with what we do or have done. Sanctification deals with who we are.
Justification provides a completely new position of righteousness in Christ. There are people that still, I hear, say, “We were made righteous in Christ.” No, you were not. No, you were reckoned righteous in Christ.
If you read 1 Corinthians 1:30-31, it is Christ our righteousness. You were granted a righteousness that was not your own, never could be your own, because you could never rise to the standard of what God was looking for. You were given a righteousness. You were not made righteous. That is justification.
And that righteousness that is in Christ allows you to stand unimpeachable before a holy God. You cannot be condemned because now you can say, “Christ, my righteousness.” That is justification. That is reconciliation.
Sanctification provides a new life in Christ that enables us to do the impossible. You can now, because of this life that He puts in us, live the Christian life. This is unthinkable.
There has only been one Person who ever lived the Christian life. Did you think it changed? So now you are able in yourself to live the Christian life? It never changes. Only that Person in you is able to live the Christian life. That is sanctification.
We said already that Romans 1 through 5 cover justification, and Romans 6 through 8 cover sanctification. Justification deals with our position in Christ; sanctification deals with our living through Christ, or in Christ.
Now, sanctification. The word is a New Testament word in the English versions. It never occurs in the Old Testament. In other words, the word sanctification, in the English versions I look at, occurs ten times in the New Testament alone.
And it is sometimes translated, equally, as holiness. Of the ten times, five times it is translated holiness. Well, that’s true. Sanctification is holiness. It is being able to live a holy life. That life—you cannot live it—but that life in you can live it. That’s holiness.
Sanctification and holiness are interchangeable words. It is not like they are two different words. They are the same word. Sanctification and holiness are what we are able to do because of His grand work within us.
So let me read one verse. Maybe this will help you. Well, in the Old Testament, you might say, “Well, brother, I thought I read ‘sanctify’ a lot of times.” You did. It usually means set apart for God. Everything in the tabernacle—everything. Sanctify occurs many times in the English versions of the Old Testament. Sanctification only occurs in the New Testament.
And it means—this is so important to get it—it means to make holy. Now remember, God did not make you righteous when you were justified; He gave you righteousness. But think how complete the work on the cross is, and the glory of God’s work is: now His intention, when we come to chapter 6, is to make us holy.
Can you believe that is possible? I don’t know if you’re skeptical like I am, but we always use that phrase. I know you’ve heard that phrase: “You have your work cut out for you.” Do you understand? With us, it would seem impossible, but with God all things are possible.
So there is a verse I like because it shows the importance of sanctification: 1 Thessalonians 4:3.
For this is the will of God, even your sanctification.
Isn’t that beautiful? This is the will of God, even your sanctification. Now, if you don’t believe God can do it, He believes He can do it. And it is His will that you would be sanctified.
As a matter of fact, if you also read, I think it is 1 Thessalonians 5:23—one of you can correct me—that you would be sanctified wholly. Not holes in you—wholly, W-H-O-L-L-Y. Wholly sanctified: spirit, soul, and body. How marvelous this deep work of sanctification is.
Well, let me try to explain the difference in how God approaches this matter of sanctification. There are three phrases, I think, that will help you when we talk about sin in the singular.
Justification delivers us from the penalty of sin. Do you understand that? It delivers us from the penalty of sin.
Christ died on the cross. Christ bore our sins. And there is that Old Testament illustration of the scapegoat. You remember the two goats. On one, they put their hands on the head to transfer the sins to that scapegoat. And he went off into the wilderness, and he bore the sins away forever. That was one aspect of Christ’s work on the cross.
The other goat was sacrificed as the sin sacrifice and paid for our sins. Those two goats in the Old Testament—and you can read it at your own leisure—show us how grand this deliverance from the penalty of sin is.
Think of it. Christ, who knew no sin, was made sin. He took upon Himself our sin. He bore our sin away, and now it has been removed, from Psalm 103:12:
As far as the east is from the west.
This is a vicarious death. Now, what does that mean? Sometimes we read these words from commentators and say, “What does vicarious mean?” Well, it simply means a substitutionary death. He was our substitute.
You did not have to bear your sins any longer. You did not have to remove your sins. All in His body on that tree, He took away all of the sins. He bore all of the sins. He was crushed by the Father so that you could go sin-free. That’s what it means that He removed us from the penalty of sin.
Remember in this chapter, in verse 23, it says:
The wages of sin is death.
The wages of sin is death. Who bore those wages? Did you bear them? You could not. The Holy One of God, the only One of God—He took the penalty of sin.
That’s one way we can look at it. That’s how we were accounted righteous. The second important thing about sanctification and sin is that He delivers us from the power of sin.
This chapter is dealing with us being delivered from its power, not its penalty. You never have to suffer the penalty of sins again because you have been fully reconciled to God. But the power of sin is another question.
How are you going to live? How are you going to overcome the power of sin? How are you going to live in this life and not be completely overwhelmed with sin? Well, that’s what He does in sanctification.
And third, the third phrase is: ultimately, you will be delivered from the presence of sin. Do you get that?
When the Lord comes, we will get a new body. It says in chapter 8 that we will get this new body of redemption. And we shall be removed from the very presence of sin.
Isn’t that marvelous? We won’t have to deal with sin in eternity. Sins will not be recalled. Sins will have been completely dealt with and done away. You will have been made righteous through the sanctifying work of the Holy Spirit, and then no longer will there be even the presence of sin.
I long for that day. What a day that will be when we have it. Romans 8:23 says:
We also ourselves groan in ourselves, awaiting adoption, which is the redemption of the body.
When that day happens, we’ll be done with even the presence of sin. So I hope you understand from these three phrases. It is a pretty good way to look at the comprehensiveness of the Lord’s work.
The last one, the presence of sin, has to do with glorification. You know, we have justification—the penalty of sin. What is the second one? Who remembers the second phrase? Oh, yeah, the power. The power of sin is sanctification; that’s living this life. And the third thing is the presence of sin, and if you read chapter 8, it is glorification.
Well, I do think you get it. Second Corinthians 1:10 says:
Who delivered us from so great a death, and doth deliver us: in whom we trust that He will yet deliver us.
“Who delivered us from so great a death”—that is justification. “And doth deliver us”—notice that is present tense—that is sanctification. Paul understood these three things. “In whom we trust that He will yet deliver us”—that is glorification. That is all three in one. Thank God for that.
Well, let’s go back. Now you will know why Paul wrote this first verse:
What then shall we say? Should we continue in sin, that grace may abound?
How important this is. These fifteen verses are dealing with that one matter: whether we should continue in sin.
Look at verse 15, at the tail end of it. They are very similar, very similar questions he asks.
What then? Should we sin because we are not under law, but under grace?
Two important questions. These are the bookends of this introduction to sanctification. And if you understand them, these are flawed arguments.
Paul immediately reacts to his own writing. He does not hold back. He is putting forth a human argument that is a flawed argument, and immediately, in both cases, he says, “God forbid.”
In other words, being under grace is not somehow a license to sin. The whole point of grace is to bring us to a point where we are so sanctified that we are no longer controlled by the power of sin.
This is what he is trying to get us to see. This is an argument that is so wrong, he cannot help but react.
You remember that phrase, “God forbid,” is ten times in the book of Romans, right? Ten times it is there. It means—there are a number of things it means. I don’t know that I quite remember them still. Oh yeah, “Banish the thought,” one writer said. “Banish the thought.”
In the old Authorized Version, it is “God forbid.” And in my version that I like, you know, it is “Far be the thought.” So this is a reaction to this wrong understanding.
This wrong understanding of grace is that somehow we can be saved and left as we were in our desperate condition, and nothing needs to be done; and because we are under grace, we can live as we are, unchanged. That is the two questions. We cannot. God forbid.
He is after people that are not just justified. He is after people that are sanctified and conformed to the image of His Son. All of His work following salvation and justification is for that purpose.
I believe this is what this means. These fourteen or fifteen verses, 1 through 14, answer these two questions. And it says grace is not a liberty to sin, but a liberty from sin.
Now, do you understand the difference? If you are going to live the Christian life and not continue in sin, grace is not a liberty to sin. A lot of people say, “Well, I’m under grace. I can…” You know the argument. Really, if you delve into it, it is, “Since we’re under grace, why don’t we sin more, so grace is even more wonderfully shown?”
Well, to that Paul says, “God forbid.” That’s wrong thinking. You know, often you may have been referred to as having wrong-headed thinking. I know I have. That would be wrong New Testament thinking.
But another thing, when it comes to law and grace: grace is not a license to live under sin. Some people think it does. “We’re in the age of grace. We can live under sin.” No, you can’t.
There must be a vehicle. God must not have determined to do a partial work and leave you with your sin nature, dominated by sin, controlled by sin. He had a grander plan than that.
And so grace is not a license to live under sin, but, through sanctification, to live unto God. That’s what grace is for.
Now let’s look at the fact of our death in Christ. This is a very important thing. How does God make sanctification possible?
I tell you, we can struggle with this. Let me just say for a moment: in the evangelical Christian world, these verses are rarely talked about.
People in evangelical Christianity understand justification by faith, but hardly understand sanctification and what God actually wants to do in you and me as believers: to be conformed to His image. We hardly understand it.
I’m so thankful for people—I think of one, I think of Watchman Nee, when he wrote. And I tell you, I recommend this book, by the way: The Normal Christian Life. That is the most glorious presentation on Romans 6 that I’ve ever heard, and I’ve read a number of things. I cannot think of anything more complete.
Please read it again. Jerry and I read it in 1972, and it changed our whole outlook together. We actually read it on our lunch breaks at the City of Richmond, and this book, The Normal Christian Life, changed our lives.
Now please, if you’ve read it, read it again. But Nee had such light. He saw there was a possibility that we did not need to continue to live under sin, but we could be free from the power of sin.
And he made it clear. He tells a very humorous story. Now, this has to come by divine revelation, but he was upstairs, and one day he realized what Romans 6 said, and he said, “I’m dead. I’m dead.” And he went downstairs and told the first brothers he ran into, “I’m dead. I’m dead.”
That’s what we need to see. You were put out of the way. You know, do you think you can live the Christian life? The first thing Paul deals with is death.
You need to see that you—your old self, the old man, Adam, who you were in Adam—were taken care of at the cross. Now, I mean that in the most gentle way: it was executed at the cross. You know that? You were executed. You died at the cross.
So Paul begins to deal with this matter of death. You see the words death, dying, and dies in these fourteen or fifteen verses. I think it is fourteen times you see it. This is a major thing. And this is the fact of our death in Christ.
And this is how, once we see this—the same way Watchman Nee saw it, and many others have seen it—we begin to realize now there is a way through. Now there is a possibility I can live the Christian life because I no longer live. Someone else lives in me who has the power to overcome sin.
This is the beauty of the fact of death in Christ.
We need to understand that Paul, in these verses 1 through 14, is dealing with two facts. Remember my argument that the Bible is about twos? You remember that? Two facts.
The first fact is: you died in Christ. Paul makes a very big deal about it. If you look at it, verses 1 through 7 say it is a fact that you died in Christ.
You can say until you’re blue in the face, “I don’t feel dead. I don’t look dead. As a matter of fact, I look pretty good for a seventy-two-year-old man.” But nevertheless, you were dead.
Christ took you to the cross, and there you died. And there you begin to experience the liberation of sanctification: that you no longer need to live, but Christ can live in you. This is the beauty of these fifteen verses.
Verses 1 through 7 answer that first argument: “How should we continue in sin, that grace may abound?” This is the answer to that. You died.
I think sometimes we get confused about that. But I remember I had an old book—I think it was Dying to Live—by Jessie Penn-Lewis. There is another, maybe famous book, perhaps more famous than that, Dying We Live, by Edward Gleason. I think Dying to Live was Jessie Penn-Lewis’s book, if I remember correctly.
Yeah, you don’t know about that, do you? You have to look in the library when you get home. But thank the Lord, brothers and sisters, through dying in Christ, we begin to live in Christ.
This is an eternal fact. This is not a hope. This is not a wish. This is not something you hope will happen in your lifetime. This is something that is declared in these first seven verses that has already—excuse me—happened.
It is a historic event. When Christ died, you died in Christ. That was the beginning of sanctification.
It was not only Christ who died. A lot of times when we look at the cross, we say, “Well, Christ died on the cross.” But the miracle of it is, you died on the cross.
Well, let me read verse 3:
Are you ignorant that we, as many as have been baptized unto Christ Jesus, have been baptized unto His death?
Notice the tense of it: have been baptized. Now, my English is not so good. We’ve set that record straight long ago, and I have my sidekick here who will make it right if I mess it up. “Have been baptized.” It is past tense. It already happened.
You know, I mean, have died—it is past tense. It is something that happened historically when Christ was on the cross, and by it your liberation begins when you know that. You no longer have to live because, first of all, you’re dead.
Or you can read on:
We have been buried therefore with Him by baptism unto death, in order that, even as Christ has been raised up from among the dead by the glory of the Father, so we also should walk in newness of life.
This is a divine fact. Do you know the difference between a fact and a feeling? I get so troubled—I don’t know if you get so troubled—but when I hear testimonies of people, three-quarters of the words are, “I’m not feeling,” or, “I’m feeling,” or, “It doesn’t feel like,” or, “This is what I feel.”
Paul does not begin with feeling. Feelings are not in the picture here. What Paul wants us to see, believe, and understand in sanctification is that, in fact, you died in Christ when He was at the cross.
How marvelous that is. You’ve been put out of the way. You’ve been put aside. And then, when we come to the second fact, you will see that you’ve been raised in Christ. Two facts—just two facts—change the whole world forever.
We were reconciled. Now we become sanctified. How? We have died in Christ. How do we live? In Christ. Only those two things. It is the whole of Romans 6:1-14.
Baptism, sometimes we think of it as a religious experience. It is not a religious experience. It is being completely identified with Christ.
So much so that, that day He died on the cross, all of Adam’s race died. And all of Adam’s race that become reconciled to God by believing this begin to discover the secret of living the Christian life, which is now Christ has been raised from the dead, and we live through Him.
This is the whole explanation. I remember when I was trying to relate this to the folks in Pakistan. They thought I was talking about baptismal regeneration.
I knew there was something wrong because I said something that took all of a minute to say, and it was about five minutes of translation. And then finally, it got to our brother. He stopped me and said, “Brother, we don’t believe in baptismal regeneration.”
I said, “Well, I don’t either. Why do you think I believe in baptismal regeneration?” They had never seen this reality. They had never seen this part of the sanctifying work.
I said, “Everybody takes Mark 16 and says, ‘Those who believe and are baptized shall be saved,’ and somehow tries to impose baptismal regeneration.” What I do believe in is baptismal sanctification. It is a huge difference.
That is what we need to see. Through His baptism—baptism through His death—we were literally included by baptism into His death.
You know, when you die—and I’m not hoping for any of us to die, right? I’m hoping the Lord will have more time to do that sanctifying work—we think of three questions: when did you die? Where did you die? Why did you die?
When someone comes up to me in business, an old business person that I knew quite well, and says, “Did you know John died?” I say, “John died? How did John die? When did John die? Why did John die?” And then they give me this new information.
Well, when you died was when Christ died on the cross. Where did you die? On the cross. That is where you died. Why did you die? So that you would be enabled to walk in newness of life. That is the whole thing.
That is the when, the where, and the why. Baptism is so comprehensive. Baptism is not just a statement or testimony that I believed in the Lord Jesus, and I am reconciled to God, and I am His.
That is not all that baptism talks about. Paul made it abundantly clear:
Are you ignorant that we, as many as have been baptized unto Christ Jesus, have been baptized unto His death?
Now, he was not calling us stupid, by the way. “Are you not aware?” Maybe he was calling us stupid. I don’t know.
Oh, what a wonderful verse. He goes on to say, we have become identified with Him through baptism into death. Now, what does that mean?
Identified—that word is very important to baptism. It means that you were planted together. Now, I think—is it? You’ve got the four versions. Is that King James Version? Jerry wrote four versions of all these verses, and he’s flipping his pages. “Planted together.” It is in one of them—maybe it is in one of the literal ones.
It is Young’s Literal Translation. You were literally planted together with Christ. It is death. You were buried. What do you do with a dead person? You bury him.
He says later, we are justified. It means we are free from sin because of this. How marvelous that is.
I love what Brother Ironside said when he was trying to explain these verses, which are not, by the way, easy to explain. H. A. Ironside said, “How many people were crucified on Calvary?”
He said there were the thieves. There was Christ Himself. He realized three. He went further than that. “But are those all?”
Paul said in Galatians 2:20:
I am crucified with Christ.
He was there too. So that makes it four. He went further than that. And each believer can say, according to Romans 6, “Our old man is crucified with Him.”
So untold millions were seen by God as hanging from that cross. Do you understand the importance of that? What a huge cross. Untold millions. We were in there. Thank God for it.
And because of that, we have been buried. This is the way sanctification begins: with a divine, vital fact. If you don’t understand it, you’ll never know how to be free from sin. That’s the simple thing Paul is telling you. So important.
Romans 6:6 says, “Knowing this.” I’ll never forget, years ago when I read The Normal Christian Life the first time, Brother Nee said so much about “knowing this.”
“Knowing this” means objective truth. It does not mean subjective experience. Now, if you look at verse 9, where it talks about knowing, and you look at verse 16, where it talks about knowing, they are conscious knowledge. They are subjective knowledge. There are two different words here in the Greek.
In Romans 6:6, the profound word is: you must know this as an objective fact. It already happened. You do not make it happen.
You do not ask, “God, take me to the cross, Lord, so that I might forever die.” He must get confused when people make those kinds of prayers to Him. That happened two thousand years ago.
How marvelous. This is how sanctification begins. Why did you have to go to the death on the cross and be included, or be planted with, or other versions say, to be united—in union with Christ in His death?
Because He knew you could never be free from sin unless you were liberated by death. That is the wonderful story of Romans 6. I hope you begin to see it.
Holiness is impossible for us. I remember Brother Nee. I’ll never forget the illustration he used. It is a good illustration. He called us that sin-producing factory.
God knew He could deal with our past, but He knew, in His divine wisdom, He had to deal with who we were. And if left alone, we will continue to be that sin-producing factory.
So He had to put that sin-producing factory out of business and close the doors. That is what He did. And so, marvelous, this is sanctification.
This is what it means by “the body” in verse 6:
Our old man has been crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be annulled.
Now Jerry can read us all the versions. It means put out of business. It means no longer in service. It means it has been terminated.
And once we are terminated, there is made available to us a whole new life that can live this Christian life. This is the fact. Do you understand the fact? Don’t pray this will be true. Stand in the fact.
This is an inviolable fact. Is that wrong, Linda? She fell asleep. She didn’t know what I was even saying.
You can’t change this fact. You can’t alter this fact. You may be able to disbelieve this fact. You can doubt this fact. But if you don’t live in this fact, you’ll never be sanctified.
You died with Christ, that the body of sin might be annulled. Our old man, our unregenerate self, was crucified.
Ephesians 4:22, I think, is a beautiful verse: “having put off the old man.” God took care of that. He put off the old man. He’s gone. He’s buried. This is wonderful.
In Colossians 3:9, it says, “having put off the old man.” He goes on: “and put on the new.” That is the secret of sanctification. That is the foundation that all of sanctification is built upon.
And then he concludes this fact of our death in Christ in verse 7:
For he that has died is justified from sin.
I wish Darby had not used the word justified. This is unfortunate. Now, you know me as an acolyte of his, okay? Only because I didn’t know any better. I asked Brother Kong years ago, “What Bible should I get?” I was all in King James, and he said, “Well, I like the Darby version. It’s more accurate.”
Well, I started then, and I’ve never given it up. But I’ll tell you, it is more awkward. And I’ll tell you so: I don’t think this is a good word. Even Darby recognized that. He said in his notes, “Freed from sin.” That is how he was explaining it.
I wish he had not talked about justification. We are talking about sanctification. Justification already happened in the first five chapters, and now we come to what it means to be sanctified. That means you are freed from the power of sin.
It means, literally, those that are dead cannot sin. You know, it is a wonderful miracle. And in America, those that are dead can still vote.
I saw a fellow there—he must have been a disgruntled conservative. He had on the back of his vehicle—I went to the bank—and it said, “I hope when I die, I don’t vote Democrat.”
But one thing you cannot do when you are dead and laid in a grave is sin. That is the fact you need to stand in.
That needs to be your daily stand: I have been dealt with. It is over. And now You are doing a wonderful sanctifying work in me. It is a process that will go on until you are released from the presence of sin. The rest of your life will be in this process.
Another thing: the fact of our resurrection in Christ. Notice there are two facts. Just remember these two facts.
You died in Christ. You were one of those untold millions who hung on the cross, and one of those untold millions who was buried in that tomb with Christ.
And then when He was raised from the dead, you were one of those untold millions who believed in the power of His resurrection life. And because you did, you were made alive in Christ Jesus.
So that we might live in newness of life was the word. What a powerful fact this is. You have been raised in Christ. When He was raised from the dead, you were raised with Him.
Now it says in verse 8:
If we have died with Christ, we believe we shall also live with Him.
It was a fact. We have died with Christ. We shall also live with Him. We believe that Christ, having been raised up from among the dead, dies no more. Death has dominion over Him no more.
For in that He has died, He has died to sin once for all; but in that He lives, He lives to God.
How marvelous. This is us. This was not just supposed to be the Lord Jesus. When He was raised out of that grave in newness of life by the divine power of resurrection life, He now no longer lives to sin.
He no longer continues in sin. He was sinless. He bore the sins. But no longer, no longer do we have to continue in sin because we have been raised with Him in newness of life. Do you understand? What a fact.
Can you imagine if He said, “I’ve just left you in the grave”? Just left you in the grave. The power of resurrection life—people do not understand that enough as Christians.
Paul said in Philippians 3:10:
That I may know Him, and the power of His resurrection.
When you look at Romans 1:4, this is how the book begins. I know it is in my awkward version, but bear with me as I read it. Speaking of the Lord Jesus:
Marked out Son of God in power, according to the Spirit of holiness, by resurrection of the dead, Jesus Christ our Lord.
That is the Spirit of sanctification. Do you know that the power of His resurrection life is now in you? The greatest power.
Paul could have said anything about the Lord Jesus in this introduction, but what he wanted to focus on was the power of sanctification—holiness—by the resurrection from the dead.
Brothers and sisters, there is a power in you. This is inexplicable. It cannot be told. There is a power of life in you, once you have become identified with the Lord Jesus, that is above every power that ever existed.
Now, you know I tend to be infatuated—maybe that is the right word—with the Shroud of Turin. I don’t think I have religious artifacts in the home. Linda wouldn’t let me do it if I wanted them. But the Shroud of Turin is amazing to me.
I do not necessarily believe that it is a burial cloth of the Lord Jesus, but I was listening to a fellow who was one of the original researchers, who in fact did research in the early seventies.
And he said something happened so powerful in the resurrection that this thing, which they cannot replicate and they cannot explain, was transferred in a burst of power, and it left an indelible mark on this cloth.
Now, whether that is true or not, I believe in the part about the power of the resurrection. Something powerful happened. And that power is in you. And that power is in me.
And the fact that this power is in you and this power is in me makes it possible for us to no longer continue in sin. This is Romans 6:1-14. How marvelous this story is.
Well, the last point. Let me share. This is very important, by the way. Remember, I’ve been talking about two men, two facts—divine facts, eternal facts. Now I want to talk about two responses.
There are only two responses you need to begin to live in this sanctified way of being made holy, this transformative process that will last the rest of your life, if you do these two things.
Now, if you don’t do these two things, it will never happen in you. You will be saved. You will be reconciled. You will be justified. But you will not be sanctified.
That is what Paul is trying to get us to see in these first verses. Let me read them, verses 12 through 14:
Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body to obey its lust.
Neither yield your members instruments of unrighteousness to sin, but yield yourselves to God as alive from the dead, and your members instruments of righteousness to God.
For sin shall not have dominion over you, for we are not under law, but under grace.
To these two facts, the first response is: reckon it so. That is not a casual word. You know, I’ve told you already in the book of Romans that word reckon occurs again and again. It is in your account. It is a divine fact. It is an accounting term. Reckon it so.
All sanctification is cooperation with the Holy Spirit. Now justification is different. It says, “Believe in the Lord.” That’s all you have to do. That is the response, and you are justified.
But in sanctification, there are two things you must do. The first is that we must reckon it so. We must reckon.
Now, I’m not telling you to wear yourself out reckoning. The first time I discovered that word from Brother Nee in The Normal Christian Life, I went around and every third word was, “I reckon it so, Lord. I reckon it so. I reckon it so.” I’m glad people did not hear me saying that, but I said it over and over again.
You need to take that and declare in the Lord, “It is so. I recognize, because it was not my doing, it is God’s way to full sanctification.” Reckon it so.
The second response is equally important. It is the word yield. Look at verse 13:
Neither yield your members as instruments of unrighteousness to sin, but yield yourselves to God as alive from among the dead.
Now, do you understand that word? So important was that word to the Apostle Paul, he repeated it twice. Don’t just reckon it so, but now do something else: yield yourself to God.
When you were under sin, you were reigned over by sin. You did not even have to yield yourself. Remember, it was your nature. It was who you were.
But now, in this sanctification process, God wants your cooperation. And two things will determine in your lifetime whether you are cooperating with God or not.
One is: do you reckon it so? You were dead in Christ. You were raised in Christ to newness of life.
And the second thing is: do you yield yourself now as instruments of righteousness to God, that you could live by Him? Do you do that when you get up in the morning? Will you do that when you go to bed at night?
Will you say, “Lord, with everything in me, by the power of Your resurrection, I yield myself to You as an instrument”—something He can play, you know, an instrument like a musical instrument—“for righteousness”? Do you do that?
These are the power of two responses. If you just do these two things—accept the divine facts, reckon it so, yield yourself—you will begin to discover that the Holy Spirit is working in you the divine process of sanctification.
May this become our own experience.
Let me conclude just with this. What marvelous provision has been made for us in the cross.
Could you imagine that we who were sinners and enemies could have been justified and completely reconciled to God? That is one aspect of the cross: Christ died for us.
But there is a second aspect of the cross: Christ lives in us. And that is sanctification.
The only way you can begin to enter into this process is to realize you were included in it. You were planted in His death. You were included in His burial. And you, yes, were included in the greatest event of all history: the resurrection of Christ from the dead. Incalculable power.
Well, what a glorious gospel. You know, I think sometimes we demean the gospel. Remember when Paul spoke, he was talking about God’s gospel when he opened in Romans 1.
It is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek.
For therein is revealed the righteousness of God from faith unto faith: as it is written, The just shall live by faith.
This is that glorious gospel: full reconciliation, and in the continuous present sense, until we see the Lord, being wholly sanctified—spirit, soul, and body—until that day we are received to be with Him forever and are delivered from the presence of sin.
This is Romans 6:1-14. The impossible has been made possible through the work of our Lord—the complete work, not the partial work—the complete work of our Lord on the cross of Calvary.
Lord, we thank You so much for Your Word.
Forgive us, Lord, when we simplify it and demean it and reduce it to something just for human apprehension. It is all to the divine glory. Who could have thought of these things?
Who could have thought of making Your enemies, sinners, righteous in Christ—accounting us righteous? Who could have thought that You could take these same unchanged ones, with the nature of sin, and transform them to be according to Your image? Who could have thought?
But it is true. It is altogether true.
You made it possible when we died with You and when we rose with You. And You are looking to us to cooperate with You and Your Holy Spirit: to reckon it so, and to yield ourselves to You completely, that You will finish this work of the cross that You started in us.
All these things we ask in the precious name of Jesus. Amen.