Romans 6:1-14 (Wednesday Evening Bible Study)

Romans 6:1-14

• Have you ever known someone who didn’t worry too much about how they lived, but claimed to be covered by the grace of Jesus?  
• Context:
  • Paul has made it clear so far in this Letter to the Christians in Rome that the law cannot save us and we are justified by faith in Christ and saved by grace. In chapter 5 Paul makes it clear that Jesus’ death on the cross takes care of our sin problem. And in in verse 20 writes, The law was brought in so that the trespass might increase. But where sin increased, grace increased all the more.  No matter how many sins we commit, there is more than enough grace to cover our sins. But what if someone misused that teaching? (If grace is good and glorifies God, no big deal I’ll just keep sinning. And God will give more grace.) 
  • We will see a major emphasis on 3 areas: Sin- sense as an active force against us- Death- Physical and Spiritual- Life or Resurrection.
• Romans 6:1-4
• What should we say then? Should we continue in sin so that grace may multiply? 2 Absolutely not! How can we who died to sin still live in it? 3 Or are you unaware that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? 4 Therefore we were buried with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we too may walk in newness of life.
  • What question does Paul begin with?
    • Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase?  How does he want us to answer? Absolutely Not!…is the harshest way Paul could say NO!
  • Does grace make sin irrelevant?
    • No…grace does not negate our obligation to obey the Lord and His commands. Grace help give us the ability to obey.
  • What has happened to us in our relation to sin according to Paul?
    • See verse 2  We have died to sin…when did that happen?   The words Paul uses point back to an event in the past in our own personal history. Died to sin…the verb is past tense.  Paul has mind when we are baptized into Christ we die that is the old sinful self-dies. This is important.
  • What are we connected to in baptism according to verse 3?
    • Paul is asking here in verse 3, don’t you know what happened in your baptism? The death of Christ. Here baptism is seen as a dying ceremony.  Paul also wrote Galatians where he says in Galatians 3:27 27 for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ.
    • Baptism into Jesus Christ means to enter into a specific relationship with Him.
  • What else are we connected to in verse 4?
    • Christ’s resurrection. So we are united to Christ in His death and in His new resurrected life.
  • Was there such a thing as an unbaptized Christian in Paul’s day?
  • When do we start living this new life?
    • See verse 4  When did Jesus begin living a new life? When He resurrected…When is our spiritual resurrection? Is it not  when we come up out of the water…This all happens in God’s mind.  See 2 Corinthians 5:17-18 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here! 18 All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation:
  • We don’t get to choose how God wants to consider us connected to His Son this happens in God’s mind it is all from Him…so in God’s mind when we take our faith in Christ and have our bodies immersed into water in Jesus name. In God’s mind we are connected to what Jesus did on the cross not only His death but our death…the old sinful self-dies…it is a double cure we get Christ’s righteousness freed from the guilt of sin but also taking away the power of sin in our new life in Christ.  Faith repentance confession are all important very important and part of the conversion process but it is in baptism we are connected to the cross.
• Romans 6:5-7
• 5 For if we have been united with him in the likeness of his death, we will certainly also be in the likeness of his resurrection. 6 For we know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body ruled by sin might be rendered powerless so that we may no longer be enslaved to sin, 7 since a person who has died is freed from sin.
  • If we are united with Jesus in death, what else are we united to?
    • His resurrection. If we take part in His death, we also take part in His resurrected life.
  • Is it possible to have resurrection without a death?
    • So we need to die before we can live the new resurrection life this is not reference to when Christ return and the bodily resurrection but rather the new spiritual life we begin living.
  • What are we to know in verse 6?
    • That our Old Self was crucified with Jesus when we died with Christ.
  • Why was our ‘Old Self’ crucified with Christ?
    • See verse 6    Define the “old self”: (Who we were before Christ under the control of sin. The inner person, not our physical body.) Ephesians 4:22 You were taught, with regard to your former way of life, to put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires;
    • So we are no longer slaves to sin in other words sin is no longer our master…even the power of sin in our physical bodies is no longer ruling…we are freed from the power of sin. We will still struggle in theses physical bodies but sin no longer rules! The old self is crucified…so that the body ruled by sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin—
  • How does this happen?
    • The power of the Cross was applied to our fallen soul putting it to death. So in baptism Jesus has caught up all Christians into His death. We not only need forgiveness of sin, we need the power of sin over us broken.
  • Can dead people sin?
    • No…. So this is why the old self is crucified in being united to Christ in His death in the water of baptism. 
• Romans 6:8-11
• 8 Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him, 9 because we know that Christ, having been raised from the dead, will not die again. Death no longer rules over him. 10 For the death he died, he died to sin once for all time; but the life he lives, he lives to God. 11 So, you too consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.
  • What are to know here?
    • Since Jesus was resurrected from the dead, He cannot die again.  Jesus has victory over death. All the other raised from the dead in the Bible eventually died again physically.  But not Jesus!
  • Jesus died to what?     
  • So He could live to what?    
  • Look at verse 11doesn’t this apply to us as well?
• Romans 6:12-14
• 12 Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body, so that you obey its desires. 13 And do not offer any parts of it to sin as weapons for unrighteousness. But as those who are alive from the dead, offer yourselves to God, and all the parts of yourselves to God as weapons for righteousness. 14 For sin will not rule over you, because you are not under the law but under grace.
  • Based on our death and resurrection with Christ how are we to live?
  • Negative Commands                           Positive Commands
  • Do not let sin reign Offer yourself to God
  • Do not obey evil desires Be an instrument of righteousness
  • Sin not Master Implied Jesus is Master
  • Not under Law Under grace
• TAKE AWAY
  • Is baptism important?
  • How personally important is the death and resurrection of Christ to us?
    • Very we need to trust in and believe it because we are connected to it in Christ.
  • What are we to be dead to?
  • Have we been connected to Christ in this way and if so are we living like we are?