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July 21, 2021 12:01 am
Christians are no longer under law but under grace. Why do we still struggle with sin after our conversion? Today, Sinclair Ferguson establishes how our union with Christ changes our relationship to sin and enables us to serve the Lord freely.
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This will not set free from the rate of certain we have no choice but to send. But knowing that we been set free from its rain, but that's who we all liberate such, we are on us. I remember being taught as a child we are on the victim of a solute side like that book and Renewing Your Mind on this Wednesday. I'm we well because of what Jesus did for us. You and I are no longer under law but under grace. So the question is why we still struggle with sin and how exactly is our relationship to sin changed now that we have Christ in us. These are important questions, and we will explore them today would look in her teaching fellow, Dr. Sinclair Ferguson as we continue his series union with Christ that we are continuing our studies on this session.
Romans chapter 6 that we gone to look at last time, let me remind you of when we on the roads. There was a roadmap you remember Paul begins with the response letter and a senses. Pure emotion to the question, but we continue and send and onto the grace may abound, and then he gives his explanation must quiet heroes responded to not worry. He understands that he is a Christian believer who is being baptized into Jesus Christ. He has a new identity. He has been given a new name. He belongs to a new family and therefore it follows logically on.to follow spiritually but he lives out the new family lifestyle. He's no longer an item. I see you discussed in chapter 5 verses 12 to 21 of Romans. He is now in Jesus Christ, so that is the emotion of his response. God forbid that someone who is united to Christ would never think of going on to live in sin unto this explanation we died in union with Christ would be greatest in union with Christ and onto that we might walk in newness of life.
I know we come to the last three stages on this road on those on his exposition of what he said.
The implication of the teaching he has been giving and then a closing exhortation to us so he begins his exposition in chapter 6 and verse five. Notice the wad far letters to say here is the position.
No, let me give you the exposition. Why do we no longer go on living in sin answer because we have been united to Christ in a death like his. In that death we have died to sin, but you'll notice that he parses that family or statement in a very detailed way.
I knew says three things about toasts and essentially the first is this, but the old self, the old man Hall to lie offs and flow parsley farmer man the old man was crucified with Christ. Second, that happened in autos not the body of sin might be brought to nothing or perhaps in your translation distraught. It on the result of that so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin. So three fairly interesting statements number one, the old man of the old self was crucified with Christ. What does Paul mean by the old man the old South. Well, he's thinking back to what it said in chapter 5 verses 12 to 21 we wild by nature united to Adam to the old auditor to the falling object to the sinful author, but none would be united to the new man.
The last stand our Lord Jesus Christ.
We can take an active one family and placed in another family and what has he faxed to is that we have been crucified with our Lord Jesus Christ remember Galatians chapter 2 verse 20 in union with Jesus Christ our union with the old man Adam was broken and are union with the new man, Jesus Christ is established, the old man date old has gone up, all is not simply talking about the two halves of his life before I became a Christian I know that I am a Christian that is included but he's thinking about big picture about big narrative that we spoke about in our last session, but we belong either to the old Audra and Adam of the new auditor in Christ. No that we have been united by faith to Jesus Christ.
He is able to say that the old man the old self was crucified with Christ. Why was the effect of, not the function of thought it was the body of sin might be brought to nothing on some malware translations might be destroyed by what does he mean by that, I think myself.
He is actually talking about the physical body. Later on in chapter 7. You remember at the end he cries out who can deliver me from this body of – what does he mean by body of death, he means his physical body that is dominated by death and will die. So when he speaks about the body of sin. I think he means this physical body as this physical body solute of Jesus Christ before I became a believer in Jesus Christ. This physical body was dominated not only by death but also by sin, but my whole being, including my body just my mind and my spirit on my emotions is my whole person, including my body but in Adam and the old daughter as part of the world of the old man and the old family that body was dominated by Satan under was no escape. Paul is very conscious that it takes different forms and different people. The dominance of the reign of sin in Paul's life lived profoundly religious in someone else's life, it might look profoundly flagrant, but the rain is still the same, but ruler is still the same. The world are still the same.
The family is still the same, but now that I've been brought out of Adam and him united to Jesus Christ. My body is no longer under the dominion of sin and no longer belongs to that one old it's no longer under that Reagan I'm no longer under the same necessitate the same bondage to sin and the result is that for I no longer sound sin out old self was crucified with Christ and not about the body under the dominion of sin might be released from the dominion that might no longer be fruitful soil for the reign of sin and the result is that I'm no longer enslaved to sin not as though that were not enough ski. He now brings in another layer.
You'll notice in verse seven. To explain this.
Why is it that the Christian is no longer enslaved to sin.
Answer verse seven.
Because one who has died. We've died in union with Christ. For one who has died has been, and in the English standard version. The translation is set free from sin and to press the pause button here because this is actually rather controverted verse since the language Paul uses here is the language usually associated with justification is a form of decoy all that we usually translate justified. So what does Paul mean when he says the one who has died has been in this translation set free.
Another translations justified concern what other commentators say wonderful commentators who take the view that Paul is saying because we are justified.
We should no longer live under the dominion of sin, but my own view is he saying more than that. Unless it about. For this reason that this this language of being justified from justified from justified away from justified. I will tell was used in antiquity, and actually I think because Scotland has been much influenced by Roman law was also used in the old days in Scotland of somebody who'd been executed so you might have gone down to the glass market in Edinboro in 1717, nor thereabouts, and you delete a notice that said Sinclair Ferguson was justified is a plotless moment that did not mean simple. Ferguson became a Christian is a plotless moment. That meant we find Sinclair Ferguson at 8 o'clock this morning and therefore he is now free from all his former obligations.
The same thing you find sometimes in antiquity in exactly the same context I think that the atmosphere in which Paul is using the expression is a completely unique expression in the New Testament so were not able to say while he's using it here, in the same sense he uses it somewhere else to try and walk out from within. The passage puts the sense here in the sense seems to me to be this that we have been set free from sin, in order that we might live to God. The whole context here is, is not actually about our justification as a is about how we been delivered from the reign of sin. I think this is confirmed, and in several different ways.
One is in chapter 6, verse 18 when he says we have been set free from sin and that he uses a completely different value for all, which is the ordinary filed for setting a slave free so he's talking here know about the guilt of sin, but about the reign of sin. We truly are justified on so we are set free from the guilt of sin, but here he saying that there is a double cure in the gospel. We are set free, not only from sin's guilt. We are set free from sin's reign, no we are not yet set free from sin's presence, and we need to understand that and Paul doesn't understand or two goes on to talk about but here is a glorious truth.
I was a Christian believer. I'm no longer under the dominion of sin.
I'd been set free from ask a very important thing for us to know because we continue to sin don't way. And sometimes when we continue to sin where we are trolling to listen to the evil one who says that you're not really free from sin at all. Indeed, I want to raise a question about your justification. Paul is not saying we are free from the presence of sin. He sang were free from the reign of sin and that's the only reason we are able to deal with the sin in our hearts if we are not set free from the reign of sin, we have no choice but to sin but knowing that we been set free from its reign, but that's who we are liberates us. We are on as I remember being taught as a child we are on the victory site because we united to our Lord Jesus Christ.
Let me use a completely different illustration, but in the same what role does the illustration I used in the previous session about being Scottish say, I became an American citizen say I became an American citizen and then out of the blue I have a letter from Buckingham Palace, signed by Elizabeth II or Elizabeth Artis. I think she signs herself.
Dear Dr. Ferguson I command you to come back and to serve in the forces here in the United Kingdom, but if I become an American citizen, I can send my little letter back to you. Especially if I'm no longer a monarch text. I can say dear Lizzie it was so nice having you as my sovereign and I loved living under your reign but I am no longer under your writing.
I am an American, I am no longer under your dominion. You have no authority over me, so I am not last in the situation of thinking to have to sell that I don't have to suffer just to go back and don't have to go back. No, I understand who I know you can see why Paul ties all this to baptism because it telexes you have been baptized. I was told the world of Adam out of the reign of sin into the world of the father the son and the Holy Spirit. You remember how Aaron when he pronounced the Aaronic benediction back threefold blessing that was placed upon the people.
God said to them, put my name on them.
Ever notice that you know ministers often pronounce the Aaronic benediction a lot. Question T. Etc. very rarely in my hearing, has anybody said God has told his solvents to put his name upon his people. You're being named for me and in the same way we been named for Jesus Christ will belong to the kingdom of Jesus Christ, where grace reigns through righteousness to Eatontown. The life through Jesus Christ our Lord.
The last words he had written at the end of what we call chapter 5.
And now he's exploring with something Christian. Do you know who you are member of the other session in which we said you know what would happen in our church. If the person leading the liturgy said Christian. What do you believe about yourself and here Paul is saying to us what we believe about ourselves as will no longer under the dominion of sin, but our bodies not belong to Jesus Christ and are under the reign of grace of become fruitful soil for the spirit to produce his own gracious fruit within us, so he's been gone with the motion and then he's given us late explanation and now he's treated us to this exposition and this leads you'll notice in verse 11 to an implication and it is extremely important to the phone. He says you must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus will again let me put it negatively. He's not Sandy to sit in the seat in the motion.
I'm dead to sin are dead to sin, one must be dead to sin person you are dead to sin.
So don't think about yourself as though you weren't dead to sin.
Don't think about yourself as though you weren't dead to sin no I think many people reading this for the first time was if I don't feel very dead to sin, my friends, but is absolutely irrelevant. You didn't feel that Jesus died for you on the cross. You believe Jesus died for you on the cross because that's what the gospel taught you he didn't die for you on the cross because you felt not yet begun to feel that because you know you saying something similar here to unwieldiness propensity to tell the Bible in certain places that it didn't get her right because that's not the way we feel. Here Paul is saying to us, you need to learn to think this way because you don't naturally think this way, you do know many of us when we became Christians. We were born again, we thought we knew it all.
We hardly knew anything we needed to grow in our understanding. This is why Cole keeps on appealing in this passage, don't you know this.
Do you know this, you need to know this and all the to recognize the fact he uses is an accountancy without so if you are an accountant doing simple. Some Sino accountants don't count the way normal human beings, with little in way of contact for 10 manly days and when you did your books you you talk to Dr. Solomon's and you did the reckoning and the end of the day. The total was the sum of all the other figures you didn't make them up, you would be in the local jail if you could make them you rest enjoy the hundred dollars in the bank because you had $100 in the back door to the cashier and say I reckon I've got $100 in the bank. Give me $100 and she said Paul you've only get $0.10 and the fact I'm not giving you $100. And Paul is using the accountancy language is missing. Make this up about yourself is saying what yourself up to the desk. He is not saying this is true of some Christians, but is not true of other Christian.
He's saying this is the truth depend upon.
This is the truth reckon it to be true because it is true when we grasp a lot when we grasp that this is the truth about then we are ready for Paul to unleash the strong imperatives was so important for us to understand that the more we grasp the riches of the grace of God in the gospel, the more ready we fought overwhelmingly powerful and demanding commands and demands that is a great tendency in the Christian church to think that because that is so much grace in Jesus Christ are no commands left. That's not how works what we find here in this passage is that because of the greatness of the grace of God in the gospel. Paul can release upon us the most demanding imperatives imaginable and so now he turns into a Sgt. major dyspnea drill Sgt. so since this is true. Don't let sin reign in your body to make you obey its passions don't present your members to sin as instruments for unrighteousness present yourselves to God as those will be brought from death to life in your members to God as instruments for righteousness, for symbol of no dominion over you since you are not under law but under grace. I was very interesting here is from Romans chapter 5 into Romans chapter 6 when Paula spoken about sin. He has used the definite article before you spoke about the sin and it's almost as though he is personifying it and here he uses language that almost communicates to us that that sentiment is like a person is like a slave master who has had us under its dominion is like a general in the Army. The what instrument is the same word as the one weapon in spiritual warfare. He's saying you go to use the members of your body as weapons in the warfare of your general Jesus Christ not in general sin. Sin is like an employer who pays wages and is going on to say that the wages sin pays is – so in item with under the dominion of sin and item with under the dominion of death they are is no escape and Adam. There is an inevitability to a sinful lifestyle. No matter how sophisticated it may be, but now that we've been brought into the new family now that God has put his name upon us. Now that we been baptized into union and communion with Jesus Christ. This body has ceased to be five trials soil given over to farmers sin and this become fractile soil given over to the farmer the Holy Spirit who is suing the suits of grace in our minds so don't let sin because you United to the Lord. Another helpful illustration to understand our union with Christ, our teachers, Dr. Sinclair Ferguson. We have aired three of the messages from his series union with Christ this week here on Renewing Your Mind, but the entire 12 part study is available on DVD for your donation of any amount you can call us to make a request at 800-435-4343. You can also go online to Renewing Your Mind.org and in advance let me thank you for your generous donation.
We help today study has encourage you to go deeper in your study of God's word that maybe there's a special topic he wanted to learn more about like reformed theology in church history apologetics were Christian ethics. Let me encourage you to explore legally or connect as our online learning tool that takes place in an interactive classroom format.
You can study by yourself or with a group and for limited time you can save 50% on your first six months to learn more and get started. Just visit connect.Liggett here.org. We hope you'll join us again tomorrow as Dr. Ferguson takes us into the upper room discourse discovered Jesus hard for his father and his disciples and what he longed for his prayers this next time here on Renewing Your Mind