SET APART: 2) Set Apart by Christ

We suffer the effects of the “Fall of Man”, but this is not God’s plan. Through Christ we are given the opportunity to enjoy victory over sin and live a life of purpose and meaning.  The Christian life is not without its ups and downs. God is good, but our world is broken as humanity makes choices to place our choices ahead of the direction of God. In this study we learn that we are to live our lives set apart in such a way that it brings good to us and glory to God. 

Let’s open with everyone’s favorite subject–Sin.  The word is from Old and Middle English meaning "violation of divine law, offense against God.”  An opinion question for you.  Of the vast number of laws on the books of our localities, our state and our nation, what do you think is the most common reason for ‘legal violations?’  Is it intentional legal violation?  Apathetic violation? Accidental violation?  Ignorant violation? 

Sin, a violation of divine law, remains a struggle even for believers.  Even though we have trusted Christ and chosen to follow Him, the sin nature in us still asserts itself.  Our sin violations may arise from ignorance, from accident, from apathy or even by intent resulting from our nature to focus on our selves rather than upon God and his guidance.  But as we grow in Christ, we learn to resist the persistent tug of the sin nature. As we desire to draw closer to God’s desires; as we learn God’s word and God’s intention; as we maintain our focus on God and God’s ways we can help to avoid ignorant, accidental, or apathetic sinning.  That leaves only the intentional desire to sin to deal with.  But even with all our studies, all our desire, and all of the positive things we can think of to do, sin, violation of divine law, will still occur.  It is just our nature.  But, as we will learn, by His death and resurrection Christ has rendered sin and death powerless over us.  

We must learn to live and focus on that truth and not let ignorance, apathy, accident, nor intentional sinning become the focus of our lives.  In Christ, we are dead to sin but alive to God.

Today we look at Romans 6:5-14.  The book of Romans provides the fullest explanation of the gospel in the New Testament. First Paul explained why everyone stands condemned before God.  Then he focused on the basis of our justification in Christ. Finally, in third section deals with sanctification—how our new status in Christ should affect our daily lives.  

In the first passage, Romans 6:5-7, we see just how Christ rendered sin powerless.

Romans 6:5-7

5 For if we have been united with him in the likeness of his death, we will certainly also be in the likeness of his resurrection.

6 For we know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body ruled by sin might be rendered powerless so that we may no longer be enslaved to sin, 7 since a person who has died is freed from sin. 

Who wants to be considered the property of someone, or something, else; just another thing to make use of and dispose of?  Who wants to be the property of sin – consistently violating God’s guidance?  No one wants to be a slave.   The good news of Jesus Christ is that He sets us free from such slavery. 

Some in Paul’s day were confused about the goal of the freedom from sin mentioned in these verses. They taught that since Jesus had completely paid our sin debt we could keep on sinning with no consequences.  They even thought that this would give God more opportunity to show His abundant grace. Paul firmly denounced this. Jesus did not set us free from the guilt of sin so that we could sin, accidentally, apathetically, or ignorantly, without consequences.  Certainly intentionally sinning is antithetical to Jesus’ death and resurrection to allow us to “walk in a newness of life”.  Paul stressed our new and eternal relationship with Jesus that this relationship is a present reality. We have been connected with Jesus in a unique way, in the likeness of his death.  Paul’s own testimony was that he had “been crucified with Christ”.  To receive a new life in Christ a person must also participate in His death. Jesus’ belief in God was such that he willingly suffered an agonizing death, knowing that God would restore him to life.  We too must be so faithful that our central desire is to allow Christ to live in us. 

As we willingly live our lives according to Jesus’ teaching and allow those teachings to be demonstrated into the world we too follow him in His resurrection. This radical change in our spiritual being is required in order to live this new quality of life.

Paul often referred to the two different realms of our nature as one controlled by “the flesh” and the other controlled by “the Spirit”. What Jesus intends to happen and what can now happen is that our natural, uncontrolled lusts and sin-producing-desires might be rendered powerless.  Paul would later point out the issue is who controls the healthy appetites and desires which God placed in us when He created us. This is a spiritual warfare, not a physical one. Do we allow our spiritual nature to be led and controlled by the spirit of harm we know as the devil, or do we allow the inner, spiritual part of us to be controlled by the Holy Spirit, the only one who can enable us to produce good spiritual fruit? 

Paul was not saying that once we have died to the power of our old ways and been resurrected with the power to overcome sin that we will never sin again. Paul’s goal in this passage was not to say that we are now sinless but rather that now we are capable of learning to replace our sinful habits with godly habits. One who has died and been resurrected with Christ is freed from sin and its power. Our sinful ways should grow less and less potent as we LEARN to walk more closely to God.

Paul next explains why we have the capability to overcome sin.

Romans 6:8-11

8 Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him,
9 because we know that Christ, having been raised from the dead, will not die again. Death no longer rules over him.
10 For the death he died, he died to sin once for all time; but the life he lives, he lives to God.
11 So, you too consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.  

Paul used an illustration to make clear what he had just said about believers being freed from sin. He cited how we have eternal life because Jesus overcame death. This new kind of life means that we will live with Him forever, but this new status also means that we can live with Him NOW in holiness as well.  Our certainty is based on Jesus’s own words as revealed by the Holy Spirit through the writings of men like Paul. Today we have the inspired writings of the entire Bible to show us God’s truth about Jesus and how to live as His disciples.

When Jesus died on the cross, He finished His work of providing complete payment for the guilt of our sin. Therefore, He has no reason to die again. When God raised Jesus from the grave, He showed that Jesus had not only paid the penalty of our sin but had also defeated the power of death.  Paul said that when Jesus died, he died to sin. Paul meant that by His death Jesus had forever and completely taken away the power that sin and Satan exercise over human beings. Jesus permanently opened the way to God’s forgiveness. When Jesus offered Himself as the sacrifice for the sins of those who would put their faith in God’s plan, “He did this once for all time”. That is what Paul meant when he wrote that Jesus died to sin once for all. Jesus died once for all time for all the guilt for all the people who put their trust in his fulfillment of God’s plan. 

Paul was reminding his readers that Jesus’s death not only atoned for our guilt but also freed us from our slavery to sin. He wanted the Roman believers to base their lives on the reality of their freedom. He urged them to consider, to accept as true, and to base their lives on two primary realities.  The first truth was that when they united themselves to Christ in His death, the Roman believers also united themselves to His ability not to sin. Though Jesus was tempted to sin, He refused to give in to the devil. He never gave in. He never committed a single sin. God loved us so much that He made a way of escape. Since we have received this new status as a result of our faith commitment to follow Jesus, we simply need to keep reminding ourselves that we are dead to sin. Of course, dead people have no desires, no will. If we will allow the Holy Spirit who lives in us to do the transforming work, then we can break free of our old sinful desires and habits. That is not wishful thinking but an accessible reality.

The second truth Paul stressed was that the believers should realize that they could not only leave their old ways but also learn and follow new ways. When they fully grasped that they were alive to God in Christ Jesus, then they could accept as normal their ability to always do the things that were holy and pleasing to God 

Paul had addressed ignorant, accidental and apathetic sin, now Paul addresses intentional sin. 

Romans 6:12-14

12 Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body, so that you obey its desires.
13 And do not offer any parts of it to sin as weapons for unrighteousness. But as those who are alive from the dead, offer yourselves to God, and all the parts of yourselves to God as weapons for righteousness. 14 For sin will not rule over you, because you are not under the law but under grace.

Paul then called for his readers to apply to their daily lives the truths he had previously emphasized.  His first word of application was for the Roman believers to not let sin reign, to stop allowing sin to be in charge. Paul made clear that the individual believer has the ability to decide who or what reigns in his or her life—death and sin or God and Christ. The individual believer also has the power to obey God’s will instead of following the desires prompted by our sinful natures.  We are NOT to intentionally choose, or through omission of choosing, allow ourselves to select sin rather than God’s direction.

When God created Adam and Eve, He gave them physical bodies just as he did all living creatures. However, God made Adam and Eve “in His own image”. The spiritual part of each of us will continue after we die. When Paul spoke of “the body ruled by sin” he was recalling what he said earlier, that sin is a choice that originates within our human desires. Here he was urging his readers to refuse to allow those desires to determine how they lived. 

Paul directed us to stop using any part of what God has given us as a means to carry out or encourage sin. Paul used imagery of these body parts as weapons for unrighteousness. However, our bodies and all the things we can accomplish through our physical and mental abilities can also be used as weapons for righteousness. We allow our new lives in Christ and the power of the Holy Spirit to change our motives from evil, ungodly desires to holy, righteous thoughts. 

Paul then closed this section of his appeal with a summary of everything he had been teaching.

• First he reminded his readers that there was no reason for sin to rule over them, and a similar image to not allowing sin to “reign” in their bodies. 

• Then Paul added another reason. They were no longer ONLY under the law, but under grace.  Jesus came to improve the old law based system with a New Covenant with God. This new way was necessary because while the Old Covenant was sufficient to point out THAT one needed to heed God’s teaching, no one can ever keep the Old Covenant law well enough to “be justified”, that is, for God to declare a person righteous and worthy of fellowship with God. Only through faith in Jesus is such righteousness possible. 

• Let’s take another brief rabbit trail down the five Covenants of God with humanity:

• God covenants with Noah – This covenant promises the preservation of humanity and provides for the restraint of human evil and violence.

• God covenants with Abraham – God promises Abraham a land, descendants and blessing. This blessing promised to Abraham would extend through him to all the peoples of the earth. 

• God covenants with Moses – God establishes with the people of Israel at Mt. Sinai after he led them out of Egyptian slavery. With it, God supplies the Law that is meant to govern and shape the people of Israel.

• God covenants with David (a man after God’s own heart) – God promises a descendant of David to reign on the throne over the people of God for ever.

• God’s New Covenant through Jesus – God’s self promises forgiveness of sin, internal renewal of the heart, and intimate knowledge of God through faith and following Jesus. 

Being freed from trying to keep the law is great news, but knowing that we are under grace is even better. That condition reminds us that we are freed from the slavery of sin and empowered to serve. But this reality also motivates us to use our ability to stop our sinful lifestyles and to serve and obey God. We want to stop sinning because we are so grateful for His free gift of undeserved grace. 

When we fully realize that we are dead to sin but alive to God and live accordingly, then we can begin to respond appropriately to the priceless privilege of being under grace.  We can know Christ rendered sin powerless.