Die With Christ, Live With Christ (Rom 6:5-11), Part 1/4

“For if we have been planted together…” sounds like a condition at first glance, but we argue Romans 6:5 is doing the opposite. Paul is saying since you’ve been planted into Christ, your story is now bound to His death and His resurrection. That shift from maybe to certainty changes everything, especially for Christians who live exhausted by fear, constantly watching their own performance and wondering if they will make it to the end.

We slow down and trace the logic of union with Christ: planted together means an intimate, inseparable bond, like a branch grafted into a living tree. If that’s true, then sin can still harass you, but it cannot rule you. We talk about what it means for the dominion of sin to be judicially broken, why assurance of salvation is not arrogance, and how the same power that raised Jesus Christ from the dead now works spiritual life and progressive holiness in His people.

We also tackle common confusion around baptism in Romans 6, pushing back on the idea that Paul is primarily teaching water baptism as the means of being buried with Christ. Finally, we move into Romans 6:6 and the “old man” crucified with Christ, including a clarifying moment on the difference between the old man and the flesh that remains. If you want clearer gospel confidence and a steadier approach to sanctification, listen now, then subscribe, share the episode, and leave a review so more people can find it.

Transcript

Romans 6 Setup And Reading

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Romans chapter 6, picking up where we left off, picking up where we left off in Romans 6, and we read through verses 1 through 4. And so now we're going to continue in our exposition on the book of Romans, beginning at verse 5. But just to get a little background from where we left off, let me read the first four verses. It says, 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? Do you not know that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into his death? Therefore, we are buried with him by baptism into death. That like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we should also walk in the newness of life. So he says in verse four at the end, even so we also should walk in the newness of life.

Verse 5 As The Chapter’s Heart

SPEAKER_00 1:31

And now we get to verse five. Now it's important to understand verse five, because this verse here is a significant part of this book, but it's certainly the heartbeat of this chapter. And it is also wholly important to remember this passage when you read chapters six of Romans through the eighth chapter. Because the thing that is most misunderstood and not understood by so many is what it means when it says that we are planted together in the likeness of the death of Christ. So the verse begins in verse 5. For if we have been planted together in the likeness of his death, we shall also be in the likeness of his resurrection. Now notice it says, For if a lot of people, and many of you have heard me talk about this in the past, a lot of people take if always to be a statement signifying or signaling condition. This is not the if of condition. In other words, this is not saying that if we have been planted together, meaning that if we have, or maybe we haven't. It doesn't refer to a conditional position as it pertains to our being planted together in his likenesses. If here is not the if of condition.

“If” Means Since, Not Maybe

SPEAKER_00 3:35

So it is saying here, for since we have been planted together in the likeness of his death, we shall also be in the likeness of his resurrection. Another way, because we have been planted together in the likeness of his death, we shall also be in the likeness of his resurrection. The repetition here is intentional. For me to repeat this over and over again, because it is important to understand that Paul is speaking to those who have been planted together in the likeness of the death of Christ. He died. And it is also the basis, the basis of our assurance and our certainty in Christ. A certainty and an assurance and an assurance that we are expected to have as it pertains to being having died with him and in the likeness of his death, and being raised with him in the newness of life by his resurrection. This is something that should inspire assurance and certainty and an intensity and a fervency in our faithfulness toward him for what he has done. What he has done. And so Paul continues to he continues his argument that believers cannot persist in sin because they have been united to

Planted Together And Inseparable Union

SPEAKER_00 5:40

Christ. How? By being planted together in the likeness of his death. We are planted together in Christ, and that plant that being planted together in Christ, that is our unification in him. We are unified to him. Planted together conveys the idea of an intimate and an inseparable union. We are inseparable from Christ. We are planted together in Christ. And therefore, we are united to him. We are no longer in the kingdom of darkness. We are no longer under the reign of the devil or Satan. We are planted together in Christ, and therefore we are in unity with him, and that union with him is inseparable. This is something the Christian must not ever fail to understand. Just as a branch being grafted into a living tree partakes of its life and of its vitality, the believer in the same fashion is joined to Christ in such a way that what is true of him becomes true of his people. What is true of Christ has become true of his people. And this is something the Christian, again, must never forget. We are in union with Christ. We are planted together in Christ. That unity is an inseparable unity that no man can sever or break. Not the man himself, not other men, not even Christ Himself. It is inconceivable that this union would be broken by our Lord. And so we as believers need to understand just how significant it is that what Paul is saying makes it clear that those of us who believe today are in Christ, it can never ever be outside of him again. That possibility does not exist. It is an impossibility. No matter what these Arminian teachers teach, it is a lie to believe that there is any grounds whereby a true believer can be separated from his Lord. It's impossible. We are planted together in the likeness of his death. And this likeness of his death refers not merely to Christ's physical death, but to the believer's participation in the saving efficacy of that death. He didn't die for no reason. He didn't die on the basis of a condition that is there's some condition or standard whereby men must be in compliance to, and then if they're not, this will not happen. But to the believer, to those who are elected in Christ to salvation, to those who were given to Christ to be redeemed by the washing away of his blood, and by the regeneration that his death brings by way of the Holy Spirit that he sends. The believer is in union with Christ, and they participate not only in his death, they also participate in his life. And so we as believers have been made partakers of the saving efficacy of his death and resurrection. We are saved by it. And though this union be with Christ, we need to understand something. Because now we are in union with Christ, I can tell you unequivocally, without any doubt whatsoever, that if you are in union with Christ, the dominion of sin has been judicially broken.

Sin’s Dominion Judicially Broken

SPEAKER_00 10:11

Broken. Think about this. If you are in union with Christ, the dominion of sin has been judicially broken. In other words, God can no longer hold us accountable for sin that was removed by the death of his son. And by there, and thereby placing all of those who are elect in Christ, putting us in Christ forevermore. You're going to have a lot of people, a lot of unbelieving Christians, that will tell you otherwise of what I'm telling you now. And they would be lying in doing so. I am telling you the truth. Right here, we are told that we are in union with Christ. And you cannot be in union with Christ and have the dominion of sin still prevailing over you. Once you have made union with Christ, sin no longer has dominion. And notice I'm saying sin no longer has dominion. It doesn't say sin is gone. It says sin no longer rules over you, no longer governs you, no longer has dominion over you. Once you are in Christ, sin, although it be still lingering about, still causing you problems, it will never have dominion over you. In James 4:7, he says that all we have to do is to resist the devil and he shall flee. If you have no more sin, there's no point in the devil going after you. Sin no longer has dominion over those who are planted together in Christ and therefore have union with him. The believer is considered to have died with Christ. Christ who died for us, those of us who he came to save. When we come to faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, we recognize something that has been true of his elect people from before the foundation of the world. That the believer has died with Christ. No believer has their own personal atonement. No believer has their own personal process for salvation. No believer becomes a believer and in union with Christ through any first cause of their own will or desire. No believer comes to that on their own. But we come to Christ under the auspices of his covenantal representation. He represented us before his father. And he presented us as pure, chast, chaste versions. No more sin to be accounted for before God. We have no more concern about the judicial warrants that requires men to pay for their sins on their own. As we know, none of us can pay that price. We are in union with Christ. Verse 5 says so. For since we have been planted together in the likeness of his death, we shall also be in the likeness of his resurrection. You cannot think for one second that when we are planted together in Christ, that we are under the dominion of Christ and under the dominion of Satan. I don't understand how it is that so many people can believe that the reigning of the Satan over them, the reigning of the devil over them, is more powerful, is more powerful than the reigning of Christ over them when they come to faith. I don't understand that. But so many believers act as though the power that Satan has over people is greater than the power that Christ has over his people. And nothing can be further from the truth. Nothing. Christ died as the head of his people. He is the federal representative of his people. And therefore, in that being the case, the death of Christ was also our death. The death of Christ was also our death. In what way? The realness of his death, the realness of his death, as real as we all know, it is in such a way that our sin is put on him. And that means that when he was put in that tomb, our sin went there with him. And when he came out of that tomb, death and sin remained there. And when he came to life, and when he came to life, then his life also became ours. Became ours.

Resurrection Certainty And Present New Life

SPEAKER_00 15:52

Now, the second half of this verse. It says here, we are planted together in the likeness of his death. And then the second part says, We shall be also in the likeness of his resurrection. We shall be in the likeness of his resurrection. So the second half of this verse, it points to the certainty that we should acknowledge the certainty that we too, that we too shall have the resurrection of life. And life it is that we already have now. But when we speak of resurrection, we're talking about the finality, that final resurrection of our bodies. Our spiritual souls have been resurrected. We now have new life. Having died with Christ, we have new life in him. Or else, how could he be said that we are planted together with him? If we are planted together in Christ, we receive vitality of life from him as well. I don't think that there's a tree that God would plant with us being in it, that he himself will allow to die. I don't see any possibility of that. We have the certainty, just as certain as we were about Christ having died for us, we can be certain that we also have the resurrection of life. And Paul does not primarily refer here to just the bodily resurrection. Because that is definitely and certainly part of it. But it also refers to our present spiritual life. And that spiritual life that we now have flows from the resurrection of our Lord. And so, as surely as believers have been united to him in his death, they are also just as certain that they are united to him in his risen life. And Christians, this should warm your souls. We don't have to look at ourselves and question. All we have to do is look to him and see what he has already done. We know that he died. If we trust him as Lord and Savior, then we are supposed to know that we died in him. We know that he resurrected from the dead. So likewise, we are also supposed to know that we have been raised from the dead, made in his likeness, transformed and conformed into the image of him whom the Father has sent to die on our behalf. The same power, the same power that raised up the Lord Jesus Christ from the grave. Listen, this this is what we need, this is what Paul is trying to tell us. That very same power that called Christ out of that grave, that pulled him out of that tomb alive, that is the same exact power that now operates within all of his people. It is the same power that operates in all of his people, giving them holiness, giving them spiritual vitality, and by also progressively working in us a conformity to his image. So here's the thing: you are either in Christ or you are not in Christ. If you are in Christ, you are invincible forever, this day going forward. Your body may die, but that very same body will be resurrected. And the same soul that animates the body now, that same soul will animate that glorified body. And if you are in Christ, you should know this. You should know this. And you should believe it. And this is what faith is for to enable you to believe it and to lay hold onto these truths. The certainty of resurrection life is based in the certainty that we have died in Christ. If one happened, then the other must also happen. If Christ died and we believe that, then he also resurrected. And if we believe that, what Paul is saying is if you can believe if you can believe that about Christ, then you must, as a believer, believe that about you. That's what faith is all about. Do you believe that what happened to Christ happened to you? Because to not believe it happened to you is to not believe that it happened at all. That's how intricately connected we are supposed to see Christ's death being melded together with our death, and his resurrection being melded together with our resurrection and life. How could it be otherwise if as if verse 5 says that we are planted together in the likeness of his death, and so also it goes without saying that we are also in the likeness of his resurrection? This is important to be believed. So if union with Christ in death is real, Then we must also count union with him in resurrection to also be real. The question is, do you believe these things?

Assurance, Anxiety, And What Baptism Means

SPEAKER_00 22:13

Do you believe these things? Sister Lisa, what do you think?

SPEAKER_04 22:19

Oh, I believe it 100%. You know, I was I was having a chat with a fellow believer today, and it is so comforting. These verses are so comforting, knowing that you know that we belong to Christ, that we walk in obedience because of Christ. It's not us. So many believers are worried about their own performance, their own, you know, hanging on till the end, their own, and and they're exhausted and they're they're terrified. And I gotta be honest, I'm not afraid. I am I'm not. And it's beautiful. I agree 100%.

SPEAKER_00 23:00

Amen. Sister Mariah, what do you think before you left?

SPEAKER_02 23:07

We were talking about, you know, the the baptism of Christ and what that really means. And I don't think that people truly understand what it means to be dead in the likeness of his death or to be in the likeness of his resurrection. That those are two things that may be really troublesome for people. And this is why they they cling to the fact that we still have to do something. And so they they don't understand neither, which complicates their doctrine, and then they fall into a lot of error.

SPEAKER_00 23:46

Absolutely. And you know, in verse four, just to go back a little bit, to add to what you're saying, Paul says, Therefore, we are buried with him, buried with Christ by baptism into his death. He is definitely not talking about a water baptism. We are buried with him by baptism into his death. And there are many people who take this to be a water baptism. Water baptism is not the way or the means to which we have been baptized into his death. But this baptism that we that he's talking about here, being buried with him by baptism into his death, is talking about identifying with him. We are in Christ. And that's what he tells us in verse in chapter in verse five. Because we have been planted together in his likeness, in the likeness of his death. So that means that that the being able to capitalize on the likeness in his death and being and being part a participant in the likeness of his death means that we must be planted together with him. And so, in being planted together with him is how we die to him. So the planting together is speaking about the baptism. Not the symbolic one that symbolizes, but the water baptism symbolizes what's actually happening here. By being planted together in the likeness of his death, that is what he's speaking about in terms of the baptism into his death in verse 4. And so many people make this mistake, and it's a grave mistake indeed. Sister Vanessa, what do you think?

SPEAKER_01 25:31

I think I agree with everything, and I am just grateful that he that he died for us. I mean, I what else can you say? I'm just so grateful that we are we did die with him. I'm just, you know, I'm just grateful for that. And everything you say, Jonathan, it's working out just fine with me.

SPEAKER_00 25:52

So far, anyway. Uh give me time. All right. Meg, do you want to add anything? I don't know if you're listening before you came up or not. So if if you if you want to warm up a little bit, let me know.

SPEAKER_03 26:03

I want to warm up.

SPEAKER_00 26:05

All right, so we'll come back to you.

SPEAKER_03 26:07

Thank you.

Verse 6 And The Old Man Crucified

SPEAKER_00 26:08

Yep. So now we come to verse 6. Verse 6. Paul says, knowing this, knowing this, that our old man is crucified with him, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin. Again, I plead for the Lord's mercy to make help me make you guys understand this, assuming that you might not. But hopefully you do. In either case, knowing this, I love this expression because Paul is saying that this is something that we know. Something that we as believers know. He says, We know, knowing this, what is it, Paul, that we know? That is that our old man is crucified with him. Paul says, knowing this, this is something the believer is expected to know. Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with him. And notice what he says. He says that our old man is crucified with Christ. Not just particular sins, not just a grouping of sins, but our old man, the whole being. Paul is saying that we know that our whole being has been crucified with Christ. All of what we were before our salvation. That whole nature that we possessed died when he died. And the only way that any of the sin that is attached to the old man sticks to us is if our Lord doesn't resurrect. But we know that he has resurrected, and therefore we can have the assurance to know, as Paul says, to know this that our old man is crucified with him. Now, if you say you're a believer, and there are many Christians who say they are believers, having crucified the old man in their flesh, those same people can say that they also can later lose this salvation. How can you lose salvation for sin that you that has been crucified with the old man? The suggestion would either be one of two situations. The old man somehow resurrected after having been crucified with Christ. And if the old man that was crucified with Christ could come back to the surface and re and and reign over you, what does that tell you about the the effect of Christ's death? Or if you say that you were crucified with Christ, your old man was crucified with Christ, then how is it that it gives life to you as a believer? Is there a second resurrection that is capable of being had? Because if you're losing your salvation, then that means you also lose the benefits of that crucifixion. But when you look at it completely through, you understand that it makes no sense. And it's weird that something as beautiful as what we read here, as profound as it is, it it makes the logic of man, it bewilders them. If you had been crucified with Christ, what sin is there that comes back out of the grave that Christ left there? Did he leave a crack in the door and somehow it seeped it seeped out? What happened? If Christ crucified it, it is dead. When Christ was crucified, he was completely dead. And that means that when he came out of that grave, he gave us a fullness of life, not a partial life, that certainly has no contingency upon us maintaining it. You see how silly this

Old Man Versus Flesh Clarified

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begins to sound. Sister Meg, you have something to say.

SPEAKER_03 31:25

Yes. Would you say that the old man that is crucified, the old man is gone, but we still have the flesh.

SPEAKER_02 31:35

Yes.

SPEAKER_03 31:36

Okay, so I think that we need to understand the difference between the old man and the flesh that we still have. Because the old man is completely gone. Right. Right? But what remains is the flesh, unfortunately. That's right.

SPEAKER_00 31:49

That's right. So he says here, knowing that our old man is crucified. So this, so this is to lay a stronger foundation to augment what our sister was saying. One thing that Paul makes clear, and it's not just the first part, but just the whole the whole verse. He talks about we knowing this. What do we know? We know that our old man is crucified with him. After that, we can haggle over other interpretive aspects of the verse. But starting with this, we know for a fact, he says this we know, knowing this, that our old man is crucified with him. So now people who believe they can be condemned for sin after they believed and came to true faith, which is not possible, but I'm talking about what they think. There are many people who