Last night I was leading a study on Romans 6. Our group could not help but notice that Paul was anticipating the believer’s victory over sin in light of what Jesus had accomplished….

We have been buried with Him through baptism into death, in order that as Christ was raised from the dead, so we too might walk in newness of life.

Paul was teaching that since we have been crucified with Christ we have been liberated from our old master (sin). Neither sin nor death have any further authority over us. In our inner most beings we have been liberated from their tyrannical reign. I asked my friends last night, “In light of these truths, “Had it been their experience that sin no longer reigned in their lives?”  “No”, most replied, “Sin seemed to still have influence.” Our collective question then was, “Why is this?” Let’s explore this question and another related one.

Since coming to believe in Christ nearly four decades ago, I have kept an ongoing question before the Lord. It has been, “What is Your part Lord? And what is mine?” I’ve never heard the Lord say, “Robert” (that is my legal name), “This is My list and here is yours.” My answers, as best I can understand them, have come slowly through an ongoing process of living continually in His presence and in the light of His Word. (This might sound arrogant but its not about me. You can never escape His presence, even if your were to go to the remotest part of the sea). In regard to hearing God’s voice on these matters; this dynamic moment by moment process of living with Him is far more intimate than a few sentences exchanged now and then (that might come after I have prayed adequately.)

As I read Colossians 3 this morning, I could not help but see Paul’s consistency in the way he addressed these questions. His comments dovetail perfectly with Romans 6 where Paul put it like this …..

Keep doing the calculation.  Recall as often as necessary the irreversible fact that Christ is our new master. Now that we have been included into Christ’s very own death and His resurrection, our ties to sin’s regime have been permanently severed. Once for all men. Once for all time, to all those who trust in Christ. So, what is our part? In Romans 6 Paul says, since you are now serving a new Master, having become slaves to righteousness, (my paraphrase) …..

…. present the members of your body to God as those alive from the dead as instruments of righteousness from God.

One of the questions in our study was, “If he were standing among us here in the twenty first century, what would Paul say about our spirituality as he contrasted it with his own first century experience?” My thought was that he might think that we had misunderstood some things about grace which have led us to an unhealthy passivity. In light of all Paul’s commands, I think he might wonder where our zeal and intentionality were in the doing of our part. I think he might wonder where are all the testimonies of those whose stories reflect the liberation of their innermost beings. He might say to us twenty first century disciples, “Here is your part……….

Persevere in the calculation. Realize continually that the members of your earthly bodies are actually dead to sin; Set your mind and keep thinking on the things above. Let the word of Christ richly dwell within you. And while you are doing the math and regularly calculating that it is no longer you who live but Christ lives in you and that Christ is now your life, live like this ……

Put aside: anger, wrath, malice, slander, andabusive speech from your mouth. Do not lie to one another, since you laid aside the old self with its evil practices, and have put on the new self who is being renewed to a true knowledge according to the image of the One who created him…..

Put on a heart of compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience; bearing with one another, and forgiving each other, whoever has a complaint against anyone; just as the Lord forgave you, so also should you…..

Put on love, which is the perfect bond of unity. Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts. Be thankful. Admonish one another. In summary, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus. 

Back to my group’s question; Why then does it seem that sin still has stroke in our lives? Is it because we are just like Paul and have found that the principle of evil is is present in us, making us slaves once again to sin? When we stumble and sin (and we all do), what calculations do our minds do? If we do depravity-math on Romans 7:14-24 won’t we have grounds for excusing ourselves from the victorious life over sin he seemed to have been proclaiming and anticipating in the previous chapter?

Let’s just say that we have stumbled and sinned. Shall we agree with depravity-math, “Yep. I’m of the flesh. Sold into bondage to sin. I practice the very things I hate. It’s not really me doing it. It’s sin indwelling and reigning over me. There is nothing good in me. I practice evil. But again, I remind myself, I’m not the one doing it. What a wretched man I am. Does this really sound like Paul to you? Can you reconcile this reasoning with Romans 6 and the balance of Paul’s victorious new testament instruction and commentary?

It’s all about our identity. Oh how familiar this line of thinking is to me. For much of my Christian life, when I would sin, I did this calculus; “I have proved it yet once again. Yes, its true; (with much self loathing) I am nothing but a wretch. My heart is utterly depraved. In fact, my heart is exactly as Jeremiah has said,

It is more deceitful than all else and is desperately sick; who can understand it? (This is my old life verse. I’m not kidding.)

I pray you are tracking with me. I wasn’t sure if I was connecting with our group last night or not. What I was trying to say is that I used to do the calculation with the wrong variables and come up, naturally, with the wrong answer. If I sin, the bad math I just described can become a path of least resistance. Here is that fumbling calculation; I am hamstrung (just like Paul supposedly was) by sin. I may be saved by grace so… I will hopefully get to heaven someday. But until then my besetting sins are going to be a problem because I am, by nature, a sinner. That’s just who I am. My behavior proves this to me time after time. (I can testify that this reasoning betrays a major identity crisis and that, for his disciples, those bad roots will produce bad fruit.)

Are we just “sinners” as many of our hymns, teachers and consciences have testified? Is that our identity? Is the deepest truth about us that we are just sinners saved by grace? Or, should we plug in the fact that we are now saints, those whom Christ has ransomed out of that old identity in hopes that we too (like Himself) will shine brightly, giving credence to the gospel’s claims of liberty. Think about this; Besides a hope of heaven after we die, what is the good news about being set free from sin when we still finding it ruling in our members?

Oh the religious hamster wheel that we spin when we do this math wrong! There can be nothing more exhausting than attempting to live a life pleasing to God as a sinner. With this lie about our identity operating at the foundation of our being we are left with our works, our compliance, our strategies of sin management, and our religious traditions as an inadequate salve to sooth a conscience that is never really free of its guilt and shame. How could it be? I’m just a sinner after all. (maximum sarcasm intended).

I have battled sin as a sinner and I have battled it as a saint. There is no comparison in outcomes. As a sinner, I was defeated before I began. No matter how well I think I had strapped on my armor, I was still exposed to a million fiery guilt-producing missiles from Satan. My breast plate of God’s righteousness was not in place when I thought of myself fundamentally as only a sinner. Here I was fighting from defeat with a servant/slave mentality and rarely seeing victory.

From the presumptuous (and, I believe, correct) notion that I am a saint, I have been knocked down hard before. But as a saint I don’t just lie there concluding that a TKO is normal. As familiar and even titillating as it might feel (for a moment), choosing sin is unnatural. So, if I sin I no longer view it as my fate or a confirmation of my fallen identity. Instead I fight from victory and reason that my choice to sin (again, however normal and good it might feel) is alien to my new nature. I hope you can see how doing the math with the essential variable of ourselves as new creations can, as Christ intended, lead us to a destiny of victorious outcomes.

Oh how different Romans 6:23 looks in light of our new identities and In light of a true kingdom gospel!

For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

In the old “sinner” paradigm, eternal life is that life we get only after our physical bodies have expired. From that limited and defeatist position, the great hope of the Christian is the Rapture, where our futile attempts at rightousness are no more because we are getting new bodies without the same native entanglements to sin. From God’s kingdom paradigm, where Christ is reclaiming the domain of men’s hearts, and ultimately His earth, Christ’s Life is now our life. We have eternal life now. It is unfortunate that we call it “death” when our bodies finally poop out because, in reality, those whom Christ has made right with God are not going to taste death. Remember sin and death no longer have any claim upon us.

Even now, for those who have ears to hear, we can taste and proclaim that we are living out of His Life which is now our own. He is the free gift of God, who is even now our eternal life. This is the good news of the kingdom of God. This is the full gospel. It is so so much more than dying and going to heaven! Many of us need to crunch a number which will represent how much eternal life we actually have on top of what we previously had perceived as eternity. This =

Our years yet to live x 365 D/Y x 24 H/D x 60 M/H x 60 S/M (cross check with Psalm 90:12)

To my house church family in particular, I sincerely pray this is clearer. Perhaps you could let me know if we are making headway. In another place Paul stated like this….

We’re free of it (that old constricting paradigm)! All of us! Nothing between us and God, our faces shining with the brightness of his face. And so we are transfigured much like the Messiah, our lives gradually becoming brighter and more beautiful as God enters our lives and we become like him. 2 Corinthians 3:17-18 MSG)

It turns out that our part and responsibility is much larger where salvation by grace is into an eternal life that is a now life as opposed to an after-death life. We are now kingdom citizens who are in partnership with the reigning king who will bring about His unending kingdom, one heart at a time.  I believe Paul writings will make much more sense to us as we look at them through this lens.

Father, aid us in casting down every right sounding doctrine that has exalted itself above the true knowledge of the new covenant and our inherent new creation-identities. Deliver us from every salve that we use to pacify our consciences where they are laboring under guilt and condemnation. Persevere with us Father until we truly are resting in the security of our new identities as sons and friends demonstrating newness of life. Fill your church with the fresh stories of liberation that come from this light. Thank You that you have done Your part and that it is indeed finished! How gracious and kind you are Lord in every way. Amen.