You Have Been Set Free from Sin -- Romans 6:15-23

The Fourteenth in a Series of Sermons on Paul's Epistle to the Romans

One of the most important themes in Paul’s theology is union with Christ.  Through faith, all believers are united to Jesus Christ and thereby receive all of his saving benefits.  In Romans 6, Paul makes the point that because we are “in Christ,” we have been crucified with Christ, buried and entombed with him by virtue of our baptism, and raised from the dead with Christ to newness of life.  We have been set from sin’s horrible consequence (which is death), from it’s shameful guilt (which is condemnation) and its desperate tyranny (which is slavery to the flesh).  And so to establish a basis for sanctification, Paul reminds us that in Christ we have died and rise to newness of life.  This is why Paul’s discussion of sanctification begins with the exhortation for all Christians to reckon ourselves dead to sin, but alive to God (Romans 6:11).

Having established in Romans 5:12-21 that Adam is federal head of the human race under the covenant of works, and that Jesus Christ is the federal head of all those under the covenant of grace, in Romans 6:1-14, Paul addresses the subject of sanctification.  To properly understand Paul’s doctrine of sanctification, we must understand that what is said throughout Romans 6, 7, and 8, only makes sense in light of the important distinctions set out in the last half of Romans 5.  The havoc Adam’s disobedience brought upon the human race, must be seen in light of Jesus Christ’s obedience through which the many are made or reckoned as righteous.

As Paul sets forth his gospel, it becomes clear that all those freely and instantaneously justified through faith also begin the process of sanctification through that same act of faith at the time of their justification.  The point is important, so I’ll say it again:  Paul cannot conceive of someone who is justified, who is also not undergoing the process of sanctification.  Although in evangelical circles we commonly hear people speak of a two-stage Christian life–someone “accepting” Jesus as their Savior, but not yet making him Lord of their lives–such a notion would be inconceivable to Paul.  For Paul, we are either in Adam or in Christ.  If we remain in Adam, we are subject to sin, condemnation and death.  If we are in Christ, we are set from these very things because we have died and risen to newness of life.

To use one writer’s phrase, we have been transferred from the realm (dominion) of Adam to the realm or dominion of Christ through faith, something Paul will later tell us is a gift of God which arises in direct connection with the preaching of the gospel (cf. Romans 10:17).  At the time of this transfer from Adam to Christ, something definitive occurred, seen in the way in which Paul speaks of these events as completed acts (the use of the aorist tense).  It is because we are now under the dominion of Christ, we must look to the pattern of Jesus Christ’s life, death, burial and resurrection as the pattern for our own sanctification.  As Jesus was crucified, died and was buried, so are we.  And even as Jesus was raised from the dead, so too are we!  This is the lens through which we must think about our sanctification.

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