The Normal Christian Life by Watchman Nee

Freedom from Sin's Grasp - 1

Note: See the Answer Key at the bottom of this page to fill in the blanks.

This portion of Paul’s letter deals with the ____________   _______________   ___________ of the Gospel:  Because of what Jesus has done in shedding His Blood to ______________ our sins and dying on the Cross that we may be ________________ in our old, sinful nature, we have the opportunity to live in freedom from sin’s grasp!

Overview:

 

Romans 6:1-14

In this section, Paul makes it clear that since our sins have been forgiven by Jesus AND since we have been crucified with Him, we are now ______________ from the power that sin has had in our lives.  His reasoning starts with three specific questions about sin and its role in our lives and moves on to the relationship between Jesus’ death and resurrection and our own.  ____________ is a key image in this discussion, and plays a central role in Paul’s argument. 

Let’s look now at the specific verses:

While we are examining each of the verses individually, it is clear that the three questions in verses 1-3 are related and form the “springboard” for Paul’s argument:    

1Well then, should we keep on sinning so that God can show us more and more kindness and forgiveness?

Without reading Paul’s answer in the next verse we know it!  As it is worded in other translations:  “Should we sin so that grace may abound?”  If God is in the business of forgiving sins and we love to commit sins, what could be better?  The question itself is absurd.  God is ____________ and He cannot even look upon sin.  That God forgives sin is a reality paid for with the ______________ of Jesus Christ.  While it is true that our forgiveness costs us nothing, it cost God everything!  As Dietrich Bonhoeffer put it, “Grace is free, but it is not cheap.” 

APPLICATION POINT:  We reduce the forgiveness of God to “cheap grace” when we expect forgiveness without repentance, or when we have no intention of allowing God to change us.  While none of us likes to consider the great cost of our salvation—Jesus’ precious life—unless we do, we will never fully understand the need for our redemption, and the price God paid.  While we ought never to dwell on our sins, since Jesus’ blood has paid for them, we must never forget the cost was infinite, and grace is a precious gift, not a commodity to be wasted. 

2Of course not! Since we have died to sin, how can we continue to live in it?

Paul’s answer to his own question is stated in the strongest possible terms in what is known as the optative voice in  the Greek language:  mh genoito--me genoito--which is variously translated:  Of course not! May it never be! God forbid!  (I once had a seminary professor who said the appropriate translation of this phrase is, “HELL NO!”)  Suffice it to say that Paul did not think much of the concept of cheap grace, and wasn’t about to have the Roman Christians fall into that error either.

Next Paul asks another important question:  Since we have DIED to sin, how can we continue to LIVE in it?  Here Paul makes the first of several statements about our ___________ to sin.  In fact, Paul bases much of the reasoning in chapters six and seven on the reality of our dying to sin and to our old nature. 

APPLICATION POINT:  Until we “know” and “reckon” ourselves dead to sin, we will never understand or live out the full impact of the Cross of Jesus in our lives.  The plain facts of life are that when are person DIES all his or her obligations, opportunities, actions and relationships come to an end.  It is this reality that Paul counts on us accepting and living through the power of the Holy Spirit that will transform us forever!  When our “old self” dies, then and only then, can we be dead to sin and stop living in it. 

3Or have you forgotten that when we became Christians and were baptized to become one with Christ Jesus, we died with him?

Here Paul first mentions baptism in connection with our dying with Jesus.  Obviously, Paul accepted the orderly process that Jesus had first announced and which His followers then carried out:  we believe in Jesus Christ—that is we believe that He is the Lord and Savior of all; we confess our sins and turn away (repent) from them, receiving Jesus forgiveness; and then we are baptized in obedience to Jesus command, and receive the Holy Spirit into our lives.  Therefore, Paul’s point is that when we were baptized into Jesus (or to become one with Christ Jesus), we died with Him.  He is going to make a fuller statement of what he means in the following verses. 

APPLICATION POINT:  While this process of receiving Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior is documented by Jesus, who said that we are to believe and be baptized in order to be saved (Mark 16:16; Matthew 28:16-20); by Peter on the day of Pentecost (Acts 2:38 --Peter replied, “Each of you must turn from your sins and turn to God, and be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. Then you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.), and is reiterated here by Paul as well as in other places, it is no longer the “normative” in the church of Jesus Christ as a whole.  The Roman Catholic and “mainline” churches have removed baptism as a response to faith and a “burial with Jesus Christ” and made it a ritual of belonging, which is offered primarily to infants and, which seldom occurs by the process of immersion.  This may be one important reason why there has been a general diminishing in the understanding of the need to make a personal profession of faith in Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior—to be born again—and also why we don’t find a common understanding in Roman Catholic and “mainline” church experience that we can _______________ to sin. 

4For we died and were buried with Christ by baptism. And just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glorious power of the Father, now we also may live new lives.

Paul continues the analogy of our death and burial with Jesus through baptism.  While the true “death” of our old nature takes place in our crucifixion with Jesus on the cross, the “evidence” of our death to sin is that we were “buried” with Jesus by our baptism.  The wondrous news is that just as Jesus rose from the dead by the glorious power of the Father, now we may also ____________  _________  ___________.  

APPLICATION POINT:  There is much more Paul has to say about our dying with Christ and rising with Him in the next two chapters, and the reality is, he will eventually tell us that this alone will not transform our lives—that requires the action of the Holy Spirit.  Nevertheless, in practical terms until we have dealt with this information in more than an intellectual way, we will not expect to grow more like Jesus.  In fact, we will continue to try to overcome sin through our own power and it will never work, because we cannot overcome sin—only Jesus can do that.  Our death to sin is an accomplished fact through Jesus, and what many of us must do is ___________ trying to become good, or to overcome sin, and let Jesus do His work through the Holy Spirit! 

5Since we have been united with him in his death, we will also be raised as he was.

Here Paul simply reiterates what he has already said about our dying with Jesus.  The only difference is that he puts our “resurrection” in the future tense.  It may be that he is simply underlining the reality of our death and resurrection with Jesus, or it may be that he is adding that our resurrection is both “already” and “not yet.”  That is that we have already been raised to new life here and now, but we shall also be raised again eternally when we physically die to this life. 

6Our old sinful selves were crucified with Christ so that sin might lose its power in our lives. We are no longer slaves to sin.

Paul now offers us a new analogy.  He moves on from that of being “buried in baptism,” to being free from our “slavery” to sin.  The logic is simple:  our old sinful selves were _______________ with Jesus.  We are DEAD. Therefore, sin has no power over us---OBVIOUSLY.  Dead people don’t sin.  Therefore, when a slave dies, his or her slavery ends.  (It’s a rather radical means of ending slavery, but in its own way is quite effective!)  Paul’s reasoning is consistent.  We will see it again in Romans seven:  when a person dies, the bonds—in this case of slavery, and in chapter seven of marriage—cease to bind us. 

 7For when we died with Christ we were set free from the power of sin.

Paul’s case rises or falls on our dying WITH Christ.  The theological power of Jesus’ crucifixion in our lives is that we, too, were crucified spiritually.  Our old natures ended the moment Jesus died on the cross, even though it was to be another 2,000 years until we were born!  This is true by virtue of our being the spiritual descendants of Jesus.  What He experienced in His body, we experience in ours by faith!  (See the reasoning used in the case of Melchizedek and Abraham in Hebrews 7.) 

8And since we died with Christ, we know we will also share his new life.

Here again Paul shifts into the future tense as to the effect that our dying with Jesus has in our lives.  Since we HAVE died, we WILL share His new life.  Jesus is already living His new life, and has been since He stepped out of the tomb on the first Easter.  We shall share His new life---from the moment we _________________ Him as the Lord and Savior of our lives. 

9We are sure of this because Christ rose from the dead, and he will never die again. Death no longer has any power over him.

Paul wants us to understand that Jesus died ONCE, and rose from the dead ONCE.  He will NEVER die again.  He now lives a life that cannot be impacted by death.  Death the greatest of all enemies to biological life (or the natural end of it depending on your perspective) is defeated once and for all in Jesus Christ. 

APPLICATION POINT:  Throughout history there have only been three basic cultural approaches to death:  There have been death ACCEPTING cultures—“Let’s eat drink and be merry, for tomorrow we die.”  There have been death DENYING cultures—“Let’s not think about death right now.”  “Let’s stay young.  Let’s find the fountain of youth.”  “Let’s assume that we are going to come back again in some other form.”  Jesus’ resurrection produces the third type of culture:  the death DEFYING culture.  “For me to live is Christ, and to die—is GAIN!”  Why?  Because when I die, I will come back to life FOREVER. 

10He died once to defeat sin, and now he lives for the glory of God.

Here Paul makes a theological statement about Jesus’ death and resurrection.  Jesus died for the purpose of defeating sin.  It wasn’t just a noble human act, or even a noble divine act.  Jesus died to overcome sin.  Now that Jesus is alive again, His work of defeating sin over, He lives to glorify God.  In the same way our lives are to be lived for the same purpose. 

11So you should consider yourselves dead to sin and able to live for the glory of God through Christ Jesus.

Paul is ready to move on so he reminds us that we are to consider ourselves or “reckon” ourselves dead to sin.  (Watchman Nee points out that this reckoning is crucial, for until we reckon something or acknowledge something to be true it makes no impact in our lives.  We may know something intellectually, but until we act on that knowledge there is no transformation.” 

APPLICATION POINT:  The point of “reckoning” is so crucial to our living in freedom from sin.  We may say that we know that Jesus died to take away our sins, but until we reckon it to our “account” there is no change in our lives.  We may not even try to change.  As we will find in chapter 7, trying to change isn’t all that it’s cracked up to be either, but the reality is until we reckon ourselves dead to sin, the process of transformation will not begin! 

Once we reckon ourselves dead to sin, we must also reckon ourselves able to live for the glory of God THROUGH Christ Jesus.  Here, as always, the PREPOSITION is important.  We can’t live for the glory of God by our own means.  We must do it through Jesus! 

12Do not let sin control the way you live;£ (reign in your body, which is subject to death) do not give in to its lustful desires.

Here Paul moves to his own “application point.”  Once we have reckoned ourselves dead to sin and alive to the glory of God, we move to a transformation in our livers.  Sin is no longer in control.  Its lustful desires are no longer in charge.  Life has been forever transformed and it is to be evident in our _____________ 

13Do not let any part of your body become a tool of wickedness, to be used for sinning. Instead, give yourselves completely to God since you have been given new life. And use your whole body as a tool to do what is right for the glory of God.

Here Paul changes images again.  This time he turns to the human body.  We are not to allow any part of our bodies to become “tools of wickedness,” but rather we are to give ourselves completely to God.  Why?  Because He has given us a new life, so the least we can do is give the new life to God.  This is important:  We do not do good in order to gain God’s favor.  We do good, because we HAVE God’s favor, because He has given us new lives!  Paul tells us to use every part of our bodies as tools for doing what is right for the glory of God.  Here Paul echoes Jesus’ words in Matthew 5:16, where he tells us to let our good works shine before others, so that they will see them and give the glory of our Father, who is in heaven. 

APPLICATION POINT:  What is the purpose of our good works?  To give thanks to God for the new life we’ve received and to give glory to Him.  This is totally counter to the “natural” reason for doing anything good.  A sinner may do good so that others will think him good.  A sinner may do good so that others will praise her.  But only redeemed sinners—those who are dead to sin and born to new life will do good---for the glory of God!  We can check our development in Jesus with this simple test:  how do we respond when we do good for someone else and they don’t give us any credit or thanks? 

14Sin is no longer your master, for you are no longer subject to the law, which enslaves you to sin. Instead, you are free by God’s grace.

Paul concludes this section of his argument by reminding us that sin was once our master. It is no longer, because when a slave dies, the bond of slavery ends.  He here introduces the law for the first time in this portion of the discussion and will make a great deal more of it in the verses that follow.  Here he simply wants to contrast two lives:  the old life, which was enslaved to sin, and the new life which is free from sin by God’s grace. 

ANSWER KEY:   really fantastic news, forgive, crucified, free, baptism, holy, blood, death, die, live new lives, stop, crucified, acknowledge, actions

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