THE GOAL OF OUR SALVATION THROUGH GRACE
ROMANS 6:11-14 Charles e Whisnant, Pastor/Teacher May 22, 2011 45.75
Romans 6: The Beginning of the Romans Road to Sanctification: 6:1 -8:39
KNOW THE FACTS: ROMANS 6:1-10
CONSIDER OR RECKON the FACTS as TRUE 6:11
YIELD or OFFER YOUR BODY to THESE TRUTHS: 6:12-14
The key to Christian living is knowing the facts, consider the facts as true and yield your life to these truths.
HERE IS THE BASIC PRINCIPLE IN THE WORD OF GOD: FIRST KNOW WHAT IS TRUE BEFORE YOU CAN OBEY GOD.
What I am about to teach you, and have been teaching you in chapter six you must know and fully believe what I am teaching you, (Paul is teaching us) are what I have said or about to say in verse 11 will make no sense at all.
The truth that Paul is laying out here in this chapter that you are spiritually dead to sin, and the reality that you are spiritually alive to Christ are not abstract concepts. for your finite minds to attempt to verify. They are divinely-revealed, foundational axioms behind Christians living, apart from which you can never hope to live the holy life your new LORD demands.
YOU NEED TO REALLY UNDERSTAND AND BELIEVE BY FAITH YOUR POSITION IN CHRIST SO THAT YOU CAN THEN LIVE AS YOU SHOULD.
Hosea 4:6 says this about the critical importance of KNOWING and DOING :
My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge. Because you have rejected knowledge. I also will reject you from being My priest. Since you have forgotten the law of your God. I also will forget your children.
"Likewise reckon (consider) 3049
logizomai from logos = reason, word, account0 means to reckon, compute, calculate, to take into account, to deliberate, and to weigh.
Refers to a process of careful study or reasoning which results in the arriving at a conclusion.
In Paul’s day: “Meant to impute (put to one’s account) or credit to one’s account.
The word related to our English term logic (which deals with the methods of valid thinking, reveals how to draw proper conclusions from premises and is a prerequisite of all thought.
Make a mental calculation. And let us consider ourselves as actually dead to sin. In the same way, you must see yourself a being dead to sin.
As when a family will say “as far as we are concern he is dead to us.” Yet he is alive.
Paul is telling us to reflect on our position in Christ and to place two things into our spiritual bank account: 1. We are “dead to sin.” 2. We are “alive to God in Christ Jesus.”
Here is the necessary action you must take when you are hearing the Words of Paul in Romans 6: You must take time to consider the facts and make this exercises habitual, not just giving an occasional casual thought to.
ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord."—Romans 6:11.
But I must continue to remark upon the text itself, and shall ask,
IA What it is to be dead unto sin in the sense of the text.
IIA What it is to be alive unto God.
IIIA What it is to reckon ourselves to be dead unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord.
IVA What it is to be alive unto God through Jesus Christ.
VA What is implied in the exhortation of our text.
I. What it is to be dead unto sin in the sense of the text
• Being dead to sin must obviously be the opposite of being dead in sin. The latter must undeniably be a state of entire sinfulness—a state in which the soul is dead to all good through the power of sin over it.
• But right over against this, to be dead to sin, must be to be indifferent to its attractions—beyond the reach of its influence—as fully removed from its influences as the dead are from the objects of sense in this world.
• As he who is dead in the natural sense has nothing more to do with earthly things, so he who is dead to sin has nothing to do any more with sin's attractions or with sinning itself.
II. What is it to be alive unto God?
• To be full of life for Him—to be altogether active and on the alert to do His will; to make our whole lives a perpetual offering to Him, constantly delivering up ourselves to Him and His service that we may glorify His name and PROMOTE His interests.
III. What is it to reckon (consider) 3049 ourselves dead indeed unto Him?
• The word rendered reckon is sometimes rendered account. Abraham's faith was accounted unto him for righteousness.
• So, in this passage, reckon must mean believe, esteem yourselves dead indeed unto sin. Account this to be the case.
• Regard this as truly your relation to sin; you are entirely dead to it; it shall have no more dominion over you.
• A careful examination of the passages where this original word is used will show that this is its usual and natural sense.
• And this gives us the true idea of Gospel faith—embracing personally the salvation which is by faith in Jesus Christ.
• We are saved by faith along but not faith alone.
IV. What is meant by reckoning yourselves alive indeed unto God through Jesus Christ?
Plainly this: that you are to expect to be saved by Jesus Christ and to calculate on this salvation as your own. You are to esteem yourself as wholly dead to sin and as consequently brought into life and peace in Christ Jesus.
V. What is implied in the exhortation of our text?
• That there is an adequate provision for this expectation, and for realizing these blessings in fact.
• For if there were no ground for understanding this, the command would be most absurd.
• A precept requiring us to account ourselves dead indeed unto sin and alive unto God, would be utterably untenable if there were no probability of the thing—
o If no provision were made for our coming into such relations to Sin on the one hand and to God through Christ on the other.
• For if these blessings could not be reasonably expected, there could be no rational ground for the expectation.
• If it were not realistic to expect it, then to command us to expect it would be deliberately unreasonable.
• Who does not see that the very command implies that there is a foundation laid and adequate provision made for the state required?
