Join us as we uncover the deep spiritual insights Paul offers regarding our existence in Christ as opposed to the sin-infested realm of Adam. The conversation sheds light on how faith transforms our perception of struggles and empowers us to live in the resurrection of Christ. Key insights reveal how being counted as dead to sin allows us to embrace our new identity in Christ, where the power of negative emotions is redirected into a life of liberation and security provided by Jesus.
So we’re exploring this remarkable message that Paul gives us about our death to sin. My goodness, that sounds rather frightening in a way, doesn’t it? Because we all know that sin isn’t finished with us, that we still get tempted, we still fall. And if this is a standard that we are expected to reach, that we all ultimately get to the place where we die to sin so that we don’t do it anymore, that sounds so frightening that salvation seems like a million miles away. But, of course, that is not what Paul is saying. But let’s look at the verse and see how we can be enlightened by it as well as confused by it. Let’s read from verse 1. The first verse I’m thinking about is verse 4, but we’ll get context by 1 and 2 and 3. What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound? Certainly not. How shall we who died to sin live any longer in it? Or do you not know that as many of us as were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? Therefore we were buried with him through baptism into death, that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life. Well, that’s a real package. And it is a remarkable way of looking at things. But it is a way of looking at things inspired by the Holy Spirit, and the Holy Spirit is telling us to look that way at it as well. I mean, we died to sin. I’ve heard preachers preach about this in years past, and… I tell you, they screwed it up totally. They talked about, we need to learn to die to sin. I remember one man saying, have you ever seen a dead body and pricked a pin in it? No. Well, if you did and pricked a pin in it, would the dead body feel it? No, it wouldn’t. So should it be with us, he would say. We need to get to the place where we never feel sin anymore. Well, that is such a distorted mess of preaching that it makes you want to scream and run away. because it’s talking, that is, he is talking about sinless perfection. perfectionism, where we, it is assumed, get to the place where we carve out our sinful nature completely from our humanity and don’t have it anymore, so that we get to the place where we are those holy rollers, or whatever they were called years or hundred and so years ago, and and they run around naked in the streets proclaiming that they have been liberated and redeemed from sin and they are not sinners anymore. Well, what’s the truth of all this? What is Paul getting at? He’s, of course, consistent all the way through. The Jesus Christ is the substitute for all humanity. The Jesus Christ stands in as the new head of the human race. Remember what happened to the human race under Adam. When Adam sinned, all went down with him. He brought in sin and death, and the whole of the human race was condemned in Adam. That’s what Romans 5, the latter part of it, verses 12 to 21, was talking about, don’t you remember? Now then, just as Adam brought the human race down, so Christ brings the human race up. The truth of the matter is that as in Adam all died even though they had no part in his sin, so also in Christ the human race will be brought up even though it had no part in his righteousness. That’s the teaching that Paul has been giving us. And so Christ is our substitute. When he went to the cross, he went to the cross for every man, woman, and child that was ever born and ever will be born and live. And so what this is teaching us is that what happened to Jesus Christ, the execution of the Son of God on the cross, happened as if it were us on that cross. That is why Paul says, we died to sin. Not in the sense that we don’t feel sin anymore, but we died to the reign of sin because Christ brought an end to the Adamic race in himself, so that now the new race of humanity in Christ has begun. Yes, granted that most people haven’t a clue about this, but God will bring that knowledge to them. So then, we, verse 4, were buried with him. We died on that cross with him. Now, I want you to notice how intimate this is. This is Paul at his finest, teaching us the incredibly close relationship between humanity and Jesus Christ. Jesus is God among men. And God among men has linked himself with humanity so intimately that what happens to him is as if it had happened to the human race. And what happens to the human race in all its sorrow and suffering is as if it had happened to Jesus Christ. Therefore, we were buried with him. We were buried with him through baptism into death. Now, this doesn’t mean that baptism is the miracle of a new creation. It means, of course, that baptism is typifying or symbolizing that death of ours into Christ’s death. How do you then look at your life? Well, you recognize that the humanity that you live in, which gets sorrowful and depressed or sick or sinful or addicted or angry or confused or frightened or guilty, all of these dark emotions that we go through, we died to them. they were buried at the cross. Well, you say, but I still experience them. Yes, you experience them, but the point is you are being treated as if you were identified with Christ at the cross. And so in your prayer life and in your faith life, you are able to pull in all of these emotions and say, Father, I thank you that the emotions I’m going through right now, which are so painful, have been buried with Christ at the cross. They no longer are mine. They no longer have power to judge me. They no longer have power to tear me down. Therefore, we were buried with him through baptism into death. Whose death? Not mine, but his. But his is counted as mine. So it is as if it were mine, and I am to look at life like that. Therefore we were buried with him through baptism into death, that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life.” Now, notice then that the major emphasis of the verse is not our death, but our resurrection. There are so many Christians who, misunderstanding this, are constantly trying to die to their sins. That is, those serious Christians, if they care. Most Christians these days are so light in their theology and teaching that they don’t realize they don’t have any conflict at all about their sins. But if we take our faith seriously and our walk with Jesus seriously, then we want to die to our sins, don’t we? Well, yes, but how does it happen? Well, we’re already talking about it. We emphasize our death to sin, that is, our being counted as if we were dead because we’re counted as if we died at the cross. But the main point is that having died at the cross, we rise again to newness of life. So back to those emotions that we go through sometimes, sorrow or depression or sadness or sickness of our emotions or our body, and anger and guilt and shame and our addictions, we look at them and we pull them into our resurrected life in Christ. You say, how in the world can we Assume that all of these emotions, these negative emotions, can be in the resurrection of Christ, because Christ has brought in the new kingdom. The sin kingdom of Adam is not our individual sins, but the state of the world in which sin and death reign. You saw that in Romans chapter 5, verse 21, of course. But now something else reigns, and it is Christ’s resurrected life. And we say, Father, all that I’m going through now, because my brokenness is, of course, part of the sin kingdom of Adam, but it’s counted as finished in Christ. All I’m going through now, therefore, Lord, is counted as in the resurrection of Jesus. And so I thank you, Lord, that the struggles of my emotions, maybe the depression of heart, maybe the anger towards someone else, thank you, dear Lord, that this is experienced in the resurrection of Jesus so that these emotions of mine are being redirected, redirected to life, do you see? Doesn’t this make you understand that faith is a perception of how we see ourselves, in whose kingdom we live? Do we live in Adam’s sin and death, or do we live in Christ’s righteousness and life? Well, of course we live in Christ’s. Let’s look at the verse again. Therefore we were buried with him through baptism into death, that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life. We’re walking in newness of life. And it’s not the idea that suddenly we were sinners and now we’re saints and we never sin anymore. It’s that all the struggles and problems that we went through in the Adamic kingdom, we now go through in the Christ kingdom, in Christ’s kingdom. This makes us buoyant. This gives us courage. This gives us the ability to wake up in the morning and say, Good morning, Lord. I thank you that my life is hidden in you. You see, that’s the point. Whose life do you live in? How is your life hidden? Is it hidden in dour depression and sorrow and abandonment? Or is it lived in the safety and security and the nourishment of Jesus? This is what we’re looking at here. This is how you break free from those forces that hold you down. Now, it doesn’t mean you always break through every sin and break free from every sin, but it means that you break free from the powers of those sins that make you want to give up and walk away. Christ has given us his resurrection life and he’s sharing it with us every day, every moment. Thank you for joining me today. Colin Cook here and how it happens. 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