Death to Sin, Part 2

Romans six, which passage we
begun last Lord’s Day. I am not going to be able to
read in entirety Romans six again this morning, just for the sake
of time. I want to get immediately back
into this text that we have begun as we turn the corner into chapter
six. where Paul definitely begins a new subject, the theme of sanctification. As John mentioned, we see that
Paul is building a case. He had already shown us our sin
and our sinfulness. He had shown us the way of salvation
through justification by faith in the Lord Jesus Christ and
in him alone. And here he begins to work through
this subject of sanctification, which begins in verse three and
carries begins rather in chapter six and carries through for several
chapters, not just chapter six alone. If you would read along
with me in Romans chapter six, we’ll begin in verse one and
carry down through to verse seven. Where Paul asks a question, By
way of introduction to this chapter, what shall I say then? Are we
to continue in sin that grace might increase? May it never
be. How shall we who died to sin
still live in it? Do you not know that all of us
who have been baptized into Christ Jesus have been baptized into
his death? Therefore, we have been buried
with him through baptism into death in order that as Christ
was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we
too might walk in newness of life. For if we have become united
with him in the likeness of his death, Certainly, we shall be
also in the likeness of his resurrection, knowing this, that our old self
was crucified with him, that our body of sin might be done
away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin, for
he who has died is freed from sin. Paul’s doctrine of justification
by faith left some questions. In fact, Paul anticipates One
very crucial question, the justification by faith poised that if we are
justified by faith, then it really doesn’t matter how we live either
before the cross or after. Or is that the case? If those questions remained unanswered. They could lead to serious error.
If we begin to say that it doesn’t matter how we live, once you’re
justified, once you have placed your faith in Christ and God
has done his work in declaring you justified, it doesn’t matter
how you live. It would be a serious error,
both theologically and practically speaking. Paul entertains the
question, but only for a moment. He poses it. He dredges it up. What shall we say then, based
on everything that I’ve taught you from 321 and forward? All of this salvation. What should
we say then? Paul begins reckoning and reasoning
like his enemies would. Enemies of the gospel, enemies
of justification. And Paul says, let’s draw this
conclusion. Are we to continue in sin that
grace might increase? Paul could barely spit out the
words. There’s no way that Paul was
advocating the position, he’s bringing it up almost tongue in cheek, if you will.
It can’t be entertained for a moment, and that’s why he says in verse
two, may it never be. No way. Absolutely not. Paul didn’t entertain it for
a second that this was a possibility that based on the groundwork
that has been laid for our salvation, that once we have been justified,
that that it could be entertained for a moment, that it doesn’t
matter how we live. And Paul’s answer to that begins
in verse two, may it never be. How shall we who died to sin
still live in it? And I presented it this way that
probably many of us, even sitting in the pew last week said, oh,
yeah, that’s right. That’s a good point, Paul. How
shall we who died to sin still live in it? That’s good. That’s
a good point, Paul. Only when exactly was that? When did we
die to sin? Was that really part of the gospel?
Well, we saw that it is part of the gospel. Part of the gospel
message is to pick up our cross and follow Christ, be willing
to die. But there is a death that takes
place there and then in our conversion. And that’s what Paul has been
dwelling on. There is a death to sin. There
is a death to self. He says, may it never be that
we could take and live a life that runs counter to what God
has called us to in holiness, simply laying claim to our justification
by faith. May it never be. How shall we
who died to sin still live in it? But Paul wants to prove. That little point that death
to sin. It raises a question and in verse
three, he’s still giving the answer to the question. Are we
to continue in sin that grace might increase? He raises. A question in response to the
question. Verse three says, do you not
know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus
have been baptized into his death? Do you not know that? Had you
forgotten that? Did that slip your mind? How did we die to sin? That’s
what he wants to answer in verse 3. What are the implications
of our death to sin? The very purpose of salvation,
the very design, if you will, of Christianity was to deliver
us out of sin. How on earth could we continue
in sin Having died to it, one said one Puritan said the sanctification
of believers rests on the same foundation and springs from the
same source as our justification. Did you get that the same God
that saves us begins the work of sanctification and it will
be accomplished. He says it springs from the same
source as their justification, namely the union with Jesus Christ. And therefore, so far from their
being contrary to each other, they are not merely in perfect
harmony, but absolutely inseparable. And not only so, that the one
cannot exist without the other. He says you cannot have justification
without eventually A full sanctification, and you certainly can’t have
sanctification. We all would testify amen to
that. You can’t have sanctification
without first having had justification. It’s not just that they’re complimentary. They’re absolutely indispensable
one to the other. And they both they both flow
from that union that we have in Christ. That’s why I said
it was such a crucial statement last week when Lloyd-Jones identifies
this chapter. He basically uses it as a chapter
title. It is an exposition, this Roman
six, an exposition of the doctrine of our union in Christ. Look again, if you would, at
verse three. Where Paul says, or do you not know? that all
of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus have been baptized
into his death. Do you not know? It’s a polite
way of saying, have you forgotten? Perhaps a less direct way. Paul uses this. He uses it repeatedly
throughout the book of Romans. He uses it repeatedly throughout
his writings. It was a very frequent device
that he used to call people to remember what their doctrine
is on the matter. Romans 113, I do not want you
to be unaware, brethren. I don’t want you to forget. Remember
the facts. I do not want you to be unaware,
brethren, that I have often planned to come to you. Remember, they
had a problem with Paul. They thought he was a flight. Romans seven, which chapter will
get to eventually Romans seven. Do you not know, brethren? That
the law has jurisdiction over a person as long as he lives.
Do you not know? Have you forgotten how the law
works? Romans 11, 25. I do not want
you, brethren, to be uninformed. Uninformed of this mystery so
that you will not be wise in your own estimation, it was a
regular feature of Paul’s writing. Have you forgotten? Don’t forget. What this whole thing implies
is that Paul believed that the Christians in Rome knew the truth. They knew the truth that flows
through the rest of this verse, and all Paul had to do is bring
it to mind. This baptism into Christ, this
baptism into His death, All Paul had to do is bring it to mind.
Oh, that’s right. That’s when we died. That’s when
we died to sin. What Paul infers here is this belief that baptism into
Christ absolutely included, it necessarily included baptism
into his death. And a baptism into death to sin
necessarily was part of that. What Paul says that this was
a basic Christian teaching, the Romans, who he had never visited,
by the way. Remember, that was the sore spot,
the Romans. He could absolutely say, I know
that, you know, this this is the basics. This is Sunday school
kind of stuff, he might say. Do you not know that all of us
who have been baptized into Christ Jesus? What a statement. One commentator said. The only alternative. to accepting
this argument as referring to water baptism is to confess ignorance
of the meaning of the right in which they had received into
the church. What he basically says is, look, if you look at
this passage and you don’t see water baptism, you don’t even
know what it is, because when Paul said these words to the
Romans, that’s exactly what they thought about. Now, I have to tell you right
off the bat, that this isn’t as cut and dried as it may initially
seem or sound to some of us. Most of us, when we hear this
baptized into Christ, we think immediately of the Christian
ordinance of water baptism, right? And in fact, that’s what many,
if not most of the commentators say. Is that what Paul is referring
to here, water baptism? Or could we ask it this way?
Is there water here in Romans 6? Is Paul referring to water
baptism here? Consider some thoughts from some
of the commentaries. And I said, as I say, most of
them lean in the direction that absolutely. Is there anything
else? Could it be anything else? Some of the commentators commented
in this manner. One said we were brought by baptism
into union by Christ. brought by baptism into union
with Christ. The question is, is that true?
There’s no doubt that is the position that is most popularly
held. Is it true? Is the moment that
we were brought into union with Christ, because that’s what Paul
is dwelling on, is the moment that we were brought into union
with Christ the precise moment of our baptism? Many of us deferred
participation in the ordinance of baptism, as crucial as that
is, we deferred that sometimes for years. And are we to say
now that union with Christ was deferred until we were immersed
in water? Another commentator said this,
all that Paul wishes to convey in this clause is the simple
fact that the persons concerned have received Christian baptism.
It’s a simplistic. Approach, and as I said, most
commentators think that’s all there is here in Romans six.
Here are two others of the same exact conclusion. Baptism contains
in a vowel of our belonging to Christ as our master, our union
with him as our head. Very simplistic. Trent or a interpretation of
the passage, another one said this, the apostle assumes that
those who had listened to the public preaching of the gospel
had publicly confessed their faith and had been baptized.
Simplistic, still another. When did this all important death
take place? The answer is it involved baptism. And by that, I take him to mean
and I think I have good proof there. I take it to mean that
he means water baptism. Now, remember. That’s the question
that Paul is answering. He told us that we died in Christ. Now here he’s going the extra
mile to tell us exactly when that happened. And according
to this commentator, our death in Christ occurred the precise
moment that we went down in the waters of baptism. Now, trust
me, this has been a battle, several weeks, a struggle looking at
these passages and wrestling with these truths, because even
some of our theological giants take this position. In fact,
I had very few friends on my side. Most people take the position
that baptism is the beginning of our life in Christ. Take John
Calvin. Talk about a theological giant.
John Calvin said, by baptism into Christ, we are initiated
into a participation of Christ. That was his position. Finally,
consider this detailed argument as we transition. Consider this
detail, detailed argument with my comments embedded. One commentator said this, Paul
is eliciting from baptism the argument particularly relevant
to the proposition that the believer died to sin and is to the effect
that the ordinance of baptism signifies union with Christ in
his death. In other words, it’s water baptism.
And that’s when we come into union with Christ. Now, that,
as I said, I think I’ve proven my case that that’s the popular
position, but it’s yet to be proven. It’s one thing to take
this as the position. It’s one thing to claim this
as the interpretation. It’s quite another thing to prove
it. And nobody’s done that yet. What makes this point so difficult
here is that it is true. It’s absolutely true that baptism
signifies union with Christ in his death. That’s true. But Paul. The question is, is Paul talking
about water baptism here in Romans six? The writer continues, he
says, the readers of the epistle were aware of the place and the
importance of baptism in the Christian profession. It was
a sign and seal of the membership of the body of Christ. In other
words, he says, look, the Roman Christians knew this. That’s
true. The Roman Christians, no doubt,
were not only familiar with water baptism, but had all likely,
or at least most, already had submitted themselves to that
ordinance. But again, the question, is that
what Paul is primarily referring to here? Water baptism. He continues. Baptism into Christ
Jesus means that means baptism into union with Christ. It signifies
simply union with him and participation of all the privileges which he
as Christ Jesus embodies. And you know what’s interesting? That, too, is true. It’s true.
Baptism into Christ does mean baptism into union with Christ,
and so he’s so close here. The question is, does Paul embellish
this reality of being literally in Christ for the believer? Does
Paul embellish that reality with a lesson on water baptism? Or
is this all that Paul is doing, reminding his readers of the
spiritual reality of having already been placed into Christ Finally, he says this, if baptism
signifies union with Christ, it must mean union with him in
all that he is in all phases of his work as the mediator union
with him in his death. And you know what? That is absolutely
true as well. The question remains, though.
Is this passage indeed about baptism, baptism, as you and
I know it, baptism in water? Let’s pause to consider. Is that
what Paul’s referring to here? Is there water here in Romans
six? Is Paul referring only to water
baptism here? As one said, unfortunately, there
are many who have never really grasped this doctrine of union
with Christ. Having seen the word baptized
in these verses, they never see anything else And they regard
these verses as having nothing to teach except a particular
doctrine of baptism. Unless you think lightly. Of
those things, he goes on to say. That Paul may very well be referring
to here to one of the supreme truths in all of Scripture. What
he’s referring to Is the spiritual spiritual reality that when we
place our faith in Christ, we in a very real sense are placed
into Christ. There is a third option. that
it’s not one or the other to any exclusion. But Paul, using
the word baptism, knowingly used a very loaded word for the purpose
of seizing hold of the people’s minds and pointing them to the
deep truth of being immersed into Christ, while at the same
time eliciting the image of baptism. But Paul, by no means, is putting
baptism first. He’s not putting water baptism
first to the exclusion of the spiritual reality. He’s putting
the spiritual reality first that we were placed into Christ Jesus,
and that makes the image of water baptism absolutely perfect. One pastor said it this way,
the Roman believers were all aware of the symbol of baptism.
Water baptism symbolizes the spiritual reality of being immersed
into Jesus Christ. The tragedy is that many mistake
the symbol of water baptism as the means of salvation. Rather
than the demonstration of it, to turn the symbol into reality
is to eliminate the reality. Which, in this case, is salvation
by grace through faith in Christ alone. And likewise, to over
focus. On the symbol. Is to obscure
the reality, that’s what we’re concerned with this morning,
and I’d like to suggest to you that Paul is primarily referring
here to the spiritual truth of our having been baptized or immersed
into Jesus Christ himself. And that further, I think Paul
intentionally uses the word baptism. There are other words that he
could have used to accomplish the same thing, but he intentionally
uses this very loaded word baptism as a backdrop, calling the Christian
The calling to mind to Christians, this right of baptism, water
baptism wouldn’t have been in the mind of pardon me, water
baptism would have been in the mind of the Roman Christian just
at the mention of the word. But it is not the primary focus
in this passage. I was reminded this week. I had
coffee with a friend of mine and we were talking about our
kids. And we were talking about their
grades. And that led to a discussion of our high school years and
our grades. Interesting discussion. It included
that discussion included an acknowledgement that we could have done so much
better. One of the reasons that I know
that there’s a God. Is that I now love grammar. I love grammar. Now, I hated
it in high school. I hated it. I got C’s or worse
in reading, in writing, in grammar, in spelling, blah, blah, all
of it. I hated words. I hated everything to do with
it. I hated it and now I love it. That’s how I know there’s
a God. Tell you how it happened the
first day of seminary is how it happened when we walked in
and they said, we just have this one preliminary exam that we
want to give you. We want to give you an English
proficiency exam. What? Things like gerunds and
participial phrases and metaphors and all this stuff. And all we
had to do was get a C or better. And then we could go on and study
the important things that really, truly important things like Greek
and Hebrew and all that other stuff. Well, most of us failed. And we all immediately were entered
in automatically into a remedial English course. And that’s where
I began to fall in love with English grammar, because until
you have the foundation, the bedrock of English grammar, you’ll
never appreciate the beauty, the precision of Greek and Hebrew
grammar. You won’t appreciate God’s word.
So I know that there’s a God because He changed my heart in
a profoundly practical way. He gave me a love of language,
a love of words. I love words. I love this study
of syntax. I say this sometimes to people
and they just look at me like I’m lost. Diagramming a biblical
text is what wakes me up in the morning. I love it. It’s amazing
stuff. You’re saying, now why? He’s
lost in his notes. No, I have a point here. The
reason I tell you all that is that in order to solve this dilemma,
I’ve got to take you on a little excursion. A field trip, if you
will. An English lesson. Because there
are several linguistic, grammatical elements that will provide us
some invaluable help in this discussion. First of all, I want
you to consider for a moment The difficulty presented, and
I’ve got 10 spaces there, I don’t know how many will fill up this
morning, but I’ve got 10 spaces that will eventually fill up
in order to solve this dilemma. First of all, consider the difficulty
presented by transliterated words in general, you say, oh, yes,
that’s true. What’s a transliterated word?
A transliterated word is a word in English that sounds very much
like the word from the language in which it was borrowed or from
which it was borrowed. And so a lot of times this happens
from Greek to English in the case of person’s names or or
places. And so you have Barnabas. Barnabas.
If you could look at the Greek letters, you could say that Barnabas
is the same in Greek as it is in English and places like Jerusalem. Very almost identical. to our
English spelling of it. And that’s OK when you’re talking
about a noun, a person, place or thing, something that is clearly
identified. But the more conceptual things,
when we transliterate them, when we don’t seek to bring the meaning
of the word across and we merely transliterate it and bring the
spelling across. We lose a lot. Now, some of the
words bear with me. I’m not going to spend a ton
of time here. Some of the words you recognize immediately, even
though they they are transliterated. We can pick up essentially what
they meant just by what were translated or just by what is
written there for us. Sabaton, you hear it, Sabbath. Blaspheme, blasphemy, to profane
something. Those things, they lie pretty
much on the surface. And the church has incorporated
a lot of these transliterated words. Angelos, angels, Alleluia
or Hallelujah is technically the pronunciation to praise the
Lord. Which kind of concerned me this
week that I heard Heard of one of these new Christian
songs that said better than a hallelujah, better than a praise the Lord.
I don’t know. I don’t know. Amen. Amen. Anathema. We know these words. Those are
just transliterated words, and there are a ton of them in the
realm of science and English and those kinds of things. Antithesis. That’s almost a perfect A transliterated
word, perfectly transliterated across apologia from where we
get our word apologetics, defense, meaning defense, kinesis, kinesiology,
the study of movement, cosmos, mania, morphe to change to to
to change form or shape. I think you get my point, but
there are some some of these words. that we don’t bring a
meaning across very well at all. There’s some that become quite
problematic. I’ve used this one before. Evangelism, almost a plain transliteration,
meant to good news, to spread the good news, to give the good
news. It referred to good and yet You know, now when we refer
to evangelism, I think sometimes if we’ve studied and we know
the truth, we know that that is a going about for the purpose
of spreading the good news. Diakoneo is another one, deacon. We just think of them as the
deacons. We don’t know that what it really meant was servant.
They are the servants of the body of Christ himself. The one that really rubs the
hair on the back of my neck raw is Episcopal. Because of the
high view that I have of the church and of the offices of
the church. Episcopal, which in its core
meaning essentially means to look upon or to look over it
was referring to the office, and I think there’s only two.
There’s deacons and there are elders, elders can be called
shepherds or they can be called. Episcopal. They can pardon me,
Episcopal, but they look out over the flock. But watch what
happens to this little word. It becomes so obscured so early
on in Latin, it was translated or transliterated, bear with
me, Episcopal, eventually Biscopal. Wickliffe in 1382 just translates
it, translates it, translates it, transliterates it. Bishopess,
Tyndale seizes hold of that and goes with Bishop. King James
in 1611 just translates it straight across from Tyndale as Bishop. And for almost 2000 years, for
2000 years, the real meaning of that word was totally obscured.
The overseer, the overseer of a local body, not some guy with
a tall hat sitting in a big city somewhere else looking out all
over all the churches. It’s an unbiblical concept. And
yet you have entire denominations, churches, whatever organizations
that are built around this false idea of a bishop. Well, such
is the word with baptism as well. Baptism in its core meaning means
to dip or to immerse. That’s what it means. What we’ve
done is transliterated, which makes going astray that much
easier. All we’ve done is transliterate
the word baptism. Almost to this day. Secondly,
consider specifically the transliterated word baptism, let’s go there.
The word behind our word baptism, as I already said, is used in
this passage is baptizo. You can hear it there, can’t
you? Let’s consider this word, the meaning of this word is as
one carefully defined it. It refers to the introduction
or placing of a person or thing into a new environment or union
with something else. So as to alter its condition
or its relationship to its previous environment or condition. Now,
I know what you’re saying. I know what you’re thinking,
rather. You could say, well, immersing someone in water would
do that, it would alter the person or their environment, making
them wet. That’s true. But we’re in the
midst of discovering here that Paul has something deeper in
mind than just the right A believer’s baptism, another pastor described
the issue with transliteration in simple terms, he said baptism
became a technical term for immersion so that it was transliterated
rather than translated to translate means to give the meaning to
transliterate means to take the pronunciation of a word from
one language to another without giving its meaning. In other
words, Baptizo became baptized. That doesn’t give it the meaning.
The meaning is to immerse. So baptism means immersion. And it wouldn’t be illegitimate
to translate verse three in these terms. Do you not know that all
of us who have been immersed into Christ Jesus have been plunged
into his death? It’s not illegitimate to translate
it that way. As one said, in fact, the very
idea that this word means immersion is so obvious and so airtight
that even John Calvin, who really is at the heart of the Presbyterian
Church, that sprinkles rather than immerses. Even John Calvin
said the word baptized means to immerse. It is certain that
immersion was the practice of the early church. What an indictment. Thirdly, consider and here we
go in our Greek lesson, part two or our grammar lesson, not
just the issue of transliteration, but thirdly, consider the preparation,
consider the preposition I’m still practicing. Consider the
preposition used that we were baptized into Christ Jesus. The preposition into conveys
this idea of being incorporated into something both here and
the words below, as we’ll see in a moment, baptized into his
death. We were baptized into Christ
and were baptized into his death. It’s a realm in which we enter.
Another one said it this way, the preposition denotes inward
union participation, we were baptized into union with not
merely obedience to Christ. Now, it’s certainly an appropriate
way. To say that when we are baptized, we are baptized into
water, most of us don’t say it that way. But it’s true, we are
immersed into that water, but Paul doesn’t say that here. It’s
true that Paul doesn’t say it, he says explicitly that we are
immersed into Christ Jesus. We’ll get to that. We’ll get
to that. Point four. Consider. The potential abuse of baptism,
if this is considered otherwise. Say for a moment that we entertain
the idea that the time of our immersion into Christ is directly
tied to that moment of our immersion into water. Let’s say that for
a moment. What are the possible implications? One characterized
it perfectly. When he said the figure of baptism
was very early taken for a reality. And accordingly, some of the
early church fathers speak of the baptized person as truly
born again in the water. They supposed him to go in the
water with all of his sins upon him and to come out of it without
them. This indeed is the case with
baptism figuratively. But the carnal mind soon turned
the figure into a reality. The bottom line here is that
what the New Testament teaches is that the people who are baptized,
you and I, many of us, the people who are baptized are those who
have already given evidence that they are regenerated, saved by
God, that they are already having been placed into Christ. They’re
not done so in the water. It is believers who are baptized,
said one. It is not the act of baptism
that makes them believers. It is because they are believers
or are presumed to be that they are baptized. One final point, and we’ll pause
for this Lord’s Day and we’ll pick it up next. Consider the
parallel, and we’ll do this very briefly. Consider the parallel
in 1 Corinthians 12, 13. In 1 Corinthians 12, 13, Paul
just says this simply, we were all baptized into one body. Now, you could tie that to water
baptism, but essentially, if you step back, as one pointed
out, the great theme of chapter 12 of First Corinthians is the
church as the body of Christ. Christ is the head. We are the
body. Remember that image? We are all joined to him and
we’re all joined to one another. That’s what he’s talking about.
Not just union with Christ, but unity with one another. But how
have we been joined? That’s the question. And the
answer is that the Holy Spirit baptizes us, places us in to
the body of Christ. Now, there are many other things
to consider where. I would say we’re not even halfway
through. We’ll get to what it means, what does it mean that
we are in union, that we are placed into Christ? We know that
it doesn’t take place the moment that we’re baptized. We’ll take it up there next Lord’s
Day. For merciful God’s. We humble ourselves at the depth
and the richness of your word. And as we we just begin to ponder
what that could mean of being in union with Christ. Suddenly,
our mind is flooded that everything We have everything because of
that union. We have redemption, we have forgiveness. We have fellowship with others
because of our union in Christ. We have the forgiveness of our
sins. We have strength and power and wisdom because of our union
with Christ. Lord God, we thank you for that
rich image that baptism is. And we thank you for the precision
of the Greek language that speaks of it clearly as immersion. That as we go down into the water,
we die and we are buried with Christ, we die to our sin, we
die to ourself. But the glorious truth, Father,
is that image is so accurate that as we come up out of the
water, we are resurrected with Christ. In a newness of life. Father, we thank you for that
rich image. And that that rich image draws
its truth from this very passage. This is the reality. That we
are in Christ Jesus. Grant us to open our eyes to
the richness and fullness of God’s word. It’s in Jesus name
that we pray. I love you. If you would take your bulletins
and let’s stand and sing, Jesus, I, my cross, have taken as we
close our time today. Jesus, I, my cross, have taken. Walk with me and follow me. Yes, the truth is my voice singing,
Thou from hence my all shalt be. Enrich every bond and vision,
All that’s thoughtful, And how rich is my condition
God and hell are still mine But the world despises me They have
lent my Savior’s shoe. Human hearts and wounds deceive
me, But a God like them are true. Oh, bow down and smile upon me,
God of wisdom, love, and light. For may hate and friendship only
show thy face, and all is right. Let me trouble and distress thee,
Will but drive me to Thy breath. Like the triumph of faith, rest
ye, Heaven will bring me sweeter rest. For tears not in grief
to harm me, While my love is left to bleed, Folks were not in joy to join
me, But there’s more to me than this. Golden earthling, famous
you may be, Some disaster’s more than me.