NEW LIFE IN CHRIST

Salvation from the Grip of Sin
(Romans 6:1-7:6)

Many people today struggle with addictions to alcohol, drugs, gambling, pornography, or other habits that that they would gladly break free from if they could. Such addictions are symptoms of the greatest addiction of all — what the Bible describes as our inner enslavement to sin. The wonderful reality of the Christian message is that by surrendering our lives to Jesus Christ we can be set free from this grip that sin has over our passions and behaviour. Rob Yule explains how in this sermon preached at Greyfriars’ Classical Service on 17 June 2007.

There’s nothing more wonderful than the change Jesus Christ can bring in a person’s life. Jesus himself said that there is ‘more rejoicing in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who do not need to repent.’ (Luke 15:7). Jesus can set you free from the grip of sin — from a life of shame, guilt and addiction — and give you a life of freedom, forgiveness, a clear conscience and a joyful purpose.

I witnessed this last weekend at the Benny Hinn ‘Miracle Crusade’ — the first Christian event in Auckland’s new Vector Arena — when on the opening night some 600 people responded to a courageous message to turn from sin and surrender their lives to the Lord Jesus Christ. Benny Hinn says, ‘Salvation is the greatest miracle that can ever take place in a person’s life. In only a moment’s time, the selfish, sinful heart of an individual can be cleansed from sin and miraculously transformed as that person repents of all sin and surrenders everything to the Lord Jesus’ (The Greatest Miracle, p. 30).

Justification and Sanctification

Salvation from sin and new life in Christ is the theme of this passage in Paul’s letter to the Romans. In chapters 3-5 Paul has dealt with the theme of justification. God justifies the believer — makes a person right with himself — by faith, because of what Jesus Christ has done by dying on the cross and paying the penalty for our sins. In chapters 6-8 Paul moves on to the theme of sanctification: how God transforms believers’ lives and makes us holy, helping us to overcome sin and live a righteous life.

Justification is like entering a door. Sanctification is like living in a room. Justification is like buying a computer. Sanctification is learning how to use it. A lot of time, effort, training and experience is necessary if we are to make full use of a computer’s power and capabilities.

We could summarise the difference between justification and sanctification in a diagram:

Justification (Romans 3-5)	Sanctification (Romans 6-8)
Based on Christ’s death	Based on Christ’s life
What Christ has done for us	What Christ is doing in us
Deals with the penalty of sin	Deals with the power of sin
Overcomes sin’s condemnation	Overcomes sin’s compulsion
Imputes God’s righteousness	Imparts God’s righteousness
Forgiveness of sin	Victory over sin
An accomplished fact	An ongoing process

Jesus Christ bought us, justified us, by his death on the cross. He paid the purchase price, we are declared righteous, our salvation is an accomplished fact. But the power over sin that Jesus gives us needs to be realised in our lives. There’s an unrealised potential to be achieved, a life of holiness that we are called to engage in, if we are to make full use of the power of the new life that Jesus brings. It’s an ongoing process that will involve us all our days.

We must realise that sanctification involves our own commitment. Our justification results from what Jesus has done for us without our efforts (‘while we were still sinners, Christ died for us’, Romans 5:8). But our sanctification is achieved by what Jesus is doing in us, in cooperation with our efforts. Passivity and inertia is the enemy of sanctification.

This is the problem Paul deals with in Romans 6:1. There were people arguing that God’s grace releases a Christian from moral effort or any need to keep the moral law. They argued that if how we behave has nothing to do with becoming a Christian, then how we behave has nothing to do with being a Christian. This is the classic antinomian argument: if we are saved from sin by God’s grace, shouldn’t we carry on sinning to increase God’s grace?

No way, says Paul. That’s a terrible misunderstanding. Certainly, God’s grace saves us from sin, apart from good works. But God’s grace saves us for a life of good works, apart from sin. The whole point of being saved from sin is so that we will stop sinning and live a sanctified life. ‘Don’t you realise who you now are in Christ?’ Paul asks. Three times he asks the question, ‘Don’t you know?’ — marking the threefold division of his argument (6:3, 6:16, 7:1). Each rhetorical question introduces a reason why the Christian should stop sinning:

1. The Christian has a new life (6:3-14)

The Christian’s new life is linked with the death and resurrection of Jesus. ‘Don’t you know that all of us who were baptised into Christ Jesus were baptised into his death?’ (6:3).

A Christian is someone who has been united to Christ, joined to Christ in his death and resurrection. Our sinful life has been crucified and buried with Christ, decisively put to death, just as Jesus died once for all on the cross bearing our sins. A Christian is a person who has died to sin, a person who should be as insensitive to sin as a corpse is to stimuli.

Similarly, a Christian is a person who has been united with Christ in his resurrection. Through our union with Christ we share in his risen life which has conquered death and his holiness which has conquered sin. We no longer have to struggle with sin unaided — the power of Christ’s risen life is at work in us, enabling us to resist sin and live a holy life.

Paul emphasises that the death and resurrection of Christ was unlike any other. Jesus’ death was unique: ‘he died to sin, once for all’, bearing the punishment for our sins (6:10). Likewise, Jesus’ resurrection was unique: ‘Christ, being raised from the dead, will never die again: death no longer has dominion over him’ (6:9, NRSV). By contrast, the raising of Lazarus was strictly speaking a ‘resuscitation’: his mortal life was revived — and (poor bloke) he would have had to face death all over again. But, unlike Lazarus, Jesus was raised to an undying life: he was raised immortal, ‘never to die again’.

The combination of Christ’s decisive, once for all death, and Christ’s undying, resurrection life, gives believers the inward power to overcome sin and live a holy life. With Christ we die to sin and rise to a new life of righteousness. This is why immersion baptism is important: it graphically symbolises a new Christian’s dying to sin and rising to new life with Christ.

2. The Christian has a new master (6:15-32)

The Christian’s new life is one of surrender to the lordship of Jesus Christ. ‘Don’t you know that… you are slaves to the one you obey?’ (6:16).

We used to be our own boss, do our own thing. Now as Christians we have a new master in charge of our lives. Paul uses the example of slavery, drawn from the Roman society of his day. There were many slaves in the Roman world, often much better treated than during the slave trade in the 18th and 19th centuries. Slaves had to obey or serve their master — the person who owned them or under whose authority they lived. In the Roman world slaves were sometimes redeemed — bought by someone and liberated, set free.

Paul uses this analogy of the redemption of a slave to illustrate how Christ has set the Christian free from slavery to sin. Christ has set us free from the compulsion to sin, the necessity of sinning, the addictive grip of our sinful passions. Christ has liberated us from sin and brought us under new ownership, delivered us from sin and made us ‘slaves to righteousness’ (6:18), so that we may live holy lives. When we surrender our lives to Christ, he replaces our former compulsion to sin with a new impulse and obligation to live a holy life pleasing to God, our new master.

3. The Christian has a new partner (7:1-6)

The Christian’s new life is one of union with Jesus Christ — a union so deep and lasting it can be compared to a marriage. ‘Do you not know… that the law has authority over someone only so long as that person lives?’ (7:1).

Paul points out that our legal obligation to a marriage partner only applies while the spouse is alive. If the spouse dies their partner is free from that legal obligation. Similarly, says Paul, a Christian, by dying to sin, is freed from any legal obligation to sin, any necessity to go on sinning. The Christian is truly free — no longer compelled or obliged to sin.

Paul takes the marriage analogy even further, when he speaks about the ‘fruit’ or offspring of a marriage. A woman produces children through her union with her husband. So, when we’re in partnership with sin and are controlled by sin, we bear ‘fruit for death’ (7:5). But when Christ saves us, we are joined in a union with him ‘in order that we may bear fruit for God’ (7:4, NRSV).

Paul sums up this wonderful change that Christ brings in one of the most famous verses in the Bible, Romans 6:23: ‘The wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.’

Conclusion

Today the commonly accepted view is that it is natural to sin — we must give expression to our passions, lust, anger, violence, greed. We’re told that we mustn’t repress our passions and desires; we must express them.

The Bible disagrees. It offers hope for the sinner. ‘The Gospel is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes.’ (1:16). It is not necessary to sin. Jesus Christ can free you from the addiction of sin. He can free you from its grip and compulsion.

Through Jesus Christ you can live a new life of holiness. Through Jesus Christ you can serve a new master. Through Jesus Christ you can have a new partner who will produce the fruit of righteousness in your life.

Rob Yule, 17 June 2007
© 2007, Greyfriars Presbyterian Church