Christ Church

Romans 6:1-14

Joe Harby on

The Text

“What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound? God forbid. How shall we, that are dead to sin, live any longer therein?Know ye not, that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into his death? . . .” Romans 6:1-14

Not Under Law

You, no doubt, have at some point in your Christian life heard the last verse from this passage quoted at you completely out of context. “You are not under law, but under grace.” This is usually extracted from the text, without regard to what went before, in order to free you from legalism. But I’d like to argue that it is intended to do something far better. It’s intended to free you from sin.

Sin That Grace May Abound?

First, we should note the question that Paul is trying to answer. Does God’s grace free us to live in sin? Paul’s answer to this has to do with the nature of our salvation. We were saved by being united with Christ (v. 5). This union was declared in our baptism.

Dead to Death, Alive to Life

Paul describes here what our pre-Christ self was like. He was an old man, a slave to death itself. When death spoke, the old man jumped. The power of death is sin, via the law (1 Cor. 15:56). But God’s great victory came when he took that old man’s strength and used it against him, conquering the old man with the death of Christ. And when Christ conquered death, he brought all who were united to him to new life.

Not Under Sin, But Under Grace

With death dead, the power of the old man is gone. The power of the law, which once drove us to sin, is gone. We now live a new life, in the new man. And this new man has no business returning to the grave of the dead man for orders. Because of the conquest of death, on that first Easter morning, you now have the right to walk out of this church as a living man, a free man, free of the chains of sin, free of the fear of death.

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Three Chains IV: Deliverance

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Introduction

We have been considering the ways in which men are held in bondage by fear, guilt, and shame. Fear threatens their safety. Guilt challenges their righteousness. Shame assaults their glory. Given the reality of sin, our response to this has to be true safety, genuine righteousness, and real glory—all given to us by another.

The Text

“There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death. For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh: That the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit. For they that are after the flesh do mind the things of the flesh; but they that are after the Spirit the things of the Spirit. For to be carnally minded is death; but to be spiritually minded is life and peace” (Rom. 8:1–6).

Summary of the Text

Those who are in Christ Jesus are described as those who walk according to the Spirit and not according to the flesh (v. 1). For these, there is no condemnation. There are two contrasting laws. One is the law of the Spirit of life and the other is the law of sin and death (v. 2). The former sets us free from the latter. What the law could not do, God accomplished by sending His Son in the likeness of sinful flesh to be condemned on the cross (v. 3). This condemnation on the cross did what all the righteous injunctions of the law could not do. This is what enables those who walk after the Spirit to fulfill the righteousness of the law (v. 4). Fleshly minds seek out fleshly things. Spiritual minds seek out spiritual things (v. 5). This means, at the end of the day, the fleshly mind seeks out death while the spiritual mind seeks out life (v. 6).

Freedom from Three Chains

In this passage, we see that the gospel liberates us fully and freely from fear, from guilt, and from shame. Fear? There is no condemnation. We are set free from the law of sin and death. Guilt? The righteousness of the law is now fulfilled in us. Shame? Our minds are elevated to the things of the Spirit.

What Liberation is Like

“When the Lord turned again the captivity of Zion, We were like them that dream. Then was our mouth filled with laughter, And our tongue with singing: Then said they among the heathen, The Lord hath done great things for them. The Lord hath done great things for us; Whereof we are glad. Turn again our captivity, O Lord, As the streams in the south. They that sow in tears shall reap in joy. He that goeth forth and weepeth, bearing precious seed, Shall doubtless come again with rejoicing, bringing his sheaves with him” (Ps. 126:1–6).

This is a passage of Scripture that brings into high relief what it is like to be saved. Getting saved is only a cliché if you are unaware of the threat, or the condemnation, or the shame. There is good news that can just fall out of the sky on you (like winning a lottery you never entered), but there is another kind of good news—this is the good news that presupposes a full awareness of the antecedent bad news. This would be like finding out that the governor had signed the pardon preventing your execution ten minutes prior to them flipping the switch. You were fully aware of the dilemma, and you are fully appreciative of the salvation.

The Eyes of Faith

We sometimes try to create the exhilaration of “getting saved” by finding some bad sin and wallowing in it for a while. If we can’t get saved, we can at least rededicate our lives. That’s almost as good, right? Wrong. We don’t see the goodness of God by plunging into the badness of rebellion. We don’t need a covenantal and Reformed rumspringa. We see that we were objects of wrath by nature in the same way that we see everything else that is important—by faith. Scripture tells us what we are apart from Christ, and when we consider the bent of our hearts, we can find confirmation enough.

Jesus the Savior

Jesus is our Deliverer. He was named Jesus because His mission was to save His people from their sins. “The Lord is my rock, and my fortress, and my deliverer; My God, my strength, in whom I will trust; My buckler, and the horn of my salvation, and my high tower” (Ps. 18:2).

So then, we are saved from fear of death because Jesus has conquered death, and because we fear God through Him. We are freed from fear. We are saved from guilt over our unrighteousness because Jesus lived a perfect sinless life on our behalf, which has been imputed to us, and He died on the cross as the perfect satisfaction for the penalty we owed God because of that unrighteousness. We are freed from guilt. We are saved from shame because God has resolved to glorify us with His own glory. We are freed from shame.

We walk by faith now. The time will come when we will see what we have been walking toward, and at that time everything will come into perspective. At the same time, because God knows our frame, He has given us an earnest payment of the deliverance to come. He has given us His Spirit as a foretaste of all that is coming, and this Spirit is a seal and guarantee of the life everlasting. When that day arrives we will see it as the culmination of all our days.

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Grace and Sweat

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Introduction

I am fond of saying that grace has a backbone, but I think it is time to explain what I mean by that. The context of these remarks is the general and current ongoing discussion about the worrisome trajectories of all those incipient legalists and antinomians out there. The incipient legalists are the ones the incipient antinomians are worried about, and vice versa.

The Text

“Wherefore, my beloved, as ye have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling. For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure” (Phil. 2:12-13).

Summary of the Text

We see that for the apostle Paul, obedience is not a bad word. It does not have negative connotations for him. The Philippians were beloved by him, and he commends them for their obedience (v. 12). This was not just when Paul was present, but also when he was not with them. In particular, he tells them (in his absence) to work out their own salvation with fear and trembling (v. 12). How is it possible for them to do this? God is the one who is at work within them, willing and doing in accordance with His good pleasure (v. 13). This means that the Philippians were to work out what God was working in. The labors of both parties, added up, did not come to 100%. God did everything in them. They did everything that was the result of what God did in them. Salvation is all of grace—even the work.

But what is the relationship of the grace of God to the (seemingly unrelated) world of hard moral effort? If the grace of God is in all and through all, and beneath us all, then why do we still have to sweat bullets? Are those who sweat bullets abandoning the grace of God? Are those who rejoice in free forgiveness forsaking the demands of discipleship? But not all conditions are meritorious.

Reconciled Friends

Spurgeon once said, when asked how he reconciled divine sovereignty with human responsibility, that he did not even try—he never sought to reconcile friends. If we think about it rightly, from the vantage of those jealous for moral probity, we will never try to reconcile grace with works—that would be like trying to reconcile an apple tree with its apples. And, if we think about it rightly, from the vantage of those jealous for the wildness of grace, we will never try to reconcile grace with merit, for the two are mortal enemies and cannot be reconciled.

But those who insist that apple trees must always produce apples will make the friends of free grace nervous, not because they have anything against apples, but rather because they know the human propensity for manufacturing shiny plastic apples, with the little hooks that make it easy to hang them, like so many Christmas tree ornaments, on our doctrinal and liturgical bramble bushes. But on the other hand, those who insist that true grace always messes up the categories of the ecclesiastical fussers make the friends of true moral order nervous—because there are, after all, numerous warnings (from people like Jesus and Paul, who should have a place in these particular discussions, after all) about those who “live this way” not inheriting the kingdom. Kind of cold, according to some people, but the wedding banquet is the kind of event you can get thrown out of.

Rightly Related

So what is the relationship of grace to hard, moral effort? Well, hard, moral effort is a grace. It is not every grace, but it is a true grace. It is a gift of God, lest any should boast. We are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, and this is a description of someone being saved by grace through faith, and not by works (Eph. 2:8-10). This is the meaning of our text—“work out your own salvation with fear and trembling. For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure.”We are called to work out what God works in, and absolutely nothing else. If we don’t work out that salvation (as evidenced by the fruit of it), then that is clear evidence that God is not working anything in.

If we work out some pressboard imitation (a salvation that has the look of real wood!), then that shows that God is not working anything in there either. Moralism is just a three-dollar flashlight to light the pathway to Hell with. And of course, if we are guilty of the opposite error, if our lives are manifesting a lineup of dirty deeds done dirt cheap, the only real sin we are avoiding is that of hypocrisy. Overt immorality is the fifty-dollar flashlight.

All Grace, All the Time

This is why we need a little more of “in Him we live and move and have our being.” Actually, we need a lot more of it. The answer to the grace/works dilemma is high octane Calvinism, and by this, I don’t mean the formulaic kind. If God is the one Paul preached — the one of whom it can be said “of him, and through him, and to him, are all things”—then where in the universe are you going to hide your pitiful merit? If He is Almighty God, and He starts to transform your tawdry little life into something resembling Jesus, who are you to tell Him that He is now wavering on the brink of dangerous legalisms?

The bottom line is that we cannot balance our notions of grace with works or our notions of works with grace. We need to get off that particular teeter totter. We have to balance absolutely everything in our lives with God Himself, who is the font of everlasting grace—real grace. Real grace is the context of everything. If we preach the supremacy of God in Christ, and the absolute lordship of that bleeding Christ, and the efficacious work of the Spirit in us who raised Jesus from the dead, then a number of other things will resolve themselves in a multitude of wonderful ways.

In Jesus, we are the new humanity. Is Jesus grace or works? Jesus lives in the garden of God’s everlasting favor, and we are in Him. In Christ, there are no prohibited trees. Outside Him, they are all prohibited. That means there is only one real question to answer, and it does not involve any grace/works ratios. The question is more basic than that, and has to do with the new birth.

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The Glory and Grace of New Birth (Eph. 2)

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Introduction

This chapter can be understood in three basic segments. The first describes the condition of man prior to regeneration (vv. 1-3). The second is a treatment of how God’s grace works in such people, and the nature of the change accomplished in them (vv. 4-6). And the third is a description of the design God had in working such a transformation in them (vv. 7-22). All of it results—if we are paying attention—in a hymn of praise to the free grace and kindness of the most sovereign God.

The Text

“And you hath he quickened, who were dead in trespasses and sins; Wherein in time past ye walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience: Among whom also we all had our conversation in times past in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind; and were by nature the children of wrath, even as others . . .” (Eph. 2:1-22).

Summary of the Text

The Ephesian Gentiles were dead in their trespasses and sin, and God made them alive again (v. 1). They had been the walking dead, under the dominion of the prince of evil, and in line with the world’s way of doing things (v. 2). Everybody has been in this condition (“we all”), and were therefore children of wrath by nature, walking in accordance with that nature (v. 3).

But God, motivated by the richness of His mercy and the greatness of His love toward us (v. 4), quickened us together with Christ (v. 5). This is the meaning of grace. He has joined us to the resurrection of Jesus, and to His ascension (v. 6).

The reason He did this was to put on a show for the coming ages (v. 7)—a fireworks display of mercy, grace and kindness. The Ephesians were saved by grace through faith, and not from themselves (v. 8). It is not by works— contextually, anything autonomous, anything from ourselves (v. 9). For we are God’s project, fashioned for good works (v. 10). We are saved to good works, not by them. So the Ephesians should remember that they used to be called Uncircumcision, Gentiles according to the flesh (v. 11), and at that time they were utter outsiders (v. 12). But now in Christ they are brought close to all those things they were far away from before (v. 13). So the blood of Christ has made them citizens of Israel, friends of the covenants of promise, full of hope, and possessors of God in the world. Christ is our peace, making one new man (Christian) out of the two men before (Jew and Gentile), and He did this by breaking down the middle wall of partition (v. 14). He did this by abolishing the laws of separation contained in the Mosaic law (v. 15), and in this He reconciled both unto God (v. 16). And so He preached peace to those who were far away from salvation, and those standing right next to it (v. 17). Through Jesus, everyone has access by one Spirit, to the Father (v. 18). The Ephesian Gentiles are therefore no longer aliens, but rather are fellow citizens with the saints, and full members of God’s household (v. 19). Jesus is the cornerstone, the apostles and prophets are the foundation stones, and we are all being built on that (v. 20). With that foundation, the whole Temple (an organic Temple) grows, as we are being shaped and fashioned (v. 21). The whole point is to make a dwelling place for God (v. 22).

Three Prepositions

In verse 18, we are given a glorious picture of the Trinitarian nature of prayer and the approach to God. Paul says “we both,” meaning Jews and Gentiles alike. Another way of saying this is “everybody.” He uses three prepositions to make his point—through, by, and to. We come to the Father, through the Son, by the Spirit. This is why, when we pray, we address the Father, and not Jesus. This is why, when we close, we pray in Jesus’ name, and not in the Father’s name. And this is why the Spirit moves us to pray. Think of it this way—all three Persons are members of the Godhead, of course. But the Father is the city we are driving to, the Son is the road, and the Spirit is the car.

A Living Temple for God

The apostle Peter uses a similar image, when he says that we are all living stones—stones for a Temple, and all the stones are alive (1 Pet. 2:4-5). Here Paul says that the Temple is being worked on (“fitly framed,” and “builded together”), but he also says that the building grows. Given the quarry of death we were all brought from, it is striking that God uses us to build a Temple that is entirely alive. Dead stones are made—by regeneration—into living stones.

The World, the Flesh, and the Devil

Our condition apart from the efficacious grace of God (by which I mean the new birth) is absolutely hopeless. Notice first the familiar triad of the “world, the flesh, and the devil.” First, the world—he says the Ephesians walked “according to the course of this world” (v. 2). He says that they did this in accordance with their own nature (“by nature children of wrath” (v. 3)). In this condition they pursued the desires of both flesh and mind. And then, he says that this was under the prince of the power of the air, who exercises dominion over the children of disobedience (v. 2). There you have it—the world, the flesh, and the devil. Are you going to escape on your own? Not a chance.

Notice also that covenants, ceremonies, circumcisions, incense, Scriptures, sacrifices, and membership in Israel do not fix this problem. Saul had been “blameless” when it came to the law (Phil. 3:6), and yet here he includes himself in this mess that original sin created—we all were by nature children of wrath (v. 3).

The Glory and Grace of the New Birth

Dead means dead. And this means also that there is no salvation apart from resurrection. If Christ is raised from the dead, and if that resurrection is imparted to you, then you are alive in Him. If not, then not. And you can be without this life even though you are a learned teacher in Israel, as Nicodemus was.

There is only death and life, and no third category in between them. Sprinkle water on a dead stone, and what you get is a wet stone, not a living one. Only life can impart life, and so baptism is only a blessing if it is done with living water. And it is only living water if it is Christ Himself. And Christ is only apprehended where there is true evangelical faith (vv. 8-9). Living faith—the gift of God, remember—transforms it all. It transforms dead faith, dead water, dead stones, dead people, dead religion, and any other dead thing we like (in our death) to carry around.

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The Gospel and Thanksgiving

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Introduction

The gospel is good news for everyone, and this includes all those who have already heard and believed it. The gospel is food, not just information, and so when the gospel is declared rightly it creates and reinforces true faith. The gospel does not unsettle true faith. You are a congregation of God’s people, a congregation of saints. So if I address you this morning with a charge to believe the gospel, it is not because your faith in Christ is doubted, but rather because we must all believe the gospel, and we must do so always. At the same time, to encourage you—not unsettle you—I want to declare the gospel to you. Established saints will be strengthened by it, professing Christians (but unconverted) may be quickened by it, and unbelievers who are visiting us may be called to Jesus Christ.

The Texts

“And when he was gone forth into the way, there came one running, and kneeled to him, and asked him, Good Master, what shall I do that I may inherit eternal life? And Jesus said unto him, Why callest thou me good? there is none good but one, that is, God. Thou knowest the commandments, Do not commit adultery, Do not kill, Do not steal, Do not bear false witness, Defraud not, Honour thy father and mother. And he answered and said unto him, Master, all these have I observed from my youth. Then Jesus beholding him loved him, and said unto him, One thing thou lackest: go thy way, sell whatsoever thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven: and come, take up the cross, and follow me. And he was sad at that saying, and went away grieved: for he had great possessions” (Mark 10:17-22).

“What shall we say then? Is the law sin? God forbid. Nay, I had not known sin, but by the law: for I had not known lust, except the law had said, Thou shalt not covet” (Rom. 7:7).

Summary of the Texts

When a young man runs up (whom I believe to have been Mark himself), he asks Jesus the way to eternal life. Jesus points him to the law of God, giving him a list of the commandments from the second table of the law, all but one—the prohibition of covetousness in the Tenth Commandment. The young man answered that he had done well on all that. All that obedience and he still did not have eternal life! So Jesus tells him that one thing was still missing. He gives him an assignment that touches the nerve center of his ongoing disobedience to the Tenth Commandment. He went away sad, it says, because he had great possessions, which he wanted to keep.

Saul of Tarsus was another young Jewish man who was prepared for the gospel by that same Tenth Commandment. He would not have known sin except for the law. He would not have known lust if the law had not said “Thou shalt not covet.” The second table of the law can be summarized. The law leads us to Christ by posing the fundamental question, which is, “what do you want?”

Wanting and Thanking

We are told in Scripture not to let anyone beguile us with enticing words (Col. 2:4). We are told to overflow with thanksgiving (Col. 2:7). Thanksgiving and covetousness are therefore mutually exclusive. Being seduced or enticed by covetousness (by what you are wanting) is therefore not possible in a thankful heart.

The Arc of the Story

One of the reasons the doctrine of regeneration is so important is because the doctrine of generation is so important. God fashioned man out of the dust of the ground in the first place, but it was the breath of God that established us after His image. “And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul” (Gen. 2:7). First God formed, and then God breathed. When God breathed the breath of life into our first father, it was then that he became a living soul, created in the image of God (Gen. 1:27). This scriptural language of “image” is closely connected to the reality of generation. When Adam had a son, it was a son in his own image, in his own likeness (Gen. 5:3). This is language that plainly echoes what God had done initially with Adam. Adam had a son after his own image just as God had a son after His own image. In some sense, Adam was son of God by generation.

The way it was with Adam downstream was also the way it was with Adam one generation upstream (Luke 3:38). And keep in mind that Adam means man, or mankind. We may therefore read it as “mankind, the son of God.” Now when Adam sinned, what he was sinned. He was a son of God who sinned. This meant that a new form of generation was established. In some sense, the sons of God became sons of the devil. The mechanism that accomplished this was the mechanism of separating us, as a race, from the life of God. “Having the understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God through the ignorance that is in them, because of the blindness of their heart” (Eph. 4:18). First there was generation, then degeneration, and then, for the elect, regeneration.

Here is the fundamental question behind each of these categories. Who’s your daddy? Never seek to define your identity apart from your relationships. When did we become sons of God? We were generated in His image when He breathed the breath of life into our first father. When did we become objects of wrath, children of the devil? When our first father took the fruit that had been forbidden to him, but which he coveted anyway (Gen. 3:6; 1 Jn. 2:16). When were we born again, when were we regenerated? When we believed on the Lord Jesus Christ in truth, moved by the Spirit to do so, and God the Father became our Father once again. In short, it happened when the central covetousness died, and the central thanksgiving was born. What is it to be born again? It is the death of covetous wanting, and the birth of thankful wanting.

The Grace of God’s Law

Theologians refer to the three uses of God’s law. But the first use refers to a revelation of God’s character, the righteousness of God that condemns the unrighteousness of man. With regard to the rich young ruler, we are talking about the first use. In order to come to Christ, the old man must die (in the death, burial and resurrection of Christ, which is the glorious gospel). But do not grab the old man, and cut his fingernails, or give him a haircut. Do not arm wrestle with him. He must be crucified—his beating heart, which is wanting, always wanting, must die. When that man is raised in Christ, his grasping covetousness has been replaced.

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