Dead to Sin, Alive in Christ - (Rom 6:1-4), Part 2/4

“Shall we keep sinning so grace can grow?” That question sounds modern, but Paul answers it with a blunt force refusal, and we slow down long enough to feel the weight of it. We talk through Romans 6 and the doctrine behind it, because what you believe about grace, sanctification, and union with Christ will shape how you fight sin on an ordinary Tuesday, not just how you talk about theology on Sunday. 

We start by clarifying God’s communicable attributes versus non-communicable attributes. God calls us to real love, mercy, patience, and holiness, and he credits believers with righteousness through Christ, yet none of those qualities ever rise to God’s infinite purity. At the same time, some attributes remain God’s alone: omniscience, omnipresence, immutability, and absolute sinlessness. That framework keeps us from two ditches at once: despair that gives up on obedience, and pride that pretends we can become flawless. 

Then we press into the heart of Romans 6: the gospel never encourages sin. The grace that pardons is the same grace that sanctifies, and “dead to sin” means a decisive break in dominion. We still battle indwelling sin, but we no longer belong to it, and a true believer cannot live comfortably under sin’s rule because we’ve been transferred into Christ’s kingdom. We close by setting up Paul’s next move about being baptized into Jesus Christ and into his death, tying identity, perseverance, and daily warfare together. 

If this helped you think clearly about justification by faith, sanctification, and the Christian fight against sin, subscribe, share this with a friend, and leave a review so more people can find the show.

Transcript

Communicable Attributes We Reflect

SPEAKER_03 0:00

That's interesting. There are people that say that God is all loving. Well, here's how I look at this. And he is all loving, but does he not command us to be loving? So what I what I would say is that when we talk about when we talk about the attributes of God that are communicable, that means attributes that he gives to us, but we can never have it to the degree that he has it. But he nonetheless does communicate attributes. Like we we we are expected to love, to show grace, to be merciful, to be patient. These are all things that are communicable. God's forbearing. We can be forbearing. We can be compassionate, because God is compassionate. But there are certain things that belong to God that only belong to him and can never be communicated to anyone else. Would you agree? Yeah. So who was it? Sister Vanessa, go ahead. You had something you wanted to add.

SPEAKER_01 1:07

I just wanted to add his purity and his righteousness. We don't have that without him.

SPEAKER_03 1:13

Well, we we do receive, we do receive his righteousness from Christ as a result of trusting in Christ, do we not?

SPEAKER_01 1:19

Yeah, we have it, but we can't have it like he does. That's all I'm saying.

SPEAKER_03 1:23

Right, right. But here's my point. Here's my point, everybody. So, you know, I'm glad we we we had this little exchange. When I say communicable attributes, we're not saying that when we get them, that we can do it or observe those things to the degree that God can, but it is nonetheless given to us. Righteousness, we as we have been looking at in this chapter or in chapter five, is imputed to us by Christ. It's an imputation of his righteousness. Are we inherently righteous? No, it doesn't do that. But we have been, we've he has communicated righteousness. He's communicated love. Christ says to love God with all your heart, mind, and soul, and he tells us to love our neighbor as ourselves. Love is a communicable attribute that God passes off to us to his people, even though we don't love the way he does. But when we talk about non-communicable, we're talking about things that belong exclusively exclusively exclusively to the Lord, that in no possible way can it be transferred to his creation. And that's what I wanted to point out. And so his immutability, his omniscience, his omnipresence, you know, so all these things belong to him exclusively. Sinlessness, this is something that he is perfect and holy in every way and always has been. He's a creator, like MK says, but we don't create. So these are things that we want that I wanted to get out. And so I think it's a good exercise for us all to just think about these things as we engage in the scripture, as we engage in the scripture. So, anyway, so the gospel, as I said earlier, never

What Only God Can Be

SPEAKER_03 3:08

encourages sin. Rather, it destroys the dominion. And we understand that the dominion of sin is destroyed by the gospel when it is believed. And the grace that pardons is the same grace, as I said earlier, that sanctifies. It's the same grace that sanctifies. So even sanctification, even sanctification comes to us by God. He sanctifies us. We don't sanctify ourselves, he sanctifies us. And so we need to understand that anyone who concludes that justification by faith promotes lawlessness or an antinomian spirit, meaning lawlessness, we do not believe that justification by faith promotes that. And anybody who believes that, they fail to grasp the nature of the union, the saving union that we have in Christ. So the question itself serves. The question itself in verse one, it serves as a doorway into a deeper explanation as to how the believer's participation in Christ's death and resurrection necessarily transforms his relationship to sin. And so it is a blessed thing to be looked upon. Let's see here. I can't tell if you're a sister or brother, happy follower. Do you want to add anything to what we're talking about so far? Happy follower, anything. All right, they may not be there. Brother Rodney, thoughts before I go to verse two. Alrighty. Sister Lisa.

SPEAKER_04 5:08

I'm here. Sorry. All right. Anything you want to add, brother? Sorry, man. I wasn't taking some notes here. Good job on this presentation. I put in the I put in the comments about God being holy. I wanted to know what your take would be, because we have a scripture, of course, that says, you know, be ye holy as your father. You know, it's a pretty pretty tough pretty tough act to follow. How do you how do you you know God is really holy and we're not?

SPEAKER_03 5:35

We're not, but he says he says, be ye holy, for I am holy, right?

SPEAKER_04 5:39

Right. And we're only holy through Jesus Christ, I suppose, in the shedding of his blood. But I don't think we're gonna match his condition.

SPEAKER_03 5:47

We're never gonna match his condition, we're never gonna match it, but holiness is holiness is a communicable attribute. He calls us in 1 Peter 2 9 a holy nation. Does he not? He says, Be ye holy, for I am holy. You know, so this is something that now let me let me make this clear. And it's so that's a good point, happy follower. Everything that we share in, that we have a part of God,

Grace That Pardons Also Sanctifies

SPEAKER_03 6:18

that we that that a part that we are marked with with God in us that is communicable, we will never be, whatever that attribute is, to the degree that God is. That's impossible. But there are certain things that he gives us that belong to him that we get, and there are certain things about God that we can never get. We will never be, no matter how, no matter how holy we are in this life, we will never be omnipotent, we'll never be almighty, we will never be everywhere at once like God is. Never be. You know, but there are certain attributes that he does give to us that that resemble him. Like you know, when you think about this, we're also told that there's a time that comes, there's a time when we as believers become believers that we receive the mind of Christ. Do we receive the mind of Christ to the degree that Christ, that his mind exactly is? In other words, that we see things perfectly as he does? No, it does not. But he's pointing out to us that there are things about the Lord God that we do share in and do we do take a participation in.

SPEAKER_04 7:32

Right. I agree with you. There's some scriptures that are extremely literal, and there are others that we need to exegute properly and know what the context is.

SPEAKER_03 7:40

Absolutely, brother. Absolutely. And thank you for being here, by the way. Thank you for being here. So in verse 2, continuing with what he had asked in verse 1, where he said, What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin? Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound? And in verse 2, he says, God forbid. How shall we that are dead to sin live any longer therein? And Christian, let me say something to you. This is a very important and a very potent verse. How shall we, Paul asks, that are dead to sin, live any longer therein. And so Paul now answers, his his answer is immediate, and his answer is emphatic. And he says here, and he goes on here, he says, God forbid. That's his response. God forbid. He doesn't have some elaborate thing that he's laying out, he doesn't have to go to the Greek to understand this. He doesn't have to go look at some some old you know, the Dead Sea scrolls to know this. Shall we shall, how shall we that are dead to sin live any longer therein? And so he says, God forbid, this is something that cannot be done. God forbid conveys the strongest possible rejection of this very thing that is suggested. The very thought that grace encourages sin is not only utterly comp incompatible with the gospel, it is a contemptible thought to entertain. It shows contempt for the grace of God. It shows a disdain for the word of God. And so we need to understand this. He does not say, Paul does not just simply say that believers should not continue in sin, but that it is contrary to what they have become through their union with Christ. This verse is so powerful. Look at it. How shall we continue? How shall we that are dead to sin, I should say, how shall we that are dead to sin live any longer therein? This is an impossibility. It is

God Forbid And Dead To Sin

SPEAKER_03 10:40

an impossibility. If you are dead to sin, it is impossible to live any longer therein. Live any longer therein what? Sin. Once you have been dead to sin, you can no longer live therein. And there are those people, as we have talked about over the recent weeks, that believe that a Christian can turn away from God and lose their salvation. Many people turn from the faith that they perceive that they have. But the true believer can never, the true believer who is actually dead to sin, since they are dead to sin, can no longer live therein. That is an impossibility. It is impossibility. You can't be dead and alive at the same time. You are either dead to sin or you are alive to Christ. This is what he's pointing out. There is no neutrality here. No neutrality. And there's no way to theologically finagle away out of this to say, well, I was dead to sin at one point, but now, but now I live in it. This is what Paul is arguing against. That's an impossibility. If you are dead to sin, there is no way for you to live in it at all. No way. Why? Because of our union with Christ. And if you are in union with Christ, it is impossible in that union for you to entertain sin being a part of the body of Christ, because that would make Christ a partaker in your sin. And it would also make Christ a liar in terms of what he said he would do, which is to take away all of the sin of all of those for whom he died. His atonement would essentially not be complete. As I said in the past, it would be saying that Christ, by his atoning blood, when it came to his blood covering us, he missed the spot. That's impossible. Brother Rodney, go ahead.

SPEAKER_00 13:03

You actually what you just said was what I was gonna comment on.

SPEAKER_02 13:06

All right, perfect, brother.

SPEAKER_03 13:07

Perfect.

SPEAKER_00 13:08

Thank you.

SPEAKER_03 13:08

All right. So when Paul says here that we believers, that we are dead to sin, he's not teaching that sin has been entirely eradicated from their nature. If that were so, there would be no need for the sanctification that he gives us. Sanctification implies resident sin that is daily being mortified. We die daily to sin. So experience along with the scripture, they both testify that indwelling sin does remain present even in the regenerate. It remains. But death to sin signifies a decisive change, a clear-cut, unambiguous relationship and dominion that no longer exists. Sin no longer is reigning and mastering over us. Sin no longer has dominion, it no longer remains, it no longer governs us, it no longer guides us, it no longer owns us anymore. So the believer, and the reason why this is so is because the believer has been transferred from the kingdom in which sin exercised absolute authority into the kingdom of Christ. We have been translated from the kingdom of darkness, the kingdom of Satan, the kingdom of sin, into the kingdom of Christ, the kingdom of righteousness. We've been translated into that kingdom, into the kingdom of God's dear son. And now we are subject to the authority of Christ, being that we are now in him and in his kingdom being in him. So the tyranny of sin has been broken, it has been severed, even though his presence remained, it no longer holds us and binds us, and it no longer serves as our leader and master and governor. We now have Christ. The Lord Jesus Christ. And there is no there is no competition between the kingdom of darkness and the kingdom of Christ. We belong to Christ, we are in his kingdom now. A kingdom where he is actually a king dominating right now over all of those who belong to his kingdom. You and me. And this is what we need to understand, and this is what we need to take comfort in. Sister May, what do you think? Miss White, what do you think?

SPEAKER_05 16:37

I like how you're walking this out. It it you know, I I went back and forth back, you know, it took a while for me to this is deep, you know, and to to realize, you know, to really learn what these verses mean and to really know and get you know really strong-footed on this as to, you know, your identity in Christ, what sin is, what it's not, what you were and what you are now. And it's quite beautiful, and I I think you're you're walking through this very nicely. I love how you're doing this.

SPEAKER_03 17:18

Thank you, sister. I appreciate that. Thank you. That's the that's the goal to make it make it understood, to make us understand it. And I hope that that does that. And if God is merciful, I'll continue to to do my best, sister. So I appreciate that. Sister Meg, you back? All right.

SPEAKER_06 17:37

My whole passion is I'm here.

SPEAKER_03 17:39

All right. You want to add anything?

SPEAKER_06 17:43

Listen, brother.

SPEAKER_03 17:44

All right, Sister Vanessa. Anything you want to add before I move on?

SPEAKER_01 17:50

I was just thinking of Titus. You know, and I'll read it later, but I'm just thinking of it, you know, chapter

Union With Christ Breaks Sin’s Rule

SPEAKER_01 17:58

three.

SPEAKER_02 17:58

Do you have it there in front of you?

SPEAKER_01 18:00

Yeah, I got it. Read it. Okay, it says, but after the kindness and love of God, our Savior, towards man appeared, right? Not by works of righteousness, which we have done, but according to his mercy, he saved us by the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Ghost. That's right, which he shed on us abundantly through Jesus Christ, our Savior, that being justified by his grace, we we should be made heirs according to the hope of eternal life.

SPEAKER_02 18:39

That's right.

SPEAKER_01 18:40

To me, that just you know, that sanctifies all of us and what we what we believe and what we do because it's like, you know, his his his power and his generosity gets us through that, you know.

SPEAKER_03 18:57

Right. So are you are you anybody else want to add anything before I move on? Anybody else?

SPEAKER_06 19:04

Yeah, I just wanted to say it really it's really hard to understand the people who say that they are Christians, but they give more power to sin than they do grace, and that they really don't understand what circumcision of the heart really truly means and or to be born of incorruptible seed. And therefore it says that the flesh will die because of sin, but we live because of Christ. So if if the flesh, if there wasn't, the flesh wouldn't die if there was no sin.

SPEAKER_02 19:47

Right.

SPEAKER_06 19:48

And so I think that people, especially sinless perfectionists, have a huge problem in their doctrine because one day they know that they're gonna meet the grave. And they ought to know that they're gonna meet their flesh and their body is gonna meet the grave because of sin. Uh, but glory be to God that He is going to call us up. He said, All that have uh been given to me all covenant, I've been raised on that by the last day.

SPEAKER_03 20:18

So right. Absolutely. Are you there, sister still? Because you went out, you faded out a little bit. You there?

SPEAKER_06 20:26

I'm done. Thank you.

SPEAKER_03 20:27

All right, perfect, no problem. All right. So this death that we have as believers, as Paul's talking about, this death to sin, having died to sin, it is not just some kind of an abstract or emotional experience, but it is more of an objective reality that we can be certain has been accomplished through the union that we have in Christ. And as I said, this chapter begins with Paul talking about our union in Christ and how that separation from the kingdom of darkness and being transplanted into this kingdom of Christ, he's emphasizing that there's a significant change in the government over his people, having been translated from the kingdom of darkness into Christ, where there is absolute perfect unity between us and him. A bond that can forever, that will forever be unchanged. Once you have been made and brought into unity with Christ, this is something that cannot be undone. And if it could, which it cannot, if it could, it would be a problem with the frailty of Christ and not the frailty of man, which we are already acquainted with, and had no power to do anything. So if Christ could say without me, Me, you can do nothing, then that means that everything that can be done as it pertains to salvation can only be done and accomplished by way of and through Christ. He is the center of our entire being in every aspect. And just as Christ died once, unto sins, claims, and penalties, those united to Christ participate in the benefits of that death. All of the benefits of that death. So the question then becomes one of or a matter of consistency. If a man has died, if we have died to the rule, to the empire, as it were, of sin, how can he continually live comfortably under his dominion? If we've died to sin, how is it possible to live under his dominion?

Why Believers Still Battle Sin

SPEAKER_03 23:12

It's not. The Christian cannot be comfortable in sin in any way. And when you look at this, when you look at this in spiritual terms, the key word here that I'm saying is the comfortable nature of it. A Christian, a true blood-bought, redeemed believer, will never find comfort in sin. They are always going to be annoyed by it. The spirit in them is always going to be grieved. Sister Michelle says, we become far more sensitive to it. We don't want to feed it. Even when we feel the temptation is so great, we despise it. We despise it. And so Paul is not arguing that Christians never sin. That's not what he's saying. He's not saying that we don't sin. I'm not saying we don't sin. There are so many Christians in not understanding the scriptures, they are yet starting up lives, preaching across the internet, preaching in churches that Christians can be sinless. No, they cannot be. As long as we're in this flesh, we are never going to be sinless. Never. But we are going to hate sin with a perfect hatred. We want to please God. This is what is implanted in the soul of a believer. I hate my sin. What I want to do, I don't do. What I don't do, that I do do. Thank God that me being this wretched man that I am, that God has saved me by grace, save you by grace. Because that grace is what is necessary. It is a necessary requirement for us to overcome all sin, to overcome death, and to thrive in life that has been given to us from the moment, from the moment we trusted in Christ as our Lord and Savior. So Paul is not arguing that Christians never sinned, but that a life characterized by willing submission to sin contradicts the very nature of our new identity. He's pointing out that we as Christians have received a new identity. So to speak, we have a new passport, new ideas. We are citizens of a different country. My sister Terry, a new nature. The world is not ours. We don't trust in the world. We don't lean on the world. We don't have the pride of carnal living, the carnal life. We don't have that. We desire something different. Something that could that has could that comes from, as Sister White says, from a clean conscience. A guilt-free conscience. This statement in verse 2, God forbid, how shall we that are dead to sin live any longer therein? This statement also reveals that sanctification rests upon what God has already accomplished rather than upon human effort alone. There is no contribution. No contribution that any man can render to God to either save himself or to render his salvation complete. Nothing. Nothing that he can do. Paul grounds the believer's duty in the position of the believer. What is the position? Dead to sin, alive unto Christ, alive unto righteousness. Dead to sin, but alive unto God through righteousness, which has been imputed to us by Christ. Christians fight sin, resist sin in order to become united to Christ, not to become united to Christ, but because they are already united to Christ. Let me say that again in case, because I'm always tripping over my own words. Christians fight sin. We fight resist sin. We are at war with sin. Not as a means to become united to Christ, but because we are already united to him. We have joined his army. Our warfare, our warfare against sin flows from a new spiritual reality that was established by divine grace as we witnessed on Calvary. And that should stir the soul of every believer. Every believer. Any thoughts before I go to verse three? Anything you want to add? Happy follower. Anything you want to add, brother? Wow, everybody sleeping tonight? What's going on? Sister Mariah, anything you want to add?

SPEAKER_04 29:22

My microphone keeps getting disconnected. So sorry.

SPEAKER_03 29:26

That's all right. What are your thoughts, brother?

SPEAKER_04 29:31

Well, you know, it's amazing when someone's preaching the word of God, the living words of God. I'm following what you're saying, but then all these other things are popping into my head because that's the way he works, right? Right. I think about how people are so concerned about registering their cars and registering their house and making sure the counter recorder has their house properly registered, but they don't want to take care of the title to their own soul. They don't want to register their soul with God who has the registry. It's just a sad thing. And I I think this I hope people come in here that that that need that so that they can finish the process.

SPEAKER_02 30:09

I like that, brother. I like that. I like that a lot. Uh brother Rodney, go ahead.

SPEAKER_00 30:15

Yeah, I just want to bust up Happy Father, because it doesn't make me draw the question. I'm just like it seems like seemingly it seems that like your identity is like identity is seemingly stronger than willpower in a sense. So bath enough for what Brother Happy Father just said, you know, worried about doing all that other stuff instead of just worrying about the title to your soul. That's that is pretty pretty good, Mike.

SPEAKER_03 30:36

So right. Absolutely. Anyone else want to add anything before I go to verse three? All right. So Paul says in verse three, do you not know that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into his death. Know ye not, do you not

Baptized Into Christ’s Death

SPEAKER_03 31:06

know that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into his death? Question he's asking. But what we need to understand is this. What we need to understand is this. The context here has already been established. Sister Mariah, what is the context that has already been established?

SPEAKER_06 31:41

That we have died to sin.

SPEAKER_03 31:43

We've died to sin. And add more to it. That's right. That's the big thing. We've died to sin. Anything else?

SPEAKER_06 31:55

That we have died to sin, and now we stand under in the grace of God.

SPEAKER_03 32:01

Yes. Okay. Big point. That's what that's the context that has already been established. We have a new identity. As Brother Joseph says, we have a new identity in Christ. We've died to sin, we're dead to sin, and we no longer live, we no longer live therein. We see this in verse in verse 2. And so Paul's purpose, as I said in Romans 6, is to answer the objection: shall we continue in sin that grace may abound? All right. So there's an assumption here that we have we are already in Christ. We already have a new identity in Christ. We are dead to sin and we live no longer therein. This part is already established. In verse 1, he asked the question Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound? So he assumes that these that those who he's talking to are not in sin.