Great Doctrines of Salvation

6-6 through 10 and I think we have finished. We talked about the first question, right? Did we talk about the question too? I can't remember. Anybody? What's that? You don't think we even got to there? Okay. Let's, for beginners, some of you can read English. Read Romans 6, 6 through 10. Nobody in this room knows how to read English. I don't know if you have a Bible. They aren't at Romans 6.

Knowing this, that our old man was has been freed from sin. Now, if we died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with him, knowing that Christ, having been raised from the dead, dies no more. Death no longer has dominion 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.

My first question was actually a statement. Is the following statement true? If I did not die with Christ on the cross, I cannot be living with him, risen from the dead, but I'm still back in the old Adam in which I was born. Is that a true statement? Yes. Good.

Tell me why. A guy I quoted said, perhaps there's no more difficult task, and no task requiring such constant vigilant attention is assigned by God to the believer. It is a stupendous thing, this matter of taking note of and keeping in mind what goes so completely against your consciousness, that our old man was crucified. These words are addressed to faith, to faith only. Do you agree with that? I don't think there's anything more difficult than to consciously and constantly be reckoning, or as he uses the word, diligent, about the fact that I really did die with Christ. That really did happen. But it's only to faith.

You're not going to feel it. So would you say that that's the reason why we are not told to do anything about dying? Is that a hard question? Notice that we are not given any instructions about dying. How come? You mean like how to? Well, I'm not to do my own dying to sin. How come? Christ is going to die for us. What's that? Christ died for us. It's more than for us. Why wouldn't I be told to engage in a process of trying to die to sin? You can't. You can't.

And it's already happened. Because Christ already did it. Now, you know as well as I do that you've been in groups of believers who kind of understand the identification truth and you'll say, well, how's it going? And they'll say, well, I'm trying to die to self. Not working out too good. No, it either is a fact that you died on the cross with Christ or it's not. And everything about your experience, everything about the world influences that you have in your everyday, every minute of existence will try to deny that that's true.

You know, I was talking to Donna this morning, we were kind of talking about this. She said she's amazed at how everybody lives to meet my needs. You know, everybody's really interested in, are my needs getting met? Well, I said that, you know, from a biblical standpoint it would be like somebody in a coffin wondering if my needs got met. Did you die or didn't you? And whose needs are they? The old man or the new man in Christ? Does that make sense?

Pretty tough. So, now there is this process in which you are conformed unto his death. But you're conformed to something that's already happened. You're not trying to die, you're being conformed to the death that already happened. You alright with that? So, if it's not true that I died with Christ, then I am in the old Adam in which I was born. I am stuck there. There's no way out except for being in Christ and his death. Okay? Okay. Any questions there? Kind of a tough question to start with.

In verse 6, what does that body of sin, that body of sin might be destroyed mean? And the word destroyed is keter geho. And it can be translated several ways. Because I'm a businessman, I always look at it as being put out of business. Your dad, Hal, used to say, because he was an electrical engineer, he used to term it being taken offline. So, what does the body of sin refer to? Is it your physical body? Is it the total composite of sin itself? The old man? Is it the sin nature? Sin in the flesh?

It comes out when you... That's okay. Anybody else? I think it's the sin nature, the whole, but it's the whole thing about sin. It's not only the nature itself, but that the environment that you live in, which is sin, would be put out of business. that you would be able to function in an environment where sin was the reigning principle, but it would not have control of you. That's kind of idiocy, isn't it? That can't happen.

To me it's like, put it in another realm, there's an art or music or somebody that writes, there's a body of work that is an entity is a body of work. Oh, I see what you're saying. But a body that has a life of its own as well. Okay. Because we didn't cover action, attitudes, and so on. I think so. Especially attitudes and opinions and viewpoint.

Viewpoint, I think, is really important because if you ask yourself, If the cross was here in the middle of the room, and this is before salvation and this is after salvation, which side of the cross do you see yourself on? Are you still over here trying to measure up to what you've been reading about is over here, or do you really see yourself here? Is that how you view your whole existence? I really am this side.

The sin issue has been resolved. on the death. I think there is, and it's in verse 11. Sure. Consider yourself free of sin. That's our part. Just reckon or consider. You know, it's a fact. We just have to understand that's a fact and we consider ourselves dead. And you say operating in a realm, I think it's easier for me to put it in that we're no longer citizens when you think of we're so generous here. We don't fit here anymore. You're going to have a terrible time when Yeah.

But I mean the thing that we do is consider. I mean that's I think we've tied into what you're maybe saying in the conforming part. Yeah. That's our conforming is considering. Yeah. And that you know it's not as much a feeling but it's understanding our position and trying to bring our conditioning and position closer together. Good point.

The first 10 verses of chapter 6 are all position. The first 10 verses. Everything you read there is a position. And when you get to 11, the Word of God tells you what to do about your position. Which is true of everything you learn in the Word of God.

So... Excuse me. I think that sounded good on the tape. I guess we did do two last week because I gave a different answer. Today I'm going to give another different answer. Her body of sins. Another body thing might be, you know, people use the body of water, so maybe it's just like a whole environment, moving, unlimited.

We learned in Romans 5 that sin is a reigning principle, and it reigns unto death, and it's everywhere. And what God did, which was kind of interesting, sent his son to die on the cross to pay the penalty for the sins of the world. But he had this other issue, which was the sin principle. How was he going to deal with that? Because he couldn't just pay the price of your sins and let the sin principle still reign. So he took it upon himself to deal with the sin principle with a view towards putting it out of business so it no longer had control over you. So it was no longer the reigning principle in your life.

And that's difficult, and even once you know that, still, the ride to resting in those facts takes a while. It just does. Verse 7. What does being freed or justified from sin mean? We're not its slaves. We're not its slaves. A little more than that. We've been cut loose. Cut loose, that's a good term.

Paul knew that he had been justified from all the guilt by the blood of Christ. He knew also that he was cleared from the thing sin itself. Do you see that? cleared from itself. And that's why, I don't know, do all your verses say justified from sin?

What do they say? Freed. Freed is probably a better word. I remember reading, I have in the past and still do read a lot of Brethren books and... Freed. And they say that this word justified in order to understand it from the old English that there was a fella in Scotland executed for a crime that he committed and the headline was that Joe was justified this morning. So he was free. So what is a believer's relationship to sin? I have written down something like, we are free from the old man through the death of Jesus Christ.

On the cross. Okay. What is your relationship to sin? It's the same as Christ now, isn't it? Because we're in him. Maybe ask it this way. Do you have a relationship with sin? We reckon ourselves dead to sin. You shouldn't have one. You have no relationship to sin. Excuse me. Easy for you to say, right? was broken forever.

And so, when we get down to 13 and 14, you know, we're to present ourselves to God as those who are alive from the dead. In other words, our relationship with sin really was broken. We don't have one. Is there like a different relationship with sin, being in the spirit versus being in the flesh? Adam's nature.

Oh, I see what you're saying. I think it's better maybe to look at it from a conditional position standpoint. That's better than positional truth. Six one through 10 is all position. And when you read these facts, which are stupendous, you have to may not be true in my experience, but they are true because God says they are.

He's telling us, here's what I've done about the issue of sin and your relationship to it. I've completely separated you from sin. You don't have to. You can conduct yourself in a manner as if you were not, as if you don't have to have any relationship with sin at all.

See that? You know, you look at that and tell people, and I think about this, we sit in a Sunday school class and read these incredible truths, but imagine a young believer who has believed in the person and work of Christ for her salvation, and then somebody comes along and starts laying this on them. They must think you're crazy. You mean to tell me that that there was, when Christ died on the cross, I died with him, I haven't been around that long. You know?

I mean, these truths are just magnificent truths, but very tough to believe, because we don't go at them with just faith alone, you know? We want something, what we think is more, rather than just believing. And so, when we get down to 10, 11, 12, 13, 14 and there. When we're told how to react to these truths, I think it makes sense if you're fairly well schooled in what happened and what is true of you.

Because the only freedom from sin is reckoning. That's the only freedom. There's no freedom in fighting it or running away from it. There's no freedom there. The only freedom is to count on the truths that you learn right here. That's the only freedom.

You know, I think the thing is also taking this in context with all the other things. That's what, you know, when you start putting all this stuff together, that's where I think the considering and reckoning becomes more alive or real or whatever. I died. So I think as you get exposed more to the whole, everything starts to fit more. I guess as I've looked through these things. It's not just Romans 6. Romans 6 is the foundation. But then when you put everything else on top of it, it starts to come together that, yeah, I am new. I am crucified.

And like I said, it's not only this. Today we're looking at this little piece of it. But then you see your same old thoughts like, oh, my needs. Oh, I need a bigger house or whatever it is. And then I'm like, well, where's that? I always take that as that you're now aware of that, though. Once you become aware of that, like, what am I doing?

That's a good point. That's the growth part. Good point. Before, you didn't even think about that. Right. Now, it's like, what are you thinking about? And that's, I think, the growth part, that if you start to realize this stuff, that that's when the growth and the conformity starts to happen is because before you never would have thought about that.

But now you think about it and it's like that's the separation. And to me, that's also starting to figure out you start identifying the old man in yourself very quickly. And that's the hardest part. But as you do that, as you start thinking about it, it's like, well, that's that's not me. That's not who I am, the new creature in Christ.

That's the growth aspect. What kind of adding on to that? It's not like a bump in the road. There's a couple of words that tie things together and make it a seamless transition, and that's likewise and therefore, which is hinging it. You're not looking at this is what Christ did, and I did, and then bang, I'm dead. But it says therefore, and it ties that into a seamless transition. that is based on, it always goes back to that work you did. That's exactly right. And I think a lot of times we try to, even with the understanding of condition and position, I think a lot of times we try to make these very distinct things, but there is a transition in the past there.

What's interesting is that I think all of Paul's epistles, all of them, hinge on what he says right here on 6. Because every other one of his epistles either in some manner repeats the identification truths or assumes that you know them. And all of the positional truth that is in all of Paul's epistles is based on your old man being crucified with Christ, buried and resurrected. And even Peter, James, and John, who don't really understand it, especially John, will refer to it. But to understand it, you've got to go see what Paul says about it. Because he's the only one that explains it. Even though John sometimes, especially in his epistles, assumes that this is true. I like what Holly said, though. You know, right in the middle of the battle, you know, going down the road. Here's good old self. It's in nature, you know. Paul wrote Romans last though, right? I don't think, I think Timothy was last. Okay, but it was one of his after. Paul wrote Romans having never been to Rome and it wasn't a church that he was instrumental started, it all came from him. And he wanted to just lay out the doctrine to them before he got there. That's why it is the way it is.

But he wrote Philippians, Ephesians, Philemon, and Colossians from the Roman jail. which are books that are heavenly. Here's the other interesting thing about Romans. Paul never takes you off the earth in Romans. It's all what God did that came to you here and he did it here. You have to get to Ephesians, Colossians and those to get the launch to being heavenly citizens. Romans doesn't do that yet.

He'll free us from the laws as we go on and the world and the devil and all of that. And then later he'll talk about, you know, if any man be in Christ he's a new creation. We're blessed with all spiritual blessings in the heavenlies in Christ Jesus. But it's all based on what he tells you here.

Does being justified from sin mean sinless perfection? Well, it depends on the viewpoint. Which viewpoint matters? In your position, yes. Okay, I got two yeses. You got two? But in our condition, it's not really all yes. Well, if it's not all yes, then there must be a no there somewhere. Okay, anybody want to stab at no? I put down no, so I must be wrong. No, it can't be both. Do the One Natures think that they have sinless perfection? What's that? Do the One Natures think that they have sinless perfection? That's right. So if you buy into the One Nature position, then sinless perfection is what they're teaching. But we're not buying into that. Let me read something to you.

Justified from sin does not mean sinless perfection, but something utterly different and infinitely beyond that. It's different in that it does not refer to an experience of deliverance from sin, but a passing beyond in death with Christ at the cross to a sphere where the former relationship to sin existed. Understand what that means? In other words, we're not talking about sinless perfection, we're talking about the relationship you have with sin.

You don't have one. See that? When he says, being justified from sin, he's only talking about the relationship that we have with sin. We haven't talked about how you're doing here. We're just talking about what your relationship is to sin. You alright with that? You said no, didn't you? Hey, get a start. I bet my ass in sarcasm.

It is the newly established relationship to sin which the saints have because they died with Christ and which they stand in Christ as He is toward sin. So that's how you look at it. What is Christ's relationship to sin? What relationship does He have to sin now? He doesn't have one. He was made sin for us. He had a relationship with sin. And it had dominion over him. He died. But in dying, what did he do? He separated from it. Where were you? You were in him when this was going on. So if he separated from the thing, sin itself, so did you.

You see that? So it has more to do with relationship than it does with experience. And that's the whole point, right, is so that we could have a relationship with God because otherwise we couldn't because we'd be in sin. When you go to a place like Hebrews or Colossians or Ephesians and start reading about the relationship we have now with God, that we're heirs with Christ, joint heirs, heirs of God and joint heirs of Christ, that we have been suited out by God. to be the partakers of the inheritance of the saints in life.

How did he do that? This is how he did it. When he was freed and justified from sin, so were you. For what purpose? So that we can receive all that Christ is. All that he is, you get. Because you started out in Romans 6, 3 or 2, that you were baptized into his death. You were included, united to him You can't say that sin is gone from the flesh, but you having died are declared freed from it. You do not have to listen to it. You do not have to...

See, I think it takes a while for the believer to come to the understanding that sin is a reigning principle. Especially Americans. We think we control everything. We have a constitution that tells us so. Right? We don't realize that sin is a You'll see it.

And usually in yourself first. But then the word of God comes and says, no, you're free. It doesn't have to have dominion over you anymore. You now are under a dominion called grace. Wow. What is that? So all condemnation towards you is gone now because of your position in Christ. You all right with that? you're living in an unredeemed body.

Maybe put it this way. Sin has rights and dominion over you. And before you were a believer it had rights and dominion over your body. It could, I hate to use this term, it could force you to sin. But you were a willing participant. But now it can't because its rights are gone. Now, here's the problem. Most Christians don't understand that the rights are gone.

And so when sin tries to impose its dominion over you, you get sucked right into it. Or what it does is it tries to get you to fight. You know? It tries to pick a fight with you so that you'll really work hard in snuffing sin out of your life. As soon as you do that, you lose.

Because your sin nature is stronger than you are in your will to overcome it. That's what Romans 7 is all about. I like what Newell said about justified from the sin. Paul knew he was justified, cleared from the thing sin itself and therefore the walking in an as yet unredeemed body knew he was holy heavenly in his standing life in relations with God. We have to know that. You have to know it.

Because, you know, your faith has to have an object. And if you don't have the object, your faith isn't going to work for you. Maybe you put it that way. And the reason for that is that your faith isn't where the value is. The value is in what you believe, not the fact that you believe. See that? You believe in the person and work of Christ for salvation. It isn't your faith that saves you, it's the person and work of Christ that saves you.

That's where the value is. It's the same thing with this. Somebody read verse 8. The thing I was just going to mention too, the thing is that you've got to know it every single day. Like sometimes I'll think, oh I get it, and then I wake up the next morning and I'm like, what did I get? How do you deal with that? That's a wonderful question, because that's really right. How do you deal with that? What do you do? Got to be memorizing things? Put little stickers up on the refrigerator? What are you going to do?

There's a dependence there. And what's the dependence? In John 14, the Lord Jesus said that he would send a comforter. And the comforter would remind you of everything he said. So, here you are cruising along in your Chevy, right? And your mind is somewhere. And here comes an opportunity to sin. At the same time, here comes an awareness of this principle. Where'd that awareness come from? Spirit of God who lives in you. You learned it and you know it.

There's never a time he's not there. And you may say, well, he wasn't around that day. Yeah, he was. Yeah, he was. And I haven't just come from this camp meeting and other stuff where we can go, you know, you know, protect us from the evil one. It's not out of malice. There's so many scriptures that say you're never separated from His love.

So He allows us what? To draw you back to Him? To grow and conform you to His image? And all those things are used by Him to allow you to grow. And the more you grow, the less you're drawn away by these things. You know, just as we were saying, your realization of that is part of their growing. I don't know, he just uses everything for his glory to bring you to him and to have that fellowship with you.

And you have to be aware of the fact that he only deals with you based on these facts. He deals with us as those who are separated from sin. He does not deal with you like, oh well you slipped and you went back and now you're identified with sin. No, he doesn't do it that way. He sticks with what he tells you.

I have freed you from sin, so when we get into these wonderful conversations with one John, one Mary, confess your sins. When you confess to God, what do you confess? I believe you, Father, about this, about my relationship to sin. Now, I have been acting as though I didn't believe you and it wasn't true. But I agree with you, you're right, and I've been wrong. And I've been doing this, and it goes totally against what you say is true of me. I believe you. That's what confession is. It's not, oh I did 45 things wrong and I need to say a bunch of Hail Marys and get all that crap.

Is it true that the Holy Spirit would not be able to work in a believer if the believer does not know these facts? He can only work up and through, I would say, the birth truths. He would have to deal with them. Because that believer knows those. And I think what he does sometimes with believers, he gets them, you know, they wake up one day and say, you know what, I know I'm saved. I'm pretty persuaded about that. But this sinning stuff, you know, I'm confessing and sinning and confessing and sinning. Doesn't God have a remedy for that? Yes, He does. When you go send somebody, or something in your life that starts They never get it, or I think they reject it. That's what I think, because it's around enough, it's talked about enough. I just think it's rejected. I really do.

We were out in California, and we had a button study with my daughter and some people, and there was a guy there that was really into Messianic Judaism, and he tried to, and we were talking about these verses, and he said, well the whole reason for for our identification with Christ on the cross and being freed from sin was so that we could keep the law. The Mosaic law. I said, where does it say that?

He couldn't show me, but I said, isn't sin a bigger issue than violation of the law? You know, you're my personal sinfulness. If I'm not freed from it, I'm in trouble. I am really in, and he didn't save me from the dominion of sin and separate me from the principle of sin so that I could be put under the mosaic system. He did it so I could live under grace. Because that's what he functions in now. He only functions in grace now. So, I really think, you know, sure, I'm sure there's a lot of believers that have never been exposed to the identification truths. But I still think there's an awful lot of them that...

I mean, if you're a good Reformed guy, you've read Romans 6. You know? The Spirit of God is in you. I'm sure He's talking to you about, this is something different than you've read before. Which probably all goes back to what Donna said this morning. You know, everybody's looking out for their own needs, and you've got to figure out how to get them met, and if God isn't working fast enough, you're going to do it yourself.

And when you discover that you've been crucified, the wants are still there, and the needs are still there, but you're not associated with the entity or the nature that has the wants and the needs. They're not you anymore. That's what I meant by, which side of the cross do you see yourself on? If you see yourself on the side of the cross before crucifixion, then you really, your wants and needs are important to you. If you're on this side, resurrected side, and your viewpoint about whatever you want. Whatever God wants to do is okay with you and you don't care what it is.

See? Whether you get them satisfied or not. Because the Lord Jesus Christ's desire is to fill the Christian with himself. And that's different than whether you got 50 bucks or 50 million. I mean, if you think about it, you're a co-heir with Christ. It's like our own whole fantasy life that we make up based on, you know, marketing.

The world system, sure. Yeah, yeah. Can I go back to what Andrew said? Sure. I think, because I look at my own life of 20 years of being... I'm not sure I want to look at that. I don't get it. It's scary. It keeps replaying. No, it doesn't actually. You know, I think you know, before I knew the identification, and I, you know, brethren, we studied the scriptures all the time, and you know, even a lot of this stuff, the identification proofs came out of the brethren. But a lot of the brethren don't ever teach that anymore. And so, but the Lord's working on me, you know, I look for 20 years of, you know, I'm a type A-er, I go after it, I know how I'm going to do it, I can fix it, we're just going to put another program in. And you finally come to the realization after the 20th program, it isn't a program, And you look for something else, and that's where identification.

So I don't know if it's rejection or lack of teaching. Probably both. You know, there's lack of teaching. People just go over that or selectively go buy it. And that's why I go back to identification. Because you don't know about that, the identification. And you say when you read it, how many times do I read through Galatians? And I'm dead to the law. I'm under grace. And I read that, but I never...

What does that mean? I never... until you start, you know, growing... I'll tell you another big problem I see in our society today. Is that our schools do not teach children to be critical thinkers. They're taught to feel, not to think. And this is not feeling. And that's a big problem when you're trying to explain positional truth.

And faith, faith has nothing to do with feelings. Nothing. Not a single thing. So when you hand somebody like Miles' Green Letters and the first chapters on faith, you know, within a page here he is. You know, you can package your feelings up and throw them out the window. They have nothing to do with this.

You're going to package the book up and throw it out the window because you're all about feelings. You know? I mean, stick a microphone in your face? How do you feel about that? My daughter said, Dad, how do you feel about that? I said, I don't. She said, what do you mean? I said, I'm a critical thinker.

Somebody was supposed to read verse 8. Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live Does verse 8 tell us to take for granted that we died with Christ? Yes. Yes. It sure does. It sure does. We take for granted that we died and that our old man was crucified with Christ. Take it for granted. It's true. We should cross out the if. Yeah. That's the first last conditional sentence.

Since we died with him. Since we died with him. It's okay to be assumptive. Why does verse 8 say that we are to believe, that we are to believe we shall also be living with him? Did I read that right? Why does verse 8 say that we are to believe we shall also be living with him? Well, I understand the question now finally. Do you understand what I'm asking? When I did, my answers were from three old brethren guys. You want me to read them? A guy named Mayer said, it's a paraphrase, well paraphrases he calls it.

Whoever has died with Christ is now also of the belief that his life i.e. the positive, active side of his moral being and nature, shall be a fellowship of life with the exalted Christ, that is, shall be able to do nothing else than this. Whosoever has died with Christ is now also of the belief that his life, i.e. the positive, active side of his moral being and nature, shall be a fellowship of life with the exalted Christ. That is, shall be able to do nothing else than this." That's a pretty positive statement, isn't it? Yeah, it seems too positive. Like, isn't it our whole selves? Like, not just the positive, moral part, but the creepy, you know, immoral part too. Well if my relationship to sin is severed and I'm done then am I living in a vacuum? No. I now am free to live in Christ and to grow in the knowledge and grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and to know him as my very life.

That's Rotherham. These are really old dudes. If we jointly die with Christ, we believe that we shall also jointly live with him. Pretty simple. If we did, or since we did... I'm just thinking of the second word, rapture. We're going to see that. Physically. That guy's statement, you're going to see it. So it's right at the rapture, which is at any instant. Let's talk about that. Do you think that we enter into this struggle with sin and waiting for the rapture, is there anything to be done in the meantime? Can you get a taste of glory?

You know, 2 Corinthians 3.18 says, Beholding us in the mirror of the glory of the Lord. Wow, that's pretty cool. You know, we're talking about why so many Christians don't understand and get this. Let me tell you something else. Can you imagine those believers, when they go to glory, what a surprise it's going to be to them. Wow! The fullness of Christ. No, no bright lights. None of that crap. No clouds. It's Christ himself and there he is. And he's my very life.

Isn't that something? Of course, I think your dad said that as smart as he was and as savvy as he was. Wow, this is... Coney Bear said, if we have shared the death of Christ, or since we have shared the death of Christ, we believe we shall also share his life. There's two sides to the coin. There's the death side and the life side, and they happen simultaneously. And the reason we study the Word of God beyond identification, as you study Paul's epistles going forward, he tries to lay out the glory of the Lord and the heavenlies, who we are in Christ.

And that's the mindset and the thought, and all of that is under the umbrella of grace. And I agree with Chester McCauley when he said, if you're not taught grace, you'll never learn it. I think he's right about that. You have to be taught grace. You have to study it and see what it's like, because it goes totally against, sin does not live in grace.

See that? But my new life in Christ only lives in grace. So if I go at God from a legal standpoint, we're not on the same channel. See that? He's a different CB station than I'm on. Okay? Can I ask a question? Sure. Just based on my understanding is that God can't see sin, so can't have a relationship with us when we're in sin. Is that pre-crucifixion or post-crucifixion or both? That's a good question.

When... To be continued. Eventually, you'll have to come back with the answer. Remind me, because I'll forget. Okay, we got down to question 8. Let's close. Dear Father, how we thank you for the work of your Son on the cross and the fact that we were included. We really are separated unto you from sin and alive unto you, Father. We're so thankful for that and we ask that we continually would grow in the knowledge and grace of just those facts. We pray in your Son's precious name.