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CHAPTERS SIX TO EIGHT.  

These are the Power Plant of Grace chapters, and there are three “floors” to this building.

·        THE PLAN  (Romans 6:1-10);

·        THE PAIN   (Romans 7);

·        THE PRIZE (Romans 8).

  1.     The Plan – first floor of Sanctification:

“KNOW YE…” many things are listed here for the Christian to realize:
That we have been, as believers, “buried with him [Christ] by baptism into death.” (6:4).
An amazing statement is given here. Not only did Christ die for me, but He died as me!  
Do you know that the word “baptism” simply means “identification”?
We are identified with Christ Jesus in His death!
We believers have been “planted together…in the likeness of His resurrection” (6:5).
This is highly significant. 

The believer has been “transplanted” three times, as shown in God’s Word:

3.   To the tomb, where we believers rose from the dead in Christ Jesus(we share His resurrection).

  BECAUSE OF THESE TWO FACTS:

Because we were buried with Christ in baptism - identification in His death, and because we have planted together in the likeness of His resurrection, we have been given two wonderful things!

These are:

1.      THE BELIEVER IS “dead to sin” (6:2); AND

2.      IS “freed from sin” (6:7). 

Now, these are tremendous statements, which GOD has given to us in Romans chapter six. We must delve deeply indeed to grasp the full implication for ourselves personally. Christ’s resurrection marked a new life ‘apart from sin.’ The believer also passes through the same experience. It is the only way of sanctification, and the destined goal of justification. God puts us right, and then makes us right and keeps us right. His righteousness is first imputed then imparted to us. 

Paul has, up to this time in chapter six, been showing us the

                                     GODWARD side of sanctification by faith-union.

Now he is showing the MANWARD side of sanctification through faith-union.

In verse 14 Paul shows us the certainty of progressive righteousness, he exults in the victory:

Sin shall not lord it over you. 

Ye are not under law, but under grace.

“For sin shall not have dominion over you: for ye are not under the law, but under grace.”  

LEWIS SPERRY CHAFER STATES:

“Colossians 2:16-17. In the context in which this Scripture is found, the apostle warns believers against any complicity with the law, or works-covenant, since they have been transferred to a position under grace. The passage states that they have been made “complete” in Christ, to which estate nothing could ever be added, hence for the one who is “in Christ,” the objective of all meritorious works is already gained, and the legal obligation to do good works is forever met (v.10). The believer is also said to be “circumcised with the circumcision made without hands, in putting off the body of the sins of the flesh by the circumcision of Christ.” Therefore, since the flesh, the one thing the law proposed to control is in the sight of God put away, there is no need of the law. The Jewish child was circumcised on the eighth day, which was the first day of a new week following the passing of a completed week. The circumcision on the eighth day, or first day of a new week, typified the deliverance from the old creation which would be accomplished for believers through the resurrection of Christ from the dead; for in death He bore all the curse of the old creation. For this reason the believer under grace is not called upon to celebrate any aspect of the old creation which was represented by the Sabbath (v.11).

The one who is saved has been “buried with him in baptism, therein [the baptism] also ye are risen with Him through faith of the operation of God [his own faith in God’s power], who hath raised Him from the dead.”

The use of the aorist tense [present continuous] in connection with the reference to a burial with Him in baptism, places that burial as being contemporaneous [at the same period] with the circumcision just mentioned. Therefore it is evident that the baptism with the Spirit which vitally relates the believer TO Christ is in view ( 1 Cor. 12:13; compare Gal. 3:27).

In that baptism, as in no other, the Christian partakes of all that Christ is, and all that Christ has done. The believer shares in Christ’s crucifixion, death, burial, and resurrection (Romans 6:1-10). With the old creation thus buried in the tomb with Christ, the believer is in no wise obligated to any observance related to the old creation (v.12 of Colossians 2). Again, the believer has been delivered from the law by no less an undertaking than the nailing of the law with its handwritings and ordinances to the cross. After this great transaction, how can the child of God reasonably recognize the law in any respect whatsoever (V.14)?

“Blotting out the handwriting of ordinances that was against us, which was contrary to us, and took it out of the way, nailing it to his cross;”

To the one who is thus complete in Christ, circumcised in Christ, buried with Christ, and delivered from the authority of all handwritings and ordinances, the Apostle writes:

“Let no man therefore judge you in meat, or in drink, or in respect of an holyday, or of the new moon, or of the sabbath days: Which are a shadow of things to come; but the body is of Christ.”                                                                                                                            

( Colossians 2:16,17).

All these were essential features of the law (1 Chron. 23:31; 11 Chron. 2:4; 31:3), and as such were to cease in the present age of Israel’s chastisement (Hos. 2:11), and are to be reinstated in the coming kingdom [ Christ’s Millennial Kingdom] (Ezek. 45:17).

They were but shadows of the Substance Christ. Having the Substance, the believer is warned against turning to the mere shadow. According to this Scripture, the law, which included the Sabbath day, is abolished. It is objected that the reference in this passage is to extra ceremonial Sabbaths, the contention cannot be sustained, for the words here used are ton sabbaton, which are the exact words that are invariably used to designate the regular Jewish Sabbath.” 
[End of Quote] 

LET’S PULL ALL THIS TOGETHER!

Because we believers are now under GRACE, we must not involve ourselves in the LAW in any way. This “law” can mean the Mosaic Law, or trying to gain merit for ourselves before God by our deeds, or working hard to make ourselves holy in order to be saved, or working hard in our own strength to make ourselves righteous to please God after we have been saved by Grace through faith. Christians are of a NEW CREATION and have died to the old creation, which is typified by the keeping of the Sabbath Day. God rested on the seventh day from all His work, and so He gave the Sabbath Day as a memorial of His rest. This was in the old creation with its order. Now, in the Age of Grace we do not remember the creation in this way, so we do not keep the Sabbath Day – or anything else associated with O.T. Judaism. We are now of the “eighth day” or the period when the new creation has come. We have been “circumcised” in a spiritual sense, and have been removed altogether from sin and death, we share the new resurrection life of Christ – all is new! Death cancels out all obligations. Sin has kept us all in bondage and in misery; it has been beyond our bearing. The only way to get out of the chains of sin is to DIE. This makes (but does not remove altogether) the body of sin and this makes sin have no power over us (Eph. 4:22-24; Col.3:9,10).

  Romans 6:11-12:

“Likewise reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord. Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, that ye should obey it in the lusts thereof.”

  What does this mean? It simply indicates that we should act by faith about this matter. It doesn’t matter what we feel, we must believe what God has said. We have truly died with Christ to the old creation, and His new Life will give us victory over sin if we trust Jesus Christ to give us His own righteousness. We are dead to the strivings of the law-works way of life, we are now alive to the faith-rest way of life.

  Romans 6:13-15:

We must stop yielding (present tense) our bodies members to used as instruments of unrighteousness;

  We are to once and for all (aorist tense, do so and keep on going in this) yield our body members as God’s instruments of righteousness.

Romans 6:16-23:

Here is the nitty gritty, whom will you obey now you are completely saved by Grace? You have liberty in Christ Jesus, you are not under bondage to sin or the law, and you do not have to obey the evil precepts of the world system because you cannot help yourself. You are in wonderful liberty as a son of God. You once had a wicked master, Satan, now you are the liberated child of the Lord God.

  a)      As a believer you must obey the new Master Who is your own Father in Heaven. Ignore the old master (6:16). We can only serve one master at a time (Matt. 6:24).

  b)      We have been saved by Grace, now we must walk by Grace alone and receive the fullness of Christ’s life. It is as though we have been poured into a ready prepared mold of salvation, not of our own works but of God’s. Now we live by the precepts of that mold and let God fashion us in it and shape our new life.

WHY ARE WE TO OBEY?

Here is an interesting concept. Because we have been saved by the life and death of Christ Jesus, we have ALL the merit before God that Christ has. We cannot earn any more, and indeed it is an insult to Christ to think that we could add to HIS merit and righteousness, which we share. We, of ourselves, cannot give any sort of law-works to God to earn His favour; it is impossible for us to do this. If we are to be righteous God must do it all. Then why obey? BECAUSE we are “freed from sin.” (6:22).

Paul must have wanted this fact to sink in because he stated this same truth

SIX times in this chapter: 6:2, 6, 7, 14, 18.

Let’s list them in their various forms:

“dead to sin” verse 2;

“body of sin might be destroyed” verse 6;

“freed from sin “ verse 7;

“sin shall not have dominion over you” verse 14;

“being made free from sin” verse 18.

We have been freely forgiven and given new life, why would we continue in sin because we can never be lost again? (6:1).

Does it mean here in Romans that sin can never again come into our lives?

No, that would be sinless perfection on this earth.  

Let us look at the Latin theological terms, which can aid our understanding here: 

a)      Non posse non pecare- not able not to sin. When we are unsaved we are lost in sin!

      We could not stop sinning, even if we had wanted to!

b)      Posse non pecare- able not to sin. When we are saved and have the new life of Christ within, we have the power to live, lives which are victorious over sin.

c)      Non posse pecare- not able to sin. After the Rapture, when we have put on immortality, and have been utterly transformed, we will be unable to sin ever again.

GOD desires that we should bear the fruit of the Holy Spirit, which are the proper and fitting results of justification. Believers can only show to the world this fruit by obedience in Christ Jesus’ power. (Romans 6:21,22).

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