04.13. LESSON 13

LESSON 13 With the dark, bloody reign of sin through Adam in contrast with the reign of grace through Christ, Romans 5:1-21 closes. "The law came in besides that the trespass might abound" (Romans 5:20). Adam, Moses, and Christ correspond to the three respective stages in man’s religious history. Adam, promise made (Genesis 3:15; Moses, law given; Christ, prom-:se realized. Because men between Adam and Moses had no written law by which to judge conduct, they did not know how lawless and immoral they were. The law came in to convince men that, inasmuch as they were unable to live up to its requirements, the utmost possibility under the law was the reign of sin in death until the promised seed of the woman came. This proves that the law of Moses was an essential factor in the development of Christianity.

Justification and Sanctification With Romans 6:1-23, Romans passes out of justification (a divine work for us), pertaining to becoming a Christian, into sanctification (divine work in us), pertaining to living the Christian life. "Justification makes saints, and sanctification makes saints saintly." God first justifies, that is, cancels the guilt and penalty of past sins; then, the justified progressively grow in purity and sanctity throughout present life; and finally the sanctified mount to glory for future eternity. Romans 6:4, Justification, sanctification, and glorification are not disconnected states; rather they lie, respectively, one above another, blended into one grand whole. Paul has just laid the deep, solid foundation (justification) of human redemption, and now, for three wonderful chapters, he builds thereon the magnificent superstructure (sanctification and glorification). The doctrine "Where sin abounded, grace did abound more exceedingly" (Romans 5:20) may be perverted into let us "continue in sin that grace may abound" (Romans 6:1). But instead of grace granting license to sin, it establishes law by providing for its fulfillment. "Grace is opposed to sin and devours it" (Luther). Sin belongs to sinners, not saints. For Christians to treat God worse than they would human friends, by thus distorting the gospel and thereby taking advantage of his goodness; to think so ignorantly and unworthily of him; and to act so utterly contrary to the spirit of grace moves Paul to the resolute outburst "God forbid."

Twofold Identity with Christ That Christians are dead to sin is Paul’s first reason why it is morally impossible for them to continue to sin. "We who died to sin, how shall we any longer live therein? Or are ye ignorant that all we who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried therefore with him through baptism into death" (Romans 6:2-4). Paul is saying to the Romans in effect: "Our baptism pictorially sets forth the doctrine of the gospel; if we are not baptized into Christ’s death, that is count his death to be our death, our baptism is meaningless—a mere mockery. Just as it is physically impossible for a friend who died and was buried years ago still to walk about among us, just so it is morally impossible for our old man who was crucified with Christ to be still alive and dominate our personality as he did before his crucifixion." A Christian’s death throughout this passage (Romans 6:1-11) is a single past event, for he died representatively with Christ when mankind’s death penalty was executed on him at the cross. God reckoned us all, as we must reckon ourselves, on the cross with his Son. Paul says of himself what every Christian must say: "I have been crucified with Christ" (Galatians 2:20). After sin had once caused Christ’s death, he was forever beyond its claim, dominion, and doom. Christians are identified with him in death and share his grave with him; their death must be as certain and final as was his. They are no more certainly "baptized... unto (eis) the remission of sins" than they are "baptized into (eis) his death." The supreme weakness and tragedy of the church has ever been, even until now, the unwillingness of Christians to be identified with their Lord in death. All Christians today, in the Christian sense, died nearly 2000 years ago. When temptation assails us, we should say: "No, we cannot hear and feel your appeal and power, for we have been dead ever since we became Christians."

"For the death that he died, he died unto sin once (for all time): but the life that he liveth, he liveth unto God. Even so reckon ye also yourselves to be dead unto sin (once for all), but alive unto God in Christ Jesus." Christian conversion involves a catastrophic upheaval in a man’s life. "If any man is in Christ, he is a new creature: the old things are passed away; behold, they are become new" (2 Corinthians 5:17). Do not forget what conversion did to Paul! It is such a revolutionary change that Christ describes it as being "born anew." It is similar to rising from the dead: "If we have become united with him ’in the likeness of his death, we shall be also in the likeness of his resurrection; knowing that our old man was crucified with him." God’s wisdom ’is seen in the perfect dramatization in baptism of one man’s dying and being buried, and of another man’s being born. Wonderfully, baptism proclaims our twofold identity with Christ.

"Our Old Man" Who is "Our Old Man?" Romans seems to teach that he is our heritage from Adam—not the guilt, but the consequences of Adam’s sin. Do not the neglected children of a drunkard suffering hunger as a consequence of their father’s drinking illustrate in part, at least, this truth? And may not the children get as another consequence a warped nature that makes them susceptible to intoxicants? It seems to me that the Bible, behavior of small children, and all history teach that children are born with a sin-bent nature, somewhat as a carnivorous animal is carnivorous by nature before it eats flesh. Who but Adam could have remained sinless? It is not a theory, but an indisputable fact, no man has lived a sinless life. Does not this call for fundamental, universal cause?

Romans 6:1-23, Romans 7:1-25, and Romans 8:1-39 are rooted in the last paragraph of Romans 5:1-21, where condemnation is traced back to the first Adam, and justification to Christ, the last Adam. As the word "sin" is used several times in these chapters, it cannot refer to deeds of wrongdoing, but must refer, I think, to the sin-biased nature of Adam’s race. "Our old man," linked with Adam, must be crucified together with Christ, that a new man may be "raised together with Christ," in whom mankind gets a new start. This is the pivot upon which man’s redemption turns.

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