Dead to Sin Alive unto God

Okay, well, if you don't already have your Bibles open, open to Romans chapter 6. And we're going to continue on from where Bob left off last week. He covered 4s, verses 5, 6, and 7 last week, and so this morning we're going to look at 8, 9, and 10. So let's go ahead and just read down through Romans chapter 6 and let's read through verses 1 and down through verse 10 which is where we will finish up today. So verse 1 says, What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace might increase? It may never be.

How shall we who died to sin still live in it? Or do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus have been baptized into his death? Therefore, we have been buried with him through baptism into death, in order that as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life. For if we have become united with him in the likeness of his death, certainly we shall be also in the likeness of his resurrection. Knowing this, that our old self was crucified with him, that our body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin. For he who has died is freed from sin. Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with him. Knowing that Christ, having been raised from the dead, is never to die again, death no longer is master over him. For the death that he died, he died to sin once for all. But the life that he lives, he lives to God.

Okay, that's what we're going to look to cover this morning. Hey Lindsay, good morning. Does anybody have a set of notes you can share with somebody? Maybe Lindsay can have one? Okay, right on. Great. Okay, so as I was looking at this passage, just kind of getting ready for a couple of observations that I just wanted to simply point out.

The number of times that prepositions are used pointing to our identity in Christ's death, resurrection and new life, and it's actually nine times in verses 3-8, which I thought was pretty impressive if we were to look at that. Look at verse 3. We see that we have been baptized into Christ Jesus, having been baptized into His death, pointing there to our union, to our identification, to our being joined together with Him. Again, in verse 4 we see that we have been buried with Him through baptism into death. Verse five, we have become united with him in the likeness of his death. Continuing on in five, certainly we shall be also in the likeness of his resurrection. Also with him, there's what's in the likeness of his resurrection.

Verse six there, Bob covered this last week, that our old self was crucified with him. Verse eight, what we're going to cover this morning. Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with him. So just in those few verses, verses 3-8 there, nine times, the Holy Spirit through Paul is really trying to drive home a point. We are identified with Him. Everything that happened to Him has also happened to us. That was pretty, just came across as a basic observation.

Verses 1-8, we've looked at 1-7, speak of the believer's position in Christ, death, burial, and resurrection. But verses 9-10, which we're going to look at this morning, only mention Christ. It doesn't mention the believers at all. I thought that was also pretty interesting. We look at 1 through 8. It talks about us with Him, our relationship with Him, all that's happened, and our identification with Him. But if you look at 9 and 10, it doesn't mention us at all. Interesting. It simply mentions some facts and information about what has happened to Christ. And we're going to talk about that specifically this morning. Okay, so questions that we're going to go through as the lesson progresses this morning.

What does it mean that Christ is never to die again? We're going to kind of ask and answer that question as we get on into the verses. What does it mean that death is no longer master over him? What does that mean? We're going to talk about that a little bit. What does it mean that he died to sin once? And we're going to look at that. And then finally, what does it mean that he lives unto God? Okay, just kind of setting the stage for where we're going to be going this morning.

Okay, so now if we have died with Christ, and this is just starting us off in verse 8, now if we have died with Christ, and by the way, we have, and we know that we have, because we've talked about that extensively in verses 1 through 7. We've taken 1, 2, 3 weeks to cover those 7 verses, and I think we've really talked about that quite a bit. Now, let's look at this. Note the repetition of this thought through all of these verses. Verse 8 is pointing out to us that we have died with Christ, and there's quite a bit of repetition to these verses. Again, I think the Holy Spirit, through Paul, is really trying to drive a point home here for us.

So verse 2 says, we who die to sin. Verse 3 points out to us that we have been baptized into his death. Verse 4 points out that we have been, our baptism into death. Verse 5 points out we've been united with Him in the likeness of His death. Verse 6, crucified with Him. And verse 7, He who has died.

And then verse 8, what we're looking at this morning, now we have died with Christ. Again, can you see the repetition of what's coming out of these passages? Paul is really trying to drive home this point here of our co-crucifixion with Christ. So, I don't want to spend a lot of time on this opening phrase of verse 8 because, as we can see, we have, I think, thoroughly covered it in the past three weeks. So what we're driving at here, though, is that we have died with Christ.

God has separated us positionally from the sin nature. We've been separated from the power, the influence, the slavery of the sin nature in a positional way. God has cut us loose. From the sin nature is another way to say the same thing there. He took the sin nature offline. He broke our union or our servitude to the sin nature. We no longer have to be dominated or enslaved to that. We'll come across there in the first phrase, verse 8, now if we have died with Christ. So now, if we have died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him.

The idea here of we believe, we talked about it last week. Bob brought it across very strongly. It's an active faith. It's exercising one's will to believe. It's choosing to believe. We had a lot of discussion about that a couple of weeks ago. and it's indicative, and it's present, active, and it's a verb. I'm not going to talk a lot more about that this morning. We've had a lot of discussion about it. I know there's been a lot of conversation and discussion about that on the side, which I think has been real healthy. I think all of us have, you know, we're all growing in our relationship with the Lord. Nobody has arrived, and we will never arrive on this side of eternity.

So, I'm going to leave that be. One reason I'm going to leave that be again is because Vern's going to come in next week and he's going to teach verse 11, which is talking about reckoning or counting it to be so, and he's going to go through that in a little more detail in exegesis for us, that thought right there. I'm pretty excited about that, personally.

Okay? So, let me just kind of read verse 8 again. Now, if we have died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him. okay so note the repetition here again that we shall also live with him verse four is mentioned so we too might walk in newness of life very similar thought that we would live with him that we will be walking in newness of life verse five we shall be also in the likeness of his resurrection and verse six that the body of sin might be done away with and we should no longer be slaves to sin in verse 7, covered last week again, that we're freed from sin. Again, this is kind of a repetition. Paul's really trying to drive these points home here.

So, we shall live, it's a verb indicative, future active, and now it's possible for us to live life as God intended life to be lived. Think about that. Now it's possible. Before we were saved, it was impossible for us to live life as God intended life to be lived. And don't you think that we want to live life as God intended life to be lived? Yeah, isn't that the way that we want to be walking through our lives on a daily basis? The way that God intended it to be lived? Yeah, absolutely. Now it's possible.

Because we have died with Christ, we shall also live with Him, and we're believing in that. So now we can be, as some phrase it, we can be enjoying. the abundant Christian life. For unbelievers, it's absolutely impossible. For believers who are not walking in, who are not resting in, who are not believing in these identification truths, it's an impossibility for them to be living life as God intended for them to be lived, and it's an impossibility for them to be enjoying the abundant Christian life. spiritually alive and enjoying fellowship with God and therefore he's glorified. It's hard to wrap our arms and our hands around that idea there that we shall also live with him.

It's so huge. It's such a mammoth thought that here we sit and we're enjoying living life with Him. And we're going to leave here and we're going to go about our day and our routines or whatever this Sunday afternoon might hold for us and that we can live life with Him. Wow! The implications of what that means are really tremendous for us.

So live life with Christ as the means or as the instrument of our life. And this comes across because Christ is in the date of case for those of you that really like to know all the details behind how we're arriving at our conclusions. So we shall live by means of Christ.

We will live with Him as the instrument or with Him as the source of our new life. I'm not going to be able to arrive at enjoying the abundant Christian life because of myself. It's just never going to happen. If that's where my hope and my faith is, then it's in the wrong place, and I'm going to be disappointed after disappointment after disappointment all the time. So it's with Christ as a source, with Him as the instrument that is bringing this about, or that is making this happen in our lives, to enjoy life with Him as we're walking by faith and dependency upon Him. Let's look at a couple of verses. to help us to understand this because it is such a huge thing for us to try to get our minds and our hands around. 2 Corinthians chapter 13. Let's look at this. 2 Corinthians chapter 13 and verse 4.

Ruth, what did you read that for us? He lives by God's power. Likewise, we are weak in Him, yet by God's power we will live with Him to serve you. Okay, so there's the idea there of living with Him. The same thing that's coming across in this passage in Romans, the end of Romans, chapter 6, verse 8. We will live with Him. The NAS reads it this way. We shall live with Him because of the power of God toward us.

Incredible. God's power toward us, and therefore, because God's power is toward us, it's possible for us to live with Him. Any other way, it's going to be an impossibility. It cannot happen. That's something for us to think about. God's power towards us, on a moment by moment, millisecond upon millisecond, minute by minute, hour by hour, day by day. That's incredible to think about that. Okay, Galatians chapter 2 and verse 20. Let's look at this verse. Roger, would you read this one for us when you get to this one?

I have been crucified with Christ, and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me. And the life which I now live in the flesh, I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me. There's the idea of our union with Christ and our co-crucifixion. And notice there, but Christ lives in me. See? He lives in us. We're living with Him. That's the idea there that's coming across in this 8th verse of chapter 6. Christ liveth in us. One more. Go over to Colossians chapter 3. In verses 1-4, if then you have been raised up with Christ, and we know that we have, that's kind of the questionnaire that Paul often times writes, we've seen it here in chapter 6 a lot.

So, being that you have been raised up with Christ, keep seeking the things above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. Set your mind on the things above, not on the things that are on earth. For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ and God. When Christ, who is our life, is revealed, then you also will be revealed with Him in glory.

So verse 3 there summarizes what we've been talking about in Romans chapter 6 so far, verses 1 through 8 through 10. where we have died and our life is hidden with Christ in God. And in verse 4, when Christ who is our life. And that's what's coming across here in verse 8. We will live with Him because positionally He is our life. As we're walking by faith, Conditionally, we will be in line with our position. That's what we're talking about there. Christ, who is our life.

Any thoughts there? Any ideas about such a huge truth? Any thoughts? No? Okay. Alright. Yes? In verse 4 there, is that what you're talking about? Yeah, I think the verse 4, Christ who is our life, I think that's referring to here and now, in our earthly, in our walk.

Now certainly when he is revealed, that's talking about future. When he is revealed at the rapture or when we go to be with him in Gordy. Then we'll be with him as he is. And I had the same question back in chapter 6. We shall also live with Him, because that's actually future.

If we were to look that up in the Greek, that's actually talking about in the future. So I said, well, is this talking about something that we shall live with Him when we are with the Lord in the future? I came to the conclusion, sure, we will, no doubt about it, live with Him in the future tense, but I also think it's talking about in an earthly sense in the future.

We're talking about, is the future five minutes from now? Yeah. That we will be living with him five minutes from now? Yeah, that's future. And living with him this afternoon when we're doing whatever we're going to be doing, that's future. Yeah. So, that's kind of the way I arrived at my conclusion. What do you think? Well, I don't know. The simplistic interpretation of question 3-4 is that when Eve shall appear, you also appear with him.

Yeah, I don't think that that is, and I think that, you know, when did eternal life begin? Yeah, when did it begin? It began the day that we trusted the Lord as our personal Savior. See, that's when it began. That's when the potential for Christ to be our life, for Christ to live His life through us, that's when it began. So, certainly it has future implications and there are scriptures that talk about it as being future. I think we all would agree that Christ liveth in me, Galatians chapter 2 verse 20, that's talking about clearly here and now. Any other thoughts?

Okay, let's move to verse 9. So, verse 9, knowing that Christ, having been raised from the dead, is never to die again, death no longer is master over him. So the idea here of knowing that, and we've talked about this in the past couple of weeks as well, we saw in verse 3 when we covered it, do you not know the idea here of Gnosko? We saw in verse 6 where Bob covered it last week, knowing this, and now in verse 9 we're coming across the idea here of knowing that.

And so we've covered this in the past, knowing these things as spiritual facts. Knowing has the idea of because we know, or because of knowing these things. And verse 3, do you not know, and by the way, you do know this, is what we talked about several weeks back with verse 3 there. So I don't want to spend a lot of time there on the idea of knowing, but this is something that the audience that Paul was writing to, they already knew these things to be true. So he's just simply saying, knowing this, and by the way, you do know this, or because you know this to be true.

So, knowing that Christ, having been raised from the dead, Having been raised is an action which happened in the past and was done to Jesus by the Father. It's just interesting how that comes across there. Having been raised was in the passive, where it was an action that was done to Jesus by someone else. So we know that it was done by the Father, having been raised from the dead.

We'll go back up into verse 4. Again, kind of showing the repetition here. Therefore, we have been buried with them through baptism and to death in order that as Christ was raised from the dead." So we're seeing the same thing mentioned in verse 9 that was previously mentioned in verse 4. A lot of repetition that we're seeing here.

1 Corinthians 15, 3 through 4, maybe you're probably familiar. Let's look at that. 1 Corinthians 15. If you ever wanted a scripture to go to to communicate the gospel to somebody, this is the place to go. If you ever have any questions, boy, where is the absolute, probably the best passage to talk about the death, burial, resurrection of Christ? This is the one to go to.

For I have delivered unto you as of first importance what I also received, that Christ died for our sins, according to the scriptures, that he was buried, and that he was raised again on the third day, according to the scriptures. And I have Acts chapter 4 verse 10 and Acts chapter 5 verse 30, and there's lots and lots of scriptures that talk about Christ being raised from the dead.

I just put a couple more in there for you. When was the last time that you guys sat and thought about Christ being raised from the dead? Until really coming across some of these scriptures, it wasn't something that I had really sat and given a lot of thought to. And so I'm coming across these verses, and honestly, I didn't give a lot of thought to this phrase when we looked at it in verse 4. But when it came up here in verse 9, I was, probably because I had more time on my hands this past week to put into the lesson preparation, You know, I just sat and pondered that, and I just read lots of scripture about Christ being raised from the dead.

And it was like, wow, that's something that probably we oftentimes take for granted about Christ being raised. And I just read scripture after scripture after scripture about Him being raised from the dead, and it was just something that was like, wow, we take that for granted.

We oftentimes don't think about that and give it much thought, His resurrection from the dead. So, because Christ has been raised from the dead, two things are true. Number one, He is never to die again. And then secondly, death is no longer to have master over Him. But let's look at this here, the first thing. Because He has been raised from the dead, He is never to die again.

Let's go back and let's look at Acts. and chapter 13. These are pretty foundational, fundamental things about Christology, about Christ that we're looking at here. But boy, again, I think sometimes we really take these things for granted and don't give them a lot of thought. So Acts 13, 32 through 37. Bob, would you read that for us?

And we declare unto you glad tidings now of the promise which was made unto the fathers. God hath fulfilled the same unto us, their children, and that he raised up Jesus again. As it is also written in the second psalm, Thou art my son, this day have I begotten thee.

And as concerning that he raised him up from the dead, now no more to return to corruption, he said in this way, I will give you the sure mercies of David. Wherefore, he saith also in another psalm, Thou shalt not allow thy employees unto see corruption. For David, after he had served his own generation by the will of God, fell asleep, and was laid into his father's, and saw corruption.

But he whom God raised again saw no corruption. And as for the fact that he raised him from the dead, no more to return to decay." See, there's the idea there, that he is never to die again. But we see with David, after he had served, in verse 36, the purpose of God in his own generations, he fell asleep, he's laid among his fathers, and David underwent decay. He died as people die. Verse 37, but he whom God raised up, meaning Christ, did not undergo decay. He's never to die again. First Corinthians 15. Let's look at this one. Verse 20.

But now Christ has been raised from the dead, the first fruit of those who are asleep. For since by a man came death, by a man also came the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive. A lot of those truths right there were covered in the latter part of Romans chapter 5, which was well covered. So what we see there, that Christ has been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who are asleep. So others were raised from the dead, but what happened to them? They died again. several resurrections that were recorded for us scripturally. They were raised from the dead, but they ended up, as we well know, they died again. But Christ being raised from the dead, He is never going to undergo decay, as the Acts pastors were talking about, and He is never going to die again.

Any thoughts about that? Christ being raised from the dead is never to die again. So because he is never to die again, death is no longer master over him. So it's important for us to understand that sin never had dominion over Christ. Christ did not have a sin nature, as we do, and therefore he had to die because the wages of sin is death. That wasn't the case with Christ's death. We're talking about that. He did not have a sin nature. Sin never had dominion over him.

But what happened, and we're well aware of it here, Our sin was transferred to him, and therefore the wages of sin is death. Our sin was put on him, he took upon himself the sins of the whole world, and therefore he died. So, death had dominion over him temporarily when he took and had on himself our sin. was master over him only for a short, temporary period of time when he took upon himself the sins of the world. A short little time, death was master over him. But no longer, because he was raised from the dead, as we've already seen, and therefore death is no longer master over him.

He lives unto God. Pretty clear stuff there. Let's look at Acts, chapter 2. There's a lot in Acts about these, when you get these sermons from Peter. He's talking about how the Jews put Christ to death and He was raised up by the Father. A lot of passages about His death and resurrection in Acts, particularly in Peter's sermons here. So, Acts chapter 2 and verse 22 through 24 says this, Listen to these words, Jesus the Nazarene, a man attended to you by God with miracles, attested to you, I'm sorry, a man attested to you by God with miracles and wonders and signs which God performed through him in your midst just as you yourselves know.

This man, Jesus, delivered up by the predetermined plan for knowledge of God, you nailed to a cross by the hands of godless men and put him to death and God raised him up and putting an end to the agony of death, since it was impossible for him to be held in its power." So, therefore, God, through him, put an end to the agony of death, and it's impossible for him to be held in its power. Sin is no longer master over him.

There was a temporary little time Because of us. Because of his love for us. Because of his care for us. Because of his concern for us. But it was only a short time. He no longer has Master over him. Any thoughts about that? Most of Christendom has this idea and have blamed, maybe not most, but many in Christendom, have blamed the Jews for the death of Christ.

It's interesting because in the other verse, Acts 5.30, it says, whom God slew.

That's right. And then in this verse, this is a verse that they use because he was taken by wicked hands and hung on a cross, crucified. So it's very interesting how this was all part of God's plan from before the foundation of the world. That's right. How the teaching has been so bad through the years, that Christendom has missed this whole thing. This was God's plan.

Because without the death and the resurrection, we don't have a Savior. I mean, that's the purpose of this. And how sad that is, to miss this. And I'm still blaming Jews for crucifying Christ. It has been. Yeah, it has. Any other thoughts about that? That's good. It was part of God's plan to do that from the beginning.

I'm the blame. You can put the blame on anybody. I'm the one. Yeah, it was me. It was Adam, and boy, I'm an Adam. I was an Adam when I was born. I was an Adam, and now I'm in Christ. So, it's not blame shift, which is easy to do. Bob, you have a thought?

Just a thought on John 3.16. I mean, we always claim that in terms of our eternity with the Lord, but in a sense, this gets more profound as we think about Him being raised at Dinah, or we're identified with Him in death.

If he's not going to die again, and we're in him, that's wonderful news. Fabulous news. That's right. Exactly right. Any other thoughts? Okay, page 5. Let's see here. So, back to Romans. Let's see on the next. Alright, back to Romans 6. So, verse 10.

For the death that he died, he died to sin once for all. Not going to talk much about there, for the death that he died. We've been talking about that for a prior verse and now for almost 30 minutes. So, let's talk about he died to sin. For the death that he died, he died to sin. Now we're not talking about dying for sin, the idea of paying the penalty for our sins, but about dying to sin, the sin nature, the principle of sin, so that believers can be free from the power of sin. So he died unto, or he died to sin. Yes, so the death that he died, he died to sin.

Notice here it doesn't say he died for sins. It talks about that earlier in chapter 5. So it's important that we see this principle coming across here. So he died, Christ died to sin. This is a fact. And he really did it. It's not something that, well, this might have happened. It's not subjunctive. Well, it might or might not have happened. It's a fact, and it actually really did happen.

So Christ died to sin so that we could be free from the sin nature, all that we were in the first Adam. Let's look at this, 2 Corinthians 5, verse 21. Our sin nature was transferred to Him. Let's look at that. 2 Corinthians 5, verse 21. So, 2 Corinthians 5 and verse 21, He made Him, God made Christ, who knew no sin, sin on our behalf. And to be there is added in to the Greek, to be sin on our behalf that we might become the righteousness of God in Him. So God the Father made Christ who didn't know sin. He didn't have a sin nature. He didn't know sin. It was an impossibility for Him to enter into that. He did not know sin, but God made Him sin on our behalf. So He took upon Himself our sin nature.

And that's critical for us to understand. And again, that's a whole element of biblical truth that lots of Christianity, number one, haven't been exposed to, and number two, don't enjoy walking in. So, not only were our sins transferred to Him, but also our sin nature was. And that's what this verse in verse 10 is coming across with. So, because our sin nature, Roger you were kind of getting to this, or what happened to Him happened to us type thing. Because our sin nature was transferred to Him, and He died. To that, He was separated from that. We also were separated from the first Adam. And we are now joined together in the last Adam, the Lord Jesus Christ. Critical for us to understand. Any thoughts?

Christ died two sins. Not only four sins, but two sins. Yeah, Jim, your point above, I think the third point underneath, that Christ died to set us free from the sin nature. And I'm really glad because you've now, I think, really positioned this perfectly. And that, you know, the idea is that us being free from the sin nature is kind of one of those benefits, right? I mean, it was necessary for God to crucify us with him to make us righteous. That's right. So the idea that we can be free from the sin of that church is really entirely 2 Corinthians 5, 21 truth, right? That's right, yeah. It's really, I think, oh, by the way, he who knew no sin became sin for us, that we might be made the righteousness of God in him. Or, by the way, that we're free from the power of sin.

So it's kind of like, God didn't do that for our benefit, he did that to satisfy him in terms of who we were in Christ Jesus. I think that really matters. And Newell, I think, you're getting ahead. He did that to satisfy him, but also we reap tremendous benefits. And again, we've mentioned in the past couple of weeks not to become self-focused about it, but it's all for the glory of God. But boy, we sure can enjoy an abundant Christian life here now, today, because of that. Yeah, good.

Yeah, Newell makes this thought, Christ is made to be what we were, that we might become in Him what He is. I read that and I was like, Hands down, put the book down, say no more as far as capturing the thought. It was like, wow, what a great thought that was.

Some people call this a double cure. Christ paid for the sins of the world. do some arrows and stuff with that picture to amplify this. There's actually a song called The Double Cure. I can't remember the name of the song, but it's called Christ is a Double Cure. It wouldn't, as you point out in previous times, it wouldn't be sufficient for him just to die for the sins of the world, he had to die for the nature.

That's right, that's right. 610 is the one that nails that truth. I'll let you engineers work on the arrows and diagrams and all that kind of cool stuff. My diagrams are like, you know, bare bones. Stick figures, yeah, it's not much going on. So you can enhance that for us, Roger. We appreciate that. Yeah, yeah. That's right. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. All right.

So he died to sin, as we're seeing here. Back to the Romans in chapter six. For the death that he died, he died to sin once and for all. And the idea here is that he didn't have to die numerous times. God was satisfied in what he did. The requirements of God were absolutely met 100%. He didn't do 50% of the job this time and then, you know, a thousand years later than is going to do the remainder of what needs to be done. No, it was 100% satisfied God so that mankind could come into and enjoy a relationship with God. It was a one-time, once-for-all type deal.

We see this very clearly explained again in 1 Peter. Look over there with me, 1 Peter 3 and verse 18. 3.18 For Christ also died for sins, once for all, the just for the unjust, in order that he might bring us to God, having been put to death in the flesh, but made alive in the Spirit. So communicating there that his death was once for all. Now this verse is pointing out that he died for sins, more along the lines of the penalty of sin, where the Romans were talking about it as he died to sin. But what we're wanting to put all these passages here between 6.10 and 3.18 is the fact that he died once and for all, never to have to be repeated or redone, can never be undone, anything like that. Okay, any thoughts?

So, finally, the life that he lives, he lives unto God. He died to sin. once and for all, and the life that he lives, he lives unto God. He is totally occupied with God and is glorifying God. That's his life. It's hard to think about he lives unto God when he is God. How do you make a distinction between those things? How can he not live unto God because he is God? But in the life that he now lives, he lives because he's He died to sin there for us.

So, He's representing us before God. I thought about, what's He doing? He is God. We know that. But it says that He lives unto God. So, I sat there thinking, if He lives unto God, what's He doing? What's He thinking? What's He saying? If I live unto my family, I'm interacting, I'm involved, I'm doing something with my family. So if he's living unto God, one thing I came up with, we know he's representing us before God. What do you guys think? He lives unto God.

He's interceding. Interceding, sure. Yeah, exactly. What else does that mean? What do you guys think? He's in all of us. He's got a big job. That's kind of how I think of it. He's busy. So, praise the Lord, he can do all things all the time, and there's nothing holding him back. He has a huge job. He lives unto God. He's interceding for us. He's representing us, every one of us, all the time. What a reassuring, comforting thought that is. Any other thoughts? Christ lives unto God. Yeah, okay. Okay, so, this summary is simply, kind of wrap things up here for us. Summary is verse 10. Christ died. He died unto sin once for all. He's living and now He is living unto God.

And so this gets to what Roger and Bob were mentioning earlier. So we were baptized in union into Christ so that what is true of Him is true of us positionally. So all the things that were mentioned in verse 10 are also true of us positionally because we've been baptized into Christ, we've been immersed, we've talked about that, we've been placed into, we've been identified, we've been joined together, we've been united together with Christ.

So we know that when Christ died to the sin of nature, We also died to the sin nature. When Christ was buried, we were also buried. When Christ was raised from the dead, we were also raised from the dead. Christ walked in newness of life, we too can walk in newness of life.

If Christ lives, He lives unto God. It should be unto, not into. So, the life that we live, we live unto God, occupied with Him. That's the idea. I'm just thinking, He died unto sin once for all. We too have, with Christ, died unto sin once for all. I should have included that parallel in there as I'm thinking it through. Maybe you can note that one. I know that we're baptized into union at the time of belief, but I can't help but praise the Lord today because Hannah's going to be baptized. What a fabulous thing that is. That's great.

I've often thought, what a great opportunity to really explain identification truths when someone's getting baptized. I agree, that's one of the best places. Yeah, I've often thought about that. Actually, I've used that one time to explain identification truths prior to a baptism.

Sure, yeah, perfect. Not only to the person who you were baptizing or who is being baptized, to really explain them to them, teach them of those truths, but also to the people that are there observing the baptism. Lay those things out for them so that they can understand them. Yeah, that's true. When I was baptized, I didn't have a clue of these identifications. It was many years after I was baptized that I came into contact with these. So, the last two pages of your notes there, note the facts of these positional truths that we've been talking about now for four weeks. The facts, the reality, and the permanence of what God has done.

Let's see the final two pages of your handouts. I put it this way so you can kind of get a visual effect of what's going on here. Notice... out of just these few verses, all the times that what we have here is an aorist active indicative are highlighted in the red, which is a past action and it's a reality and it's happening, it's a positional truth. It's what we see coming across. Is it just a few? positional truths that are in these few verses here that we've been taking a look at for the past four weeks, or is it several? I mean, if you look at all the ones that are noted there in the red, and then what you have in the blue, you've got two of them in the blue, one here down in verse 5, and then you've got one in verse 7. Those are in the perfect and that shows that it comes across the action of permanence. These positional truths are just coming out of these verses to us and just bombarding us with these positional truths.

Now the greens... oops, wrong way. Okay, the green there is the verb there that we talked about, know you not, and by the way, you do know. So again, that's speaking to facts that we know to be true of these positional truths that we know to be true. And then, oops, wrong way here.

And then two greens that we have here in verse 6 and then in verse 9, those are the ones we've talked about in the past, the causal participles, and those again, because you know, or the idea that these are positional truths that they know to be true. So the whole reason that I bring this up is the positional truths here that God is communicating to us through His Word that are true of us. Pretty incredible stuff. And so what we're going to see next week is in light of all that we've seen to be true, all that it is that God has done for us, uniting us with Himself, joining us, identifying us in His death, burial, and resurrection, As he walks in newness of life, so we too can walk in newness of life.

Therefore, verse 11 says, reckon it to be so. Some versions say, therefore count on it to be so, or rely on it to be so. So I think hopefully that kind of sets the stage for what's going to come next week, and Verne's going to come next week and take us through verses 11, 12, and 13.

I'm looking forward to that. Any thoughts before we close? All right, let's pray. Lord, thank You for this time. Thanks for Your Word and thanks for Your Spirit, as we say so many times, but I hope we don't take for granted that, thankful that He leads us and guides us into all truth and communicates things to us and brings things to our remembrance. So for that, we're very thankful. And I pray that these truths that you have made possible because of your love and your care and your concern for us aren't just things that we talk about here for 50 minutes on a Sunday morning. But they're things that we will, because of your spirit, bring them to remember to walk in them the rest of this day and the rest of this week and that they will really be truths that are impacting our lives. We walk in the spirit and ultimately for your glorification that you will be glorified. Thanks Lord. I'll be with Vern the remainder of the sermon this morning. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.