You Died To Sin

[newnature]

Romans 6:6, consider a prisoner who has been living in a cell that has been unlocked for years, the war ended, the door swung open, somebody won, but nobody told him or he heard it and did not believe it. So, he keeps living like a a captive, he keeps his head down, he keeps his routines, he keeps talking about the day he might finally get out, and the whole time the door is open. That is one of the strangest tragedies of the Christian life and it is exactly the situation that Romans 6:6 was written to fix. Most people read that verse one way, they hear a command, kill your sinful nature, work harder, get it together and for years maybe you have been trying to do exactly that, you have been fighting, failing, getting up, fighting again. You have read this verse and turned it into a to-do list, you have told yourself that if you could just try harder, pray longer, resist more, something would finally break and the whole time something has felt off.

What if Romans 6:6 is not a command at all, what if the thing you have been trying to do with all your strength was already done for you, because the answer is hiding in the chapters that come after this one and it will change how you read this verse forever. The question behind this verse is one of the most dangerous questions ever asked, because a few verses earlier in Romans 5:20, Paul had written something that sounds almost reckless, where sin abounded, grace abounded much more. Where the failure was deepest, the grace went deeper and somebody in that room heard it the way people always hear good news, they ran with it, if grace is bigger than my sin, then why not sin more?

So grace can show up even bigger, it is the oldest abuse of the gospel, turn grace into a license, turn forgiveness into a free pass and Paul hears it coming. So in Romans 6:1, Paul writes the question out loud and then he answers it with a line that should stop you cold, Romans 6:2, consider the logic, Paul does not answer with a rule, he does not say stop sinning, because it is against the rules, he does not say stop sinning, because you will get caught, he answers with a fact. You died to sin and dead people do not keep living in the thing they died to, that is the whole argument of Romans chapter 6 and verse 6 is the center of it.

 

[Episkopos]

Romans 6:6, consider a prisoner who has been living in a cell that has been unlocked for years, the war ended, the door swung open, somebody won, but nobody told him or he heard it and did not believe it. So, he keeps living like a a captive, he keeps his head down, he keeps his routines, he keeps talking about the day he might finally get out, and the whole time the door is open. That is one of the strangest tragedies of the Christian life and it is exactly the situation that Romans 6:6 was written to fix. Most people read that verse one way, they hear a command, kill your sinful nature, work harder, get it together and for years maybe you have been trying to do exactly that, you have been fighting, failing, getting up, fighting again. You have read this verse and turned it into a to-do list, you have told yourself that if you could just try harder, pray longer, resist more, something would finally break and the whole time something has felt off.

What if Romans 6:6 is not a command at all, what if the thing you have been trying to do with all your strength was already done for you, because the answer is hiding in the chapters that come after this one and it will change how you read this verse forever. The question behind this verse is one of the most dangerous questions ever asked, because a few verses earlier in Romans 5:20, Paul had written something that sounds almost reckless, where sin abounded, grace abounded much more. Where the failure was deepest, the grace went deeper and somebody in that room heard it the way people always hear good news, they ran with it, if grace is bigger than my sin, then why not sin more?

So grace can show up even bigger, it is the oldest abuse of the gospel, turn grace into a license, turn forgiveness into a free pass and Paul hears it coming. So in Romans 6:1, Paul writes the question out loud and then he answers it with a line that should stop you cold, Romans 6:2, consider the logic, Paul does not answer with a rule, he does not say stop sinning, because it is against the rules, he does not say stop sinning, because you will get caught, he answers with a fact. You died to sin and dead people do not keep living in the thing they died to, that is the whole argument of Romans chapter 6 and verse 6 is the center of it.

Dying to sin is in 2 stages as testified to by Paul. Romans 6 is about the initial salvation...by the initial sample of grace...where the heart is changed and transformed by the love of God. The victory is short lived however due to the grace measure being only sufficient to give us a taste of what awaits us when we enter INTO Christ to walk in His resurrection life. Taste and see that the Lord is good.

Romans 7 is where the the oil in the lamp has run out and sin and death come back with a vengeance. Paul states that "sin revived and I died". IOW the sin that was suppressed by the initial power of grace, rises up once again. So we see the limit of the initial grace, meant to give us a sample of the full measure of grace that is only available as we surrender ourselves fully to God to BUY the field that contains the "pearl of great price".

In Romans 7 Paul realizes that the power of sin is embedded in his members...a part of him. It is no longer I (his will) but it is sin in him....as he says.

In Romans 7 Paul realizes there is a war over his soul going on, one that an initial sample of grace has not equipped him to overcome.

Who will deliver him from the power of sin embedded in him? Romans 8 is about the higher law of life in Christ that flies over the power of sin.

It is Jesus and the entering into the full measure of His grace He provides to those IN HIM whereby Paul goes from "it is no longer I but sin in me" to "it is no longer I but Christ in me". The victory that is in Christ is based on a higher law by translation into the kingdom realm of the Spirit in Zion. We BUY our way into the victory of Christ by giving our 100% to God. Our 100% releases God's 100% power over sin. The full measure of grace opens us up to the perfection of Christ. His grace is made perfect in our weakness.

 

[newnature]

Dying to sin is in 2 stages as testified to by Paul. Romans 6 is about the initial salvation...by the initial sample of grace...where the heart is changed and transformed by the love of God. The victory is short lived however due to the grace measure being only sufficient to give us a taste of what awaits us when we enter INTO Christ to walk in His resurrection life. Taste and see that the Lord is good.

Romans 7 is where the the oil in the lamp has run out and sin and death come back with a vengeance. Paul states that "sin revived and I died". IOW the sin that was suppressed by the initial power of grace, rises up once again. So we see the limit of the initial grace, meant to give us a sample of the full measure of grace that is only available as we surrender ourselves fully to God to BUY the field that contains the "pearl of great price".

In Romans 7 Paul realizes that the power of sin is embedded in his members...a part of him. It is no longer I (his will) but it is sin in him....as he says.

In Romans 7 Paul realizes there is a war over his soul going on, one that an initial sample of grace has not equipped him to overcome.

Who will deliver him from the power of sin embedded in him? Romans 8 is about the higher law of life in Christ that flies over the power of sin.

It is Jesus and the entering into the full measure of His grace He provides to those IN HIM whereby Paul goes from "it is no longer I but sin in me" to "it is no longer I but Christ in me". The victory that is in Christ is based on a higher law by translation into the kingdom realm of the Spirit in Zion. We BUY our way into the victory of Christ by giving our 100% to God. Our 100% releases God's 100% power over sin. The full measure of grace opens us up to the perfection of Christ. His grace is made perfect in our weakness.

The question that Romans chapter 7 is built around and here is what is so comforting about it, the man who wrote that chapter is the same man who wrote Romans chapter 6, he is not writing from a comfortable distance, he is not a theorist describing a war he has only read about, he is not a professor grading papers from a safe office, he is writing about a war he knows, Romans 7:19, have you ever felt that? You know the right thing, you want the right thing and then in the moment you do the thing you did not want to do and you walk away wondering what is wrong with you. Scholars debate whether Paul is describing his own experience as a believer here or describing life under the law before Christ, good, careful people land on both sides, but here is what is not debated.

The struggle is real, it is described in scripture, it is part of the Christian life and it does not mean the crucifixion failed, it does not mean the door is still locked, it means there is a difference between sin’s power being broken and sin’s presence being gone. The war is over, but the enemy stragglers are still in the field, they can still fire, they can make you duck, they can still make you afraid, they can still make noise in the night, but they cannot take the ground that was won, sin’s dominion was broken at the cross. Sin’s presence will not be fully gone until the day you see Jesus face to face and in the gap between those two things, you live, you fight, you stumble, you get back up, you learn, you grow.

 

[Episkopos]

The question that Romans chapter 7 is built around and here is what is so comforting about it, the man who wrote that chapter is the same man who wrote Romans chapter 6, he is not writing from a comfortable distance, he is not a theorist describing a war he has only read about, he is not a professor grading papers from a safe office, he is writing about a war he knows, Romans 7:19, have you ever felt that? You know the right thing, you want the right thing and then in the moment you do the thing you did not want to do and you walk away wondering what is wrong with you. Scholars debate whether Paul is describing his own experience as a believer here or describing life under the law before Christ, good, careful people land on both sides, but here is what is not debated.

The struggle is real, it is described in scripture, it is part of the Christian life and it does not mean the crucifixion failed, it does not mean the door is still locked, it means there is a difference between sin’s power being broken and sin’s presence being gone. The war is over, but the enemy stragglers are still in the field, they can still fire, they can make you duck, they can still make you afraid, they can still make noise in the night, but they cannot take the ground that was won, sin’s dominion was broken at the cross. Sin’s presence will not be fully gone until the day you see Jesus face to face and in the gap between those two things, you live, you fight, you stumble, you get back up, you learn, you grow.

What you are missing besides the process that gets us to cry out to God..is God taking you into the same victory as Paul experienced. Being translated into the kingdom realm of the Spirit.

 

[newnature]

What you are missing besides the process that gets us to cry out to God..is God taking you into the same victory as Paul experienced. Being translated into the kingdom realm of the Spirit.

Paul gives you something to do, Romans 6:11, consider yourselves, that word in Greek is logizesthe and it does not mean feel, it does not mean hope, it does not mean try really hard to believe something you do not believe, it means reckon, count, calculate, do the math, it is accounting language. Imagine a man sitting at a table with a ledger open in front of him, on one side of the page the debt, on the other side, the payment and he runs his finger down the column, checks the numbers and writes the word at the bottom, paid, he does not hope it into existence, he counts it, because it is true. That is what Paul is telling you to do with the cross, the old self was crucified, count it true, you are alive to God in Christ, count it true and then live like it.