FREEDOM REVEALED The Face of Freedom – part 2
005 FREEDOM REVEALED: The Face of Freedom – part 2
Romans 6:1-11 (7-11)
July 20, 2025
This morning we began to address the question
Paul anticipated from his adversaries.
“Are we to continue in sin so that grace may increase?”
The issue here is not the presence of sin in the life of a believer,
But rather the habitual practice of it.
The word “continue” is very important to our understanding.
All believers struggle with sin, and we will until glorification occurs.
· But no believer should ever be comfortable with sin.
· No believer should ever embrace sin.
· No believer should be content to continue in sin.
John MacArthur wrote:
“Before salvation, sin cannot be anything but the established way of life, because sin at best taints everything the unredeemed person does. But the believer, who has new life and is indwelt by God’s own Spirit, has no excuse to continue habitually in sin. Can he then possibly live in the same submissive relationship to sin that he had before salvation? Put in theological terms, can justification truly exist apart from sanctification? Can a person receive new life and continue in his old way of living? Does the divine transaction of redemption have no continuing and sustaining power in those who are redeemed? Put still another way, can a person who persists in living as a child of Satan have been truly born again as a child of God? Many say yes, Paul says no, as verse 2 emphatically states.”
(MacArthur, John [The MacArthur New Testament Commentary; Romans 1-8; Moody Press, Chicago, IL; 1991] pg. 316)
He would go on to say:
“The person who has truly died to sin cannot possibly still live in it. Both in the spiritual as well as the physical realms, death and life are incompatible. Both logically and theologically, therefore, spiritual life cannot coexist with spiritual death. The idea that a Christian can continue to live habitually in sin not only is unbiblical but irrational. Christians obviously are able to commit many of the sins they committed before salvation, but they are not able to live perpetually in those sins as they did before.”
(ibid. pg. 317)
The apostle John said it this way:
1 John 3:9 “No one who is born of God practices sin, because His seed abides in him; and he cannot sin, because he is born of God.”
Very simply put,
The answer to Paul’s anticipated question is a resounding NO!
“May it never be!”
Paul’s theological point was just as simple.
“How shall we who died to sin still live in it?”
HOW CAN A DEAD MAN LIVE?
The very idea of death indicates that those who are dead
NO LONGER PARTICIPATE in their former manner of life.
Now, typically we see that as a bad thing.
We see death negatively.
· Those who die are no longer around for the activities of the living.
· Those who die leave behind unfinished business.
· Those who die no longer participate in the life they built.
It seems very negative to us.
Unless we understand that the life we left behind
Was a life of sin and depravity which led only to judgment.
Understanding that would lead us to see death as a good thing.
And indeed, we do see death viewed through a similar lens in Scripture.
Ecclesiastes 4:1-3 “Then I looked again at all the acts of oppression which were being done under the sun. And behold I saw the tears of the oppressed and that they had no one to comfort them; and on the side of their oppressors was power, but they had no one to comfort them. So I congratulated the dead who are already dead more than the living who are still living. But better off than both of them is the one who has never existed, who has never seen the evil activity that is done under the sun.”
· Solomon adopted that viewpoint when he recognized all the pain and suffering of this life.
· He was able to see death as a good thing if it meant leaving behind a life of suffering and sorrow and injustice.
Job, in the midst of his suffering, came to the same conclusion.
Job 3:11-19 “Why did I not die at birth, Come forth from the womb and expire? “Why did the knees receive me, And why the breasts, that I should suck? “For now I would have lain down and been quiet; I would have slept then, I would have been at rest, With kings and with counselors of the earth, Who rebuilt ruins for themselves; Or with princes who had gold, Who were filling their houses with silver. “Or like a miscarriage which is discarded, I would not be, As infants that never saw light. “There the wicked cease from raging, And there the weary are at rest. “The prisoners are at ease together; They do not hear the voice of the taskmaster. “The small and the great are there, And the slave is free from his master.”
· He saw death as a place where the wicked no longer rage.
· He saw death as a place where the weary rest.
· He saw death as a place where prisoners are free.
· He saw death as a place where slavery ended.
And we even see such a view of death in the Revelation.
Remember those martyrs below the altar?
Revelation 6:11 “And there was given to each of them a white robe; and they were told that they should rest for a little while longer, until the number of their fellow servants and their brethren who were to be killed even as they had been, would be completed also.”
Or how about those who died in the Great Tribulation?
Revelation 14:13 “And I heard a voice from heaven, saying, “Write, ‘Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord from now on!’ ” “Yes,” says the Spirit, “so that they may rest from their labors, for their deeds follow with them.”
So death is not always negative.
While it does mean that those who die
Will no longer participate in their former manner of life,
THAT IS NOT ALWAYS A BAD THING.
Especially when that former manner of life was a life of sin and judgment.
In that case death is a good thing.
Death is a welcomed end.
And according to Paul,
When we were united with Christ, we died.
Galatians 2:20 “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 and gave Himself up for me.”
And that is what he says here.
(3) “Or do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus have been baptized into His death?”
(6) “knowing this, that our old self was crucified with Him, in order that our body of sin might be done away with”
“done away with” translates (kat-are-GAY-o)
It means “to render inoperative or invalid”
It speaks of making it ineffective by removing its control.
The body is still there…obviously.
But it no longer calls the shots.
Think of it like a lame duck president, still present, but no authority.
When we were united with Christ, that union included His death,
And we now receive the benefits of that death in our life.
And all of this came for ONE OVERARCHING PURPOSE.
(6b-7) “so that we would no longer be slaves to sin; for he who has died is freed from sin.”
Just as Job said about death, “There the wicked cease from raging, And there the weary are at rest. “The prisoners are at ease together; They do not hear the voice of the taskmaster. “The small and the great are there, And the slave is free from his master.”
So it is now with those who died with Christ.
· We are free from our former master.
· We are free from sin.
Free from the PENALTY of sin through Christ’s death,
But also free from the POWER of sin.
Augustus Toplady wrote the phrase in the famous hymn “Be of sin the double cure, save from wrath and make me pure.”
Sin can no longer condemn us.
Sin can no longer control us.
And that is THE FIRST POINT made by Paul.
· We are talking about our FREEDOM REVEALED:
· The “Face of Freedom” is Jesus Christ.
When we were united with Him, His death became our death
And we made the first point.
#1 DEAD MEN DON’T PARTICIPATE
Romans 6:2-7
That is true.
We no longer participate in that old manner of life.
But there is MORE TO BE LEARNED here
About the definitive sanctification that Christ brought for us.
For Christ didn’t stay dead.
He rose from the dead.
And since we are united with Him,
Not only did we die and were buried, but WE ALSO ROSE.
And that brings Paul’s next point about what Christ accomplished for us.
#2 RESURRECTED MEN DON’T ROT
Romans 6:8-11
The simple point being that when a man is raised from the dead
He no longer acts like he’s dead.
When Lazarus walked out of the tomb
Jesus commanded that the grave clothes be taken off of him.
Jesus said, “Unbind him and let him go.”
· We aren’t to be some type of spiritual Dracula sleeping in a coffin every night.
· We shouldn’t drink formaldehyde.
· We aren’t dead, and we aren’t to act like it.
RESURRECTED MEN DON’T ROT
And that is true for spiritual men too.
That old man of sin is dead, we shouldn’t act like he’s still alive.
· Don’t try to live in the sin you already died too.
· Don’t let this new life in Christ be characterized by spiritual decay.
· Resurrected men don’t rot
You know this even prophetically about Christ’s resurrection.
Psalms 16:10-11 “For You will not abandon my soul to Sheol; Nor will You allow Your Holy One to undergo decay. You will make known to me the path of life; In Your presence is fullness of joy; In Your right hand there are pleasures forever.”
Christ died, but He did not decay.
He was raised from the dead.
AND WE ASK: If we could benefit so greatly through His death, what might be the benefit of His life?
(8) “NOW if we have died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him”
And here Paul takes it yet another step forward.
It was that great theologian Augustus McCrae
Who argued with his partner Captain Col.
When Col spoke of the death of his mistress he said, “She would have died anywhere, she just happened to die in Lonesome Dove.”
To which Gus rightly responded. “You don’t ever get the point do you. It’s not dying I’m talking about, it’s living!”
And that is exactly where Paul has brought us.
· Yes we were crucified with Christ.
· Yes we died with Him.
· Yes we were buried with Him.
· And yes there were benefits in all of that.
BUT THAT IS NOT THE POINT.
It’s not about dying, it’s about living.
We just studied with the youth on Wednesday night.
Romans 12:1 “Therefore I urge you, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship.”
We are talking about “a living and holy sacrifice”.
We know about Christ’s death,
But now we need to learn about His life for this was also done for us.
We are also united in His resurrection and receive the benefits of it.
So let’s discuss Christ’s resurrected life.
1) PERMANENCE (9-10a)
“knowing that Christ, having been raised from the dead, is never to die again; death no loner is master over Him. For the death that He died, He died to sin once for all,”
That’s a pretty clear point isn’t it?
CHRIST WILL NEVER DIE AGAIN.
This is why He is referred to as the first fruits.
1 Corinthians 15:20 “But now Christ has been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who are asleep.”
· But He certainly was not the first person to be raised from the dead.
· He Himself raised many, and many were raised at His crucifixion.
But Christ was the first to be raised “never to die again”.
And that is the resurrection we are interested in.
WHEN CHRIST DIED,
· He took sin’s best shot.
· He took sin’s ultimate power move.
· He took sin’s signature blow.
· Christ received death.
WHEN HE ROSE FROM THE DEAD,
Sin had nothing left to try, Christ had taken it all and defeated it all.
Hebrews 2:14 “Therefore, since the children share in flesh and blood, He Himself likewise also partook of the same, that through death He might render powerless him who had the power of death, that is, the devil,”
Revelation 1:17-18 “When I saw Him, I fell at His feet like a dead man. And He placed His right hand on me, saying, “Do not be afraid; I am the first and the last, and the living One; and I was dead, and behold, I am alive forevermore, and I have the keys of death and of Hades.”
There is nothing more that sin can do to Him.
There is nothing more that the devil can do to Him.
He rose victorious over the grave.
“death no longer is master over Him.”
YOU KNOW THAT TO BE TRUE.
No one here is the least bit concerned that Jesus might die again.
· It has likely not ever even entered your mind.
· He’s done with death.
“For the death that He died, He died to sin once for all”
The writer of Hebrews loves that reality.
Hebrews 9:12 “and not through the blood of goats and calves, but through His own blood, He entered the holy place once for all, having obtained eternal redemption.”
Hebrews 9:28 “so Christ also, having been offered once to bear the sins of many, will appear a second time for salvation without reference to sin, to those who eagerly await Him.”
Hebrews 10:10 “By this will we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.”
I really loath that heresy of the Catholic Mass
· In which some pompous priest thinks he will sacrifice Jesus again.
· Where Jesus never overcomes death,
· He is subjected to it over and over and over and over again.
If that were true it would have been better for Him to never rise at all
Since His resurrection has only proved to result in
More pain, suffering, and death.
But that is NOT what the resurrection of Christ provided.
When Christ rose, He rose once and He rose permanently.
· He was never again subjected to the consequences of sin.
· He was never again subjected to the penalty of death.
· He was given a new life and that life is a permanent one.
WELL, FOLLOW PAUL’S POINT NOW.
When Christ died, we died with Him.
· All the realities of His death became realities of our death.
· He was free from the penalty of sin.
· He was free from the power of sin.
· And because we died with Him we share in those realities.
· In Him we are also free form the penalty of sin and the power of sin.
But now take that same train of thought and apply it to His resurrection.
He rose from the dead and broke death’s back.
“death no longer is master over Him. For the death that He died, He died to sin once for all”
This world lives in constant anxiety about death coming.
Ecclesiastes 9:4-5 “For whoever is joined with all the living, there is hope; surely a live dog is better than a dead lion. For the living know they will die…”
That is true in a physical sense.
But it is not true in a spiritual sense for those who are in Christ.
Death erased our participation in our first life,
But death will never erase our participation in this new life.
The new life we have been given is permanent.
John 11:25-26 “Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life; he who believes in Me will live even if he dies, and everyone who lives and believes in Me will never die. Do you believe this?”
Simply speaking:
YOU ARE NEVER GOING BACK TO YOUR OLD MANNER OF LIFE.
If you do, it only reveals that
You never really died and you were never really raised.
1 John 2:19 “They went out from us, but they were not really of us; for if they had been of us, they would have remained with us; but they went out, so that it would be shown that they all are not of us.”
2 Peter 2:20-22 “For if, after they have escaped the defilements of the world by the knowledge of the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, they are again entangled in them and are overcome, the last state has become worse for them than the first. For it would be better for them not to have known the way of righteousness, than having known it, to turn away from the holy commandment handed on to them. It has happened to them according to the true proverb, “A dog returns to its own vomit,” and, “A sow, after washing, returns to wallowing in the mire.”
THOSE WHO RETURN TO THEIR OLD MANNER OF LIFE
Reveal only that they never really trusted in Christ.
· Their old life was never really crucified with Him.
· They never really rose into new life.
· They are still dogs who love their vomit.
· They are still pigs who love the mud.
But those who have been raised with Christ aren’t going anywhere.
Christ will never suffer under the penalty or power of sin again.
And neither will they.
You see THE PERMANENCE of His new life.
What else do we learn about Christ’s resurrected life?
2) PURPOSE (10b)
“but the life that He lives, He lives to God.”
This relates directly to the question Paul is addressing back up in verse 1.
(1) “Are we to continue in sin so that grace may increase?”
It is those who are questioning the purpose of their Christian life.
· Christ saved us.
· Christ set us free.
· Christ justified us.
· We are no longer under Law, but under grace.
WHY DID HE DO THAT?
TO ANSWER THAT, we only need to know why Christ lives today.
After Christ finished atoning for sin on the cross and then rose again to new life, what did He do?
Did He say, “Glad that’s finished, now I think I’ll travel and see the world.”?
Did He say, “Finally, I finished the mission, now I think I’ll have a little fun with some of that stuff I couldn’t do before.”?
THE QUESTION IS:
DID CHRIST CONTINUE IN SIN SO THAT GRACE MAY INCREASE?
ABSOLUTELY NOT!
What did He uses His resurrected life for?
“He lives to God”
· For His brief stay on earth He was busy appearing to His disciples and commissioning them to take the gospel to the world.
· Then He ascended to the Father and now sits at His right hand.
The writer of Hebrews even explains HIS CURRENT CONDITION.
Hebrews 7:26 “For it was fitting for us to have such a high priest, holy, innocent, undefiled, separated from sinners and exalted above the heavens;”
· He isn’t sinning now.
· He is “holy, innocent, undefiled, separated from sinners and exalted above the heavens.”
When John saw Him in the Revelation:
Revelation 1:12-17 “Then I turned to see the voice that was speaking with me. And having turned I saw seven golden lampstands; and in the middle of the lampstands I saw one like a son of man, clothed in a robe reaching to the feet, and girded across His chest with a golden sash. His head and His hair were white like white wool, like snow; and His eyes were like a flame of fire. His feet were like burnished bronze, when it has been made to glow in a furnace, and His voice was like the sound of many waters. In His right hand He held seven stars, and out of His mouth came a sharp two-edged sword; and His face was like the sun shining in its strength. When I saw Him, I fell at His feet like a dead man.”
There is nothing there but radiant holiness.
When God raised Him from the tomb,
It was not so He could experience all the fun things of this world
That He had missed out on while He was trying to save us.
When Christ was raised it was for the glory of God.
“He lives to God”
That tells us something of the PURPOSE of our resurrected life.
Romans 14:7-9 “For not one of us lives for himself, and not one dies for himself; for if we live, we live for the Lord, or if we die, we die for the Lord; therefore whether we live or die, we are the Lord’s. For to this end Christ died and lived again, that He might be Lord both of the dead and of the living.”
This is what the resurrected life is all about.
· It is NOT a life given to you so that you may be free to walk in sin.
· It IS a life given to you so that you may be free to honor God.
To ask if you can return to sin after salvation…
· Is not only the most ignorant statement you could make,
· It is the most irreverent statement you could make.
Do you think Christ died and rose again
So that He could enjoy sin in His life?
Well you were united with Him in His death and in His resurrection.
His death was to sin and His life is to God.
And so is yours if you have been united with Him.
And that leads to the final point here regarding Christ’s resurrection.
3) PERSPECTIVE (11)
“Even so consider yourselves to be dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus.”
And there is the ultimate answer to the question.
NO, YOU ARE NOT FREE TO SIN
You are in Christ Jesus.
· Christ Jesus died to sin.
· Christ Jesus lives to God.
If you were still in Adam
· You’d be free to sin all you wanted,
· In fact you would be enslaved to do so.
Look at the end of Romans 6
Romans 6:20-22 “For when you were slaves of sin, you were free in regard to righteousness. Therefore what benefit were you then deriving from the things of which you are now ashamed? For the outcome of those things is death. But now having been freed from sin and enslaved to God, you derive your benefit, resulting in sanctification, and the outcome, eternal life.”
You were formerly in Adam.
Alive to sin and dead to God.
But now you are in Christ and it is time for you to see yourself differently.
MacArthur wrote:
“For a Christian to live out the fullness of his new life in Christ, for him to truly live as the new creation that he is, he must know and believe that he is not what he used to be. He must understand that he is not a remodeled sinner but a remade saint. He must understand that, despite his present conflict with sin, he is no longer under sin’s tyranny and will never be again. The true understanding of his identify is essential.”
(ibid, pg. 333)
Paul says “consider yourselves”
That’s a word your familiar with.
“consider” translates (la-GEED-zo-my)
It is the same word that referred to Jesus as being
“numbered with the transgressors”
Or when Paul spoke of Abraham earlier in Romans
Romans 4:1 “For what does the Scripture say? “Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness.”
· It is that word “credited”
· It is when we talk about imputation.
It is the word that we love for it is what God did for us.
· God considered us righteous when we were not.
· God credited righteousness to us that was not our own.
WE LOVE THAT DON’T WE?
Well here Paul is now asking you to do the same thing for yourself.
It is time for you to impute death and life to yourself.
It is time for you to view yourself differently.
· It is time to impute Christ’s death to you and realize you are dead to sin.
· It is time to impute Christ’s life to you and realize you are alive to God.
“consider yourselves to be dead to sin, but alive to God”
If you don’t view yourself differently
You will never understand your freedom.
This is where worldly thinking and Godly thinking part ways drastically.
Worldly philosophy and self-help programs
Seek to motivate by reminding a person of their weakness and failure.
· Consider Alcoholics Anonymous.
· We all know the famous introduction.
· Hi, I’m so and so and I’m an alcoholic.
· Even a person sober for years still refers to themselves as an alcoholic.
It is meant to remind them forever of the sin that they are capable of
If they ever let their guard down.
And indeed if your correction depends upon your own strength
That would be a necessary thing to remember.
But that is NOT how Christianity works.
We are told not to consider ourselves
According to our weaknesses or past failures,
But rather according to our new imputed condition.
We are no longer called sinners, we are now called saints.
And it is not a distinction based on something I have done,
But rather on something Christ has done.
The final 3 words of this passage are key to understanding our new condition.
Paul once again says that all of this
Is contingent upon being “in Christ Jesus.”
Now think for a moment where we’ve come in these 11 verses.
· We were baptized into Christ.
· We didn’t do that, it was done to us.
· We were born again.
· We were regenerated.
· We “were buried with Him through baptism into death”.
· We didn’t do that, it was done to us.
· “our old self was crucified with Him”
· And then we were raised with Him.
Nothing in those first 11 verses has anything to do with what you did.
Everything there is about the work of Christ
And the fact that God identified you with Him by means of imputation.
So what you must come to grips with at the start is this truth.
· Christ has sanctified you.
· Christ has set you apart.
THIS IS DEFINITIVE SANCTIFICATION.
He died, He was buried, He rose to new life.
He did it all.
By being identified with Him you reaped the benefits of His actions.
· You received freedom from sin.
· You received a new life to be lived for God.
And all Paul is asking of you at the start is that you recognize that.
He is asking you to impute that reality to your life.
See yourself as being “in Christ Jesus”
STOP seeing yourself as a sinner bound in sin
START seeing yourself as a free man who has died to sin through Christ.
STOP seeing yourself as a sinner who finds enjoyment in the things of this world
START seeing yourself as a man who has new life in Christ to please God.
You had no problem identifying yourself as a fallen human sinner.
You had no problem seeing the effects of Adam in your life.
Well now see the effects of Christ.
You aren’t in Adam anymore, you are in Christ.
· Christ is now working to re-humanize you.
· Christ is now working to recreate you in the image of God.
· He killed the old man with all it’s corruption.
· He raised a new man to life able to serve God.
You aren’t in Adam anymore, you are in Christ.
THAT’S THE POINT.
· Can you see what Christ has done for you?
· Can you see that you are in Christ?
· Can you see that He has made you new?
2 Corinthians 5:17 “Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature; the old things passed away; behold, new things have come.”
Romans 8:1-4 “Therefore there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and of death. For what the Law could not do, weak as it was through the flesh, God did: sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and as an offering for sin, He condemned sin in the flesh, so that the requirement of the Law might be fulfilled in us, who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.”
TO BE CERTAIN
· There are going to be some commands that you are called to obey.
· We are going to talk about progressive sanctification; that synergistic work where you strive and fight and labor to walk in truth.
· We are in no way going to skip over all of that.
But before we get to that
You need to see that what Christ already did for you.
It’s a lot easier to walk out of the prison cell
When you realize that Christ has opened the door.
Shane and Shane sing a song I like:
“I’m fighting a battle, You’ve already won. No matter what comes my way, I will overcome. I don’t know what You’re doing, but I know what You’ve done. I’m fighting a battle, You’ve already won.”
THAT’S TRUE.
We are fighting, but He already won it.
You’ve had enough failure in Adam.
Now enjoy victory in Christ.
He is the face of the freedom God has granted you.