Latest / Reformed Thinking / Buried and Raised with Christ: Union with Christ (Romans 6:3–4)

Transcript

Buried and Raised with Christ: Union with Christ (Romans 6:3–4) · Reformed Thinking

0:00
Welcome to reformed thinking. You know, usually when we talk
0:03
about a legal part, and I think we tend to picture a courtroom,
0:08
a judge bangs a gavel, a debt is cancelled and the criminal walks
0:12
free. Right, the Ledger is wiped
0:14
completely clean. Yeah, and that person just goes
0:16
right back out the doors of the courthouse into their regular
0:19
life. The legal status has changed,
0:21
sure, but the person themselves, I mean, they are identical to
0:24
the person who walked in. The character of the individual
0:27
remains completely untouched in that scenario.
0:29
They are just a, you know, a guilty person who happened to
0:32
receive leniency from the bench. Right.
0:35
But then you look at the Christian Gospel, specifically
0:38
the book of Romans, and you realize that if you view
0:40
salvation as nothing more than a legal pardon, you are missing
0:44
the entire architecture of the New Testament.
0:46
You was in the core of it, yeah. So I want to welcome you, our
0:49
listener, to this deep dive. Our mission today is to unpack
0:53
Romans chapter 6 verses 3:00 and 4:00, and we have a massive
0:57
stack of sources on the table today.
0:59
We really do. We are pulling from Reformed
1:01
theological commentaries, historical records of 1st
1:05
century Rome from historians like Tacitus, detailed
1:09
exegetical breakdowns of the original Greek texts, and some
1:12
very sobering recent sociological surveys on modern
1:16
evangelical beliefs. Which are, frankly, pretty
1:19
alarming when we get to them. Yeah, they really are.
1:21
We are looking at extensive theological exegesis regarding
1:24
the believers union with Christ, and here is the core tension we
1:28
are tackling today. If salvation is a completely
1:31
free gift of grace, totally unearned, does that give us a
1:35
license to sin? And that right there is the
1:38
central crisis of the Christian walk.
1:40
When we look at the landscape of the Christian life, there are
1:43
two massive, dangerous ditches on either side of the road.
1:46
Like driving on a really narrow. Ridge Precisely On one side you
1:49
have legalism. This is the the attempt to earn
1:53
grace or maintain your standing before God through your own
1:55
moral obedience. Which we know is a dead end.
1:57
Right, but on the other side you have antinomianism, and that is
2:01
a theological term we should probably define right away.
2:03
Let's do it. Anti means against and nomos
2:07
means law. So antinomianism describes
2:11
people who are against the law of God, people who use grace as
2:16
a well as a permission slip for self rule and continued
2:19
rebellion. Yeah.
2:20
And the text we're examining today rescues us from both of
2:25
those ditches. So I want to offer a framing
2:27
question for you, the listener, to keep in mind as we go through
2:29
this material. Is salvation just a legal pardon
2:32
that cancels a debt, or is it a total resurrection that changes
2:36
who you are at the core of your being?
2:38
That's the question, isn't it? Yeah.
2:39
We are going to see that the Apostle Paul does not just tell
2:41
us to behave better, he points to an objective historical
2:45
reality. But to grasp the gravity of
2:47
Paul's argument, we must first understand the historical world
2:51
of the original readers. We have to set the scene.
2:53
Let's travel back a bit. Right.
2:55
It is the late 50s AD. The Apostle Paul is writing this
2:58
letter from Corinth, sending it to the believers in Rome.
3:00
And Rome is not just any city. No, it's the center of the
3:03
universe at that point. Exactly.
3:05
It is the beating heart of imperial might, military glory,
3:09
extreme moral decay and aggressive religious pluralism.
3:15
We are talking about a society structured entirely around the
3:18
Pax Romana, the Roman peace. Yes, the Empire claimed that
3:21
true peace and prosperity came exclusively through total
3:24
submission to Caesar. You'd have streets filled with
3:27
the spoils of conquered nations, thousands of slaves and massive
3:31
monuments to man made gods. It was visually and culturally
3:35
overwhelming. And into that environment you
3:37
have this small, incredibly diverse assembly of Christians
3:40
trying to figure out what it means to live out their faith.
3:43
And we have historical records from Roman historians that
3:46
describe a society dripping with debauchery and excess.
3:49
Against that backdrop, the Roman church was a volatile mix.
3:53
Well, you had Jewish converts who carried centuries of
3:56
covenant history, and you had Gentiles who were stepping
3:58
directly out of Pagan idolatry and like mystery cults.
4:02
For them, making a public confession that Jesus is Lord
4:05
was not a private internal preference.
4:08
I think we really need to pause here because this is a massive
4:11
point in our modern context. Saying Jesus is Lord is
4:15
something you, I don't know, you print on a bumper sticker or a
4:17
coffee mug. Yeah, it's safe.
4:19
But in the 1st century, that phrase was political treason.
4:23
Absolutely. The official slogan of the
4:25
empire was Kaiser Curios, which translates to Caesar is Lord.
4:30
The emperor was not just a political ruler.
4:33
Right. He was divine.
4:34
He was worshipped as a divine figure, the son of a God.
4:37
The Empire functioned by integrating the worship of the
4:40
emperor with the civic and economic duties of everyday
4:43
life. So it was everywhere.
4:45
You couldn't escape it. No, you couldn't.
4:47
So when Christians stood up and said Jesus curious or Jesus is
4:50
Lord, they are making a direct public challenge to the absolute
4:54
authority of Caesar. The Empire view the early
4:57
Christian movement not just as a new religion, but as an illicit,
5:01
bizarre and politically dangerous sect.
5:04
When Paul writes to them about Christian initiation, he is
5:07
speaking into a context of literal life and death.
5:10
Which brings us to the concept of baptism in the early church.
5:14
In our modern Western culture, baptism is often treated as a
5:18
polite Sunday accessory. A.
5:20
Milestone. Yeah, a nice photo opportunity
5:22
for the family, maybe followed by a nice lunch at a restaurant.
5:25
But in the 1st century, for a gentile to be baptized meant
5:29
permanently abandoning the trade guilds.
5:31
Which was economic suicide. It was.
5:33
It meant refusing to participate in the Pagan feast that secured
5:37
your social standing and your business contracts.
5:39
It meant turning your back on the household gods that your
5:42
family had worshipped for generations.
5:44
And the cost for a Jewish believer was equally severe.
5:48
For a 1st century Jew to be baptized meant recognizing A
5:51
crucified man as the promised Messiah.
5:54
Which was scandalous. The scandal of the cross was a
5:57
massive stumbling block for the mainstream Jewish community.
6:00
Getting baptized often led to complete excommunication from
6:03
the synagogue. And that meant being cut off
6:05
from your family, your heritage and your entire social safety
6:08
net. Yeah.
6:10
Baptism was a decisive, permanent break.
6:13
It was effectively signing your own death warrant.
6:16
The original readers understood that identifying with a
6:18
crucified criminal meant a literal death to their former
6:22
social standing. You didn't undergo this right if
6:24
you were planning to, you know, hedge your bets and keep living
6:27
like a Roman Pagan. No, you didn't.
6:29
It meant you had changed masters, you had changed realms
6:32
and you had changed identities completely.
6:35
So how does recovering that historical gravity change how
6:38
you view your own allegiance? If you are listening to this
6:40
right now, really think about that.
6:42
It's a heavy thought. We treat our religious
6:44
commitment so lightly, but for the Roman church, nominal
6:48
Christianity was a luxury they literally could not afford.
6:51
Knowing the stakes in Rome helps us understand the sheer force of
6:55
the logical argument Paul is building here.
6:57
Because he is not writing abstract philosophy, he is
7:00
writing battle instructions to people who have given up
7:02
everything. Paul constructs the Epistle to
7:05
the Romans like a flawless legal brief.
7:08
Before we reach Chapter 6, we have to trace the undeniable
7:11
progression of his thought. Where does he start?
7:13
Well, in chapters one through three he establishes the
7:16
universal absolute guilt of all humanity.
7:19
He systematically proves that both the Pagan Gentile and the
7:22
moralistic Jew are entirely under sin.
7:25
No exceptions. None.
7:27
Every single mouth is stopped before Holy God, the courtroom
7:30
doors are locked, and there is no escape based on human merit.
7:34
Then in chapters 3 through 5, he introduces the doctrine of
7:37
justification by faith alone, apart from the works of the law.
7:42
He shows that God's righteousness is given as a free
7:45
gift to those who believe. He uses Abraham as the supreme
7:49
historical example of someone who believed God and had
7:51
righteousness credited to him long before the law was ever
7:54
given to Moses. And Paul reaches the theological
7:57
peak at the end of Chapter 5 with the concept of federal
8:00
representation. Federal representation.
8:01
Let's break that down. You can trust the first Adam
8:03
with the last Adam, Jesus Christ, through the 1st Adam's
8:07
disobedience in the garden. The many were constituted
8:09
sinners. Because Adam acted as a
8:11
representative. Yes, he acted as the
8:14
representative head of the human race, plunging all of his
8:17
descendants into ruin. But through the last Adam's
8:20
perfect obedience, the many are constituted righteous.
8:24
Christ acts as the new representative head for all who
8:27
believe in Him. Right, which is a staggering
8:29
claim of super abounding grace. But wait, if Christ's obedience
8:33
covers everyone infinitely, doesn't that create a massive
8:36
loophole? I mean, if I am a cynical Roman
8:39
citizen hearing this, my first thought is going to be about
8:41
exploiting that system naturally.
8:43
In Romans chapter 5 verse 20, Paul writes that where sin
8:46
increased, grace abounded all the more.
8:49
The grace of God radically outpaced the rebellion of
8:51
humanity. But human nature is incredibly
8:54
cynical, right? We're constantly looking for an
8:56
angle. Oh.
8:56
Absolutely. The fleshly mind hears that
8:59
super abounding grace and immediately reaches A slanderous
9:03
deduction. The antinomian objector.
9:05
Exactly. The objector steps up and asks A
9:07
horrifying question. If God's grace is magnified
9:11
against the dark background of human sin, and if more sin
9:14
equals more grace, then why not continue in a lifestyle of sin?
9:19
Right. Why not provide a massive
9:21
Candace for God to paint his mercy on?
9:24
Yeah, they say, if God loves to forgive, let us give him plenty
9:27
of material to work with. It's like if a teenager gets a
9:31
credit card with absolutely no limit and they know the bill is
9:34
always going to be paid by their parent no matter what they
9:36
purchase, human nature says they are going to Max it out.
9:40
They'll buy everything. They're going to buy everything
9:42
insight because there are no personal consequences.
9:45
The parent absorbs all the debt. So the question is, how does
9:48
Paul stop believers from abusing this unlimited grace without
9:53
falling back into rule based legalism?
9:55
How does he not just take the card away?
9:57
Right. How does he keep them from just
9:59
taking the credit card away and giving the teenager a strict,
10:01
rigid budget again? Well, Paul's response in Romans
10:04
chapter 6 verse 2 is vehement. He shouts a phrase in Greek
10:08
mijunaito which translates to may it never be or God forbid.
10:13
It's a strong reaction. Very strong.
10:15
The English translations often struggle to capture the holy
10:18
horror in Paul's voice. He is saying the very premise of
10:21
the question is a spiritual contradiction.
10:23
How so? It is like asking if a married
10:25
man should continue to live like a bachelor just to prove how
10:29
forgiving his wife is. Wow, yeah.
10:31
The answer he gives to your credit card analogy is not to
10:34
impose a new set of behavioral modifications.
10:37
He does not just say you ought to behave better now that you
10:39
were saved. Put down the credit card and
10:41
show some restraint. No, he points to an objective
10:44
change of identity. He says in effect, you cannot
10:48
continue in sin because you are have died to it.
10:51
And this brings us to the exegesis of Romans 6, verse 3.
10:55
The text itself. The hinges of this text are the
10:58
specific verbs and prepositions Paul meticulously selects to
11:02
prove his point. Let's get into the opening words
11:04
of verse 3. Paul asks A rhetorical question.
11:07
He says know ye not or are you ignorant?
11:11
He's assuming that the believers in Rome should already know
11:13
this. This is basic regular Christian
11:15
catechesis. Yeah.
11:17
And by catechesis we mean the formal instruction given to new
11:20
converts before they were baptized.
11:21
So they shouldn't be surprised by this at all.
11:23
It's not at all. Paul is pointing out that
11:25
ignorance of sound doctrine is a massive spiritual danger.
11:29
Doctrine forms disciples. The early church did not view
11:32
deep theology as an abstract luxury reserved for scholars in
11:36
an ivory tower. The meaning of Christian
11:38
initiation was the bedrock of their daily ethics.
11:42
Paul is mildly rebuking them, saying that to imagine grace
11:45
permits a continuation in sin is to completely forget the very
11:49
meaning of the faith you confess when you went down into the
11:51
water. Then we hit this phrase.
11:53
We're baptized. The text points out that this is
11:56
a passive immersion. The verb in Greek is an aorist
11:59
passive. I know our target audience loves
12:02
getting into the weeds, but let's translate why that
12:04
grammatical distinction actually matters for someone's daily
12:07
life. What does aorist passive mean
12:09
for you and me? Well, the aorist tense in Greek
12:11
frequently denotes a completed historical event.
12:15
It is a definitive action that happened in the past, so it's
12:17
done. It is done.
12:18
It is not an ongoing continuous process.
12:21
And the passive voice indicates the action was performed upon
12:23
the believer by a sovereign outside agent.
12:26
Meaning I didn't do it myself. Yeah.
12:27
Right. The believer is not baptizing
12:29
themselves spiritually, they are receiving the action.
12:32
The Holy Spirit is the agent performing this union.
12:34
So we need to be very clear that we are not talking about water
12:37
magic here. Absolutely not.
12:39
When we use the term like sacerdotal superstition, we are
12:41
referring to the false belief that the physical H2O
12:45
automatically regenerates a human soul just by touching
12:49
their skin. Correct.
12:50
The water is the divinely appointed, visible covenantal
12:54
testimony of a deeper spiritual reality.
12:58
The physical act of baptism is an outward sign of an inward
13:01
grace. The text is describing a
13:04
spiritual immersion, A sovereign incorporation into Christ, and
13:08
the sphere into which the believer is immersed is
13:11
designated by the Greek preposition ES, which means into
13:15
Believers are baptized into Christ Jesus.
13:17
I want to use an analogy to explain this idea of being
13:20
baptized into Christ because it can sound very mystical and, you
13:23
know, floaty. This signifies federal headship
13:26
and incorporation. Let's hear it.
13:28
Think about a national ambassador.
13:30
If an ambassador travels to a foreign country and signs a
13:33
binding peace treaty, the entire nation they represent is bound
13:36
by that signature, right? When the ambassador acts, the
13:40
citizens are included in that action.
13:42
If the ambassador declares war, the citizens are at war.
13:46
If the ambassador secures peace, the citizens enjoy peace.
13:49
That is an excellent way to conceptualize it, Yeah.
13:52
You are incorporated into His person, His offices, and His
13:56
history. When Christ acted on the cross,
13:59
you were legally and covenantly included in that action.
14:02
That's incredible to think. About You are no longer in Adam
14:05
as the ruling head of your existence.
14:07
You are in Christ. What is true of Him becomes true
14:10
of you by virtue of this union. And having established that we
14:14
are united to Him, the discussion narrows to a very
14:17
specific aspect of Christ's work.
14:19
Verse 3 says We are baptized into his death.
14:22
His death specifically. We are not just baptized into
14:24
his ethical teachings or his moral example or his healing
14:27
miracles. We are explicitly baptized into
14:29
his death. This refers to Christ's penal
14:32
substitutionary suffering. That means he died to satisfy
14:36
the legal penalty of the law and bear the wrath of God in the
14:39
place of sinners. He took the hit.
14:41
He was a substitute bearing a penalty, but Paul's emphasis
14:45
here is that believers participate in the consequences
14:48
of that death regarding the dominion of sin.
14:52
You're Co crucified with him. Meaning the old contract is
14:55
void. Yes.
14:56
This means the Old Covenant of works and your enslavement to
14:59
sin as a reigning master is judicially shattered.
15:03
You, Sharon, is death. The text points out an
15:05
incredibly fascinating linguistic detail in verse 4
15:08
regarding what happens after death.
15:10
Oh this is a great detail. Paul uses a very rare Greek word
15:13
for burial, Suna Tafman. It translates to buried together
15:17
with. This word is only used twice in
15:19
the entire Greek Bible here and in Colossians chapter 2.
15:23
Why does Paul go out of his way to highlight the burial?
15:25
Why not just say we die with him and leave it at that?
15:28
The linguistic choice is deliberate and highly pastoral.
15:32
Why use the language of burial? Because burial confirms death.
15:37
In the ancient Near East, just as in our world today, you do
15:40
not bury someone who is sleeping, no, you do not bury
15:43
someone in a coma. Burial is the absolute public
15:47
and final seal of death. When a community gathers for a
15:50
funeral, they are collectively acknowledging that the person's
15:53
participation in the realm of the living has permanently
15:56
ceased. So the old man is a corpse.
15:58
The old man is a corpse. And a corpse cannot negotiate
16:01
with his former master. It cannot sign contracts, it
16:04
cannot respond to threats or bribes.
16:06
It is entirely free from its prior obligations.
16:09
Exactly. The grave ends the jurisdiction
16:11
of the old realm. But here is a major pushback.
16:14
And I know you, the listener, are probably thinking the exact
16:16
same thing, right? Now what's the pushback?
16:18
If the old man is completely dead and buried, why do you and
16:21
I still struggle with temptation every single day?
16:23
Yeah, the daily struggle. Why is the Christian life still
16:26
a brutal, exhausting fight against our own flesh?
16:29
If I am a corpse to sin, why does sin still look so
16:32
appealing? That is the crucial pastoral
16:35
distinction we must make. If we do not make this
16:37
distinction, believers will fall into absolute despair.
16:41
Because they'll think it didn't. Work exactly.
16:43
They'll think I must not be saved if I'm still tempted.
16:46
The text clarifies the difference between sins rightful
16:49
dominion and sins lingering presence.
16:52
We had to separate the legal authority of sin from the
16:55
residual habits of the flesh. Give us a picture of that.
16:58
Imagine a tyrant who has ruled a city with an iron fist for
17:02
decades. He has dictated every law,
17:04
controlled the food supply and executed anyone who disobeyed.
17:08
Total control. Right.
17:09
One day, a massive liberating army arrives, breaches the
17:12
walls, shatters the tyrant's throne, strips him of his legal
17:15
authority, and expels him from the palace.
17:18
The Tyrants Dominion is definitively legally broken.
17:21
But the tyrant is not dead yet. He is standing outside the city
17:24
walls with a megaphone, shouting orders over the barricades,
17:27
trying to convince the citizens he is still in charge.
17:30
Precisely. You might still hear his voice
17:32
echoing over the walls. You might even have the
17:35
ingrained muscle memory of obeying his commands from years
17:37
of brutal slavery. Yeah, when he yells jump, your
17:40
initial instinct might be to jump because you did it for so
17:43
long. But he has no legal jurisdiction
17:46
over you anymore. The believer's past in Adam has
17:50
been sentenced and placed in the tomb of Christ.
17:53
Sin is no longer the lawful ruler.
17:55
You struggle against it, you fight those residual habits, but
17:59
you are not a helpless subject bowing to a legitimate king.
18:02
That is a massive paradigm shift.
18:04
The grave is real, but a grave is not the end of the story.
18:08
In the Christian Gospel, a funeral is not the final note.
18:12
Thank goodness. The narrative immediately moves
18:14
from the absolute finality of the tomb to the blinding dawn of
18:18
Sunday. Verse 4 continues by setting up
18:21
a comparative framework. Paul writes, Just as Christ was
18:24
raised from the dead, so we also might walk in newness of life.
18:29
Wait, let me rephrase that without trailing off Just as
18:31
Christ was raised from the dead, so we also might walk in newness
18:34
of life. This just is so also structure
18:38
ties your subjective, daily, practical walk directly to the
18:42
objective historical fact of Christ's empty tomb.
18:45
The ethical mandate to live a holy life is anchored entirely
18:49
in an eschatological reality. Let's clarify eschatological For
18:53
anyone who doesn't spend their weekends reading theology
18:55
dictionaries, that means it belongs to the end of times, the
18:58
final age of the world, right? Yes, the Jews believed history
19:01
was divided into two ages, the present evil age and the age to
19:05
come which would be inaugurated by the resurrection of the dead.
19:08
OK, Paul is saying that the age to come has already broken into
19:12
the middle of history through the resurrection of Jesus.
19:14
And the text mentions the specific source of this
19:17
resurrection. Christ was raised by the glory
19:20
of the Father. That phrase is not just poetic
19:22
filler to make the sentence sound majestic.
19:24
It refers to divine life giving omnipotence.
19:27
It is the visible manifestation of the absolute might of God.
19:31
The Father did not leave the Son in the grave to see decay.
19:34
He vindicated him, accepted His sacrifice, and inaugurated the
19:37
age to come. So that same might is at work
19:40
now. Yes, the exact same divine
19:43
omnipotence that rolled the massive stone away and brought
19:46
breath back into the deadlines of the Incarnate sun is
19:49
currently active in the believers daily victory over
19:52
sin. That's wow.
19:54
Your daily sanctification, your ability to say no to temptation,
19:57
is fueled by literal resurrection energy.
20:01
The text highlights the specific Greek word used for newness in
20:05
the phrase newness of life. The word is K notes, and this is
20:10
distinct from another Greek word neos, which just means something
20:13
is recent in time. Right.
20:15
It does not just mean something that happened recently, like
20:18
buying a new car that just rolled off the assembly line.
20:21
Right, that would be Neos. K notes indicates a totally new
20:24
qualitative character of existence.
20:26
It is an entirely different kind of life.
20:28
Yeah, you've been infused with a life that belongs to the new
20:31
creation. Is this newness like getting a
20:33
fresh coat of paint on a crumbling termite infested
20:37
house? Or is it like having the entire
20:38
foundation and structure bulldozed, dug up and rebuilt
20:42
from the ground up with completely different materials?
20:44
It is definitely the latter. It is an irreversible onto
20:48
logical change, meaning it changes your actual being, your
20:52
nature. God does not just decorate the
20:54
old life of sin. He doesn't remodel the flesh.
20:57
No, he does not put a nice suit on a corpse.
21:00
He buries the old man with Christ and raises an entirely
21:03
new creation. This qualitative newness
21:07
naturally and inevitably produces the fruit of personal
21:10
holiness. Because a fruit tree produces
21:12
fruit according to its nature. Exactly.
21:15
An apple tree produces apples. A new creation produces
21:18
holiness. So what?
21:19
Does this all mean for the church today?
21:20
Let's bring this ancient 1st century text out of the Roman
21:23
Empire and into our modern context.
21:25
We have to confront how these historical and theological
21:28
troops expose current cultural and religious trends.
21:31
And the material shares some highly sobering data on this
21:34
Recent surveys from major theological research
21:36
organizations reveal that over 70% of self identified
21:39
evangelicals see no necessary connection between their
21:43
salvation and a lifestyle of progressive holiness.
21:46
Over 70%. That is a staggering,
21:48
heartbreaking statistic. It really is.
21:50
It means the vast majority of people sitting in pews on Sunday
21:54
morning believe that you can accept the legal pardon we
21:57
talked about at the beginning, but completely reject the
22:00
resurrection life. They believe you can have Jesus
22:03
as Savior to cancel your held debt, but refuse Him as Lord
22:07
over your daily habits, your bank account, and your private
22:10
life. And this text systematically
22:13
dismantles those modern errors. It confronts several false
22:17
gospels that have crept into the modern church.
22:20
Let's break those down. First, it addresses seeker
22:23
sensitive pragmatism and the concept of cheap grace.
22:26
This is a tragic practice of offering a savior without
22:29
demanding a change of master. Which is rampant today.
22:31
It fills rooms by avoiding the offense of sin and the necessity
22:35
of repentance. It preaches a gospel of self
22:37
improvement rather than crucifixion.
22:39
It is essentially telling people they can stay in the grave.
22:41
Just put a nice cross on the headstone and call it a day.
22:44
That is an accurate, if severe, way to picture it.
22:47
Second, the text confronts mysticism and continuationism.
22:51
This is the error of chasing private ecstatic revelations,
22:54
emotional highs, or extraordinary science to prove
22:58
you are saved. Looking for the spectacular?
23:00
People look for a sudden burst of emotion rather than looking
23:03
at the sober, ordinary, daily obedience of the new walk, the
23:07
true mark of the spirits. Baptizing work is a life of
23:10
active, sustained holiness, not just a chaotic emotional display
23:14
at a weekend conference. And 3rd, it destroys defeatism.
23:18
I know many listeners might feel this one deep in their bones.
23:21
Defeatism is the genuine, heartbreaking belief that you
23:23
are simply helpless against your sins.
23:25
Yeah, that fatalistic mindset. You think your addiction, your
23:29
anger, your lust, it's just your permanent identity.
23:31
You have tried to quit 100 times and failed, so you assume you
23:34
will always be a slave to it. Defeatism says I can never
23:37
change, this is just who I am. I guess I will just limp into
23:40
heaven as a miserable defeated Sinner.
23:43
But Roman 6 says you are not fighting as a helpless slave,
23:46
you are called to fight from victory.
23:48
That is a huge paradigm shift. This is a massive comfort for
23:52
the weary listener. You do not fight sin in order to
23:56
achieve a victory or to slowly earn your way into union with
23:59
Christ. You fight sin because the
24:01
absolute victory is already yours in Him.
24:04
You fight from union, not toward union.
24:07
So bringing this all the way down to the ground level, what
24:10
does this mean for you, the listener, on a random Monday
24:12
morning when you have stumbled into a cherished familiar sin
24:16
over the weekend? It's a.
24:17
Very practical scenario. You wake up, the guilt is heavy,
24:20
and the shame is screaming at you.
24:22
How does knowing that you are objectively buried with Christ
24:26
change your reaction to that specific painful failure?
24:29
It changes your reaction entirely.
24:31
Without this doctrine, your reaction to failure will either
24:34
be absolute despair, believing you have lost your standing with
24:38
God and need to earn it back, or complete apathy, believing it
24:41
does not matter anyway because grace covers it all.
24:43
Right, the two ditches again. But knowing you were buried with
24:46
Christ means you look at that failure and recognize it as an
24:50
alien intrusion. It is an invader.
24:53
It is not your true identity. You confess it, you reject it,
24:56
and you step back onto the resurrection ground.
24:58
You remind yourself that the master of that sin is in the
25:01
grave. You realize that sin is a
25:03
squatter in a house it no longer legally owns.
25:06
You have the legal right, backed by the glory of the Father, to
25:10
evict it. The grace of God is not a
25:12
comfortable shelter to hide your rebellion under.
25:15
Not at all. It is the very mechanism, the
25:17
very divine machinery, that pulls you out of the grave and
25:21
sets your feet on solid ground. The imperative command to walk
25:25
in holiness rests entirely upon the indicative truth of what
25:28
Christ has already done in the New Testament.
25:30
The indicative, the statement of fact, always precedes the
25:33
imperative, the command. You are commanded to live a new
25:35
life only because God has already made you a new creature.
25:38
Sanctification is the necessary, inevitable fruit of union with
25:42
the Savior. We have covered a massive amount
25:44
of ground today, from the treasonous baptisms in the
25:47
shadow of Caesar's Palace, to the exact grammar of our union
25:51
with the Cross, to the empty tomb that guarantees our Monday
25:55
morning victories over the lingering voice of the flesh.
25:58
It is a text that requires us to examine ourselves closely to
26:01
ensure we have not separated what God has permanently joined
26:05
together. Free justification and necessary
26:08
sanctification. You cannot have the benefits of
26:11
His death without participating in the reality of His
26:14
resurrection life. I want to leave you, our
26:17
listener, with a final thought to Mull over as you go about
26:20
your day. If your baptism was a public
26:22
funeral for your old self, what old grave clothes are you still
26:26
keeping hidden in your closet? That's a piercing question.
26:29
Are there habits, resentments, or compromises you are refusing
26:32
to bury? When temptation knocks on your
26:34
door tomorrow, practice answering it with theology.
26:36
Tell it the person you are looking for is dead and buried.
26:39
Thank you for joining us on The Steep Dive.
26:41
We will catch you next time on Reformed Thinking.