Joshua and Judges: The doctrine of leadership part 35 - Essential qualities of leadership: The filling of the Spirit; Rom 5:12- 6:13.

Title: Joshua and Judges: The doctrine of leadership part 35 - Essential qualities of leadership: The filling of the Spirit; ROM 5:12- 6:13.

 

Announcements / opening prayer:  

 

 

If the monarch of your life is forever grace, righteousness, and eternal life by your position in Christ, then what should be your character?

 

Paul now turns from justification to sanctification.

 

Every believer has the power to choose such a character but he doesn't have the power to execute it. He must choose to strive for it by means of the Holy Spirit.

 

ROM 6:1 What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace might increase?

 

Is that the purpose of Paul's instruction in chapter 5, that we should continue in the sin nature and so increase grace? Paul has just succinctly shown that God delivered us from our position in the first Adam and from the king and queen of death and sin that had power over us, and now, under abundant grace, we are under the King, the Lord Jesus Christ, ruled by grace and eternally righteous. Have we been set free so that we may do as we please? That is not freedom but death. It is death for the believer to continue in [epimeno] the sin nature because that nature has been crucified with Christ. It is dead.

 

Throughout this entire chapter, "sin" refers to the sinful nature within us and not to personal sins.

 

You can imagine the objections that would have been raised to Paul over his teaching on grace. The legalists would have greatly feared this so-called license to sin that is grace. They would have objected to the lack of boundaries constructed from fear. To the legalist, fear keeps a person in line, but under grace it is the love of God that constructs his boundaries. Under grace the believer learns to love the way of God and so he follows it willingly and not in fear of losing his salvation or of violating the Law. On the other end of the spectrum is the antinomian type who uses his concept of grace as license to continue in a lifestyle of sin. These types understood 5:20 "where sin increased, grace abounded all the more," to mean that if they sinned more and so were forgiven more that meant that there was more grace. A nice tidy argument for continuing on in sin and even rejoicing in it. The problem with the legalist and the licentious antinomian is that they do not understand grace at all.

 

The question now can be further interpreted to mean, "Shall we continue habitually to sustain the sane relationship to the sinful nature that we sustained before we were saved, a relationship which was most cordial, a relationship in which we were fully yielded to and dependent upon that sinful nature, and all this as a habit of life?"

 

The fundamental question therefore is not with regard to acts of sin but with respect to the believer's relationship to the sinful nature. Acts of sin in a believer's life are the result of the degree to which he submits to the sinful nature.

 

He answers his rhetorical question.

 

ROM 6:2 May it never be! How shall we who died to sin [this is the nature of us] still live in it?

 

Death means separation. As far as God is concerned, He once and for all cleaved the sin nature from the believer. Yet He did not remove it from us and so the separated old sin nature still resides in us and due to our stupidity and desire for independence (at times) we submit to it by our own choice and commit sin.

 

The divine nature hates sin and loves righteousness. Sin does not match the new nature in any way. There is no affinity of one to the other. So, how should we continue in it? If we try very hard to re-throne the sin nature, God brings in chastisement so that he will quit on that. Who we are as new creatures in Christ and who we are to God as His children precludes a life of sin nature mastery.

 

Paul declares the mechanical impossibility of a Christian habitually sustaining the same relationship to the evil nature which he sustained before he was saved.

 

ROM 6:1 What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace might increase?

 

ROM 6:2 May it never be! How shall we who died to sin still live in it?

 

Paul now goes on to show how this separation from the sin nature was effected.

 

When once we have glimpsed the land of peace that flows with milk and honey, we can never be content to wander again in the wilderness. How shall we walk in the desert, who have learned to drink at the eternal springs? How shall we feed on brambles, we who have once followed the Shepherd of Calvary to the place of green pastures and still waters?

 

ROM 6:3 Or do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus have been baptized into His death?

 

The beginning of this sentence reveals the reason that some Christians do not live victorious lives. "Are you ignorant of these truths?"

 

The foundation of this truth about us is in chapter 5. We have been joined to Christ forever and we are completely in Him. The practical outworking of our Christian life must be built solidly on the doctrine of our complete union with Christ. Our justification is a means to a greater end: a justified and holy life.

 

We haven't been released from prison so that we can walk away from God, but to walk with Him.

 

The whole reason for a vine to exist is to bear fruit and we are the branches of that vine. It is a moral contradiction to be justified and live to oneself.

 

He died with reference to our acts of sin, in which He fulfilled the Law for us by paying the penalty it demanded, and He died with reference to our sinful nature.

 

By the baptism of the Holy Spirit at salvation, the believer was placed into union with Christ, being identified with His death, burial, and resurrection.

 

In at least 120 verses in Paul's epistles, the word "in" is used before one of the names of our Lord, or before a pronoun which represents Him. This is your election which was done before the foundation of the world.

 

EPH 1:3-4

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ, just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before Him.

 

He is placed or baptized us into a whole new environment which is the kingdom of Christ.

 

COL 1:13

For He delivered us from the domain of darkness, and transferred us to the kingdom of His beloved Son

 

God placed us in Christ when He died so that we might share His death and thus come into the benefits of that identification with Him, namely, be separated from the evil nature as part of the salvation He gives us when we believe. We were placed in a new environment, Christ. The old one was the First Adam in whom as our federal head we were made sinners and came under condemnation. In our new environment in Christ we have righteousness and life. Our condition is changed from that of a sinner to that of a saint.

 

Before salvation our heart was only darkness and then God shone the light of Christ. As the light of Him engulfs us we are horrified to see the depths of our Adamic nature.

 

We have been crucified with Christ once and for all and we live in the moment by moment practice of that principle. Before salvation the heart was a wasteland, desperately sick and full of darkness. But then God shone His light in our darkness and we saw and continue to see Christ.

 

2CO 4:6

For God, who said, "Light shall shine out of darkness," is the One who has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ.