Rom. 5:14-21, With Christ in Baptism (2)

From Rom. 6:1-4 at the end of the previous post we see that our baptism “into Christ Jesus” is critical to the new life we live day by day.  Because of this baptism we can see that continuing in sin makes no sense.  Because of this baptism we see that our lives will be different than our old lives. 

Rom. 6:1-14 is explained by four words: know – reckon – yield – obey.  But before we look at those words there is a “big picture” we need to have.  The question is, who reigns or rules in our lives?  Another way to state it is, who is our Lord?  In the end, that is the one we will obey.

There are two “ruling” terms.  First is the one that means to “reign as a king.”  Death ruled as king from Adam to Moses (Rom. 5:11) because of Adam’s sin that was passed down.  By one man’s offense, death reigned (5:17a).  But if that is the case, much more those who receive abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness will reign in life through the One, Jesus Christ (5:17b).  As sin reigned in death, even so grace might reign through righteousness to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord (5:21).  Do you see the “options?”  Rom. 5 tells us as sin and death ruled as king in our lives before we received Christ, it is also possible that Christ in His grace can reign abundantly for those who have received Him by faith.  Thus, in Rom. 6:12, those believers are commanded: do not let sin reign in your mortal body, that you should obey it in its lusts. 

The other “ruling” term is the one that means to “rule as a lord.”  That is certainly similar to “reigning as a king.”  But I am letting you know the different terms because I always believe God’s words are very specific.  In Rom. 6:9 we see that once Christ was raised from the dead, death no longer had “dominion” over Him.  He was subject to death, having become a Man (Heb. 2:9).  But God raised Him from the dead: it was not possible that He should b e held by it (Acts 2:24). 

In Rom. 6:14 we see that we believers in Christ can also be free from the dominion (lordship) of sin, because we are not under law but under grace.  Remember in a previous post how we saw that the law arouses sin because of our sinful passions.  If we seek to live by the law, meaning by our best attempts to keep the law, sin will actually become stronger in us and will be our lord.  But we are free from that dominion when grace reigns in us (again, Rom. 5:21).  This is restated in Rom. 7.  In 7:1, the law has dominion over a man as long as he lives.  In 7:4: my brethren (i.e. this is true of Christians), you also have become dead to the law through the body of Christ, that you may be married to another – to Him who was raised from the dead, that we should bear fruit to God.  Living an abundant, fruitful life depends on our living under grace and not the law.  All this leads to the question: how do I live under grace?  The answer is in those four words we gave you at the start of this post.