I should like to call your attention this morning to the first two verses in the sixth chapter of Paul's epistle to the Romans. The epistle to the Romans, chapter six, and the first two verses. What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound? God forbid. How shall we that are dead to sin live any longer therein? And I want to deal particularly with that second verse and the parallel, similar, complementary statements which are found in this chapter. God forbid, how shall we that are dead to sin live any longer therein? Now the apostle who wrote this sixth chapter and the following chapters In reply to that question that he puts forward in this first verse, what shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound? It wasn't that he himself thought of that question, but that he knew that many, possibly in Rome and certainly many elsewhere, were very definitely raising that question in the light of the apostle's own teaching. And it's a question that the natural mind will always raise when it reads the kind of thing that the Apostle says in the fifth chapter of this epistle to the Romans. There he had been working out his great doctrine of the imputation of the righteousness of Christ to the believer. He'd wound it up in that magnificent statement of his, where sin abounded, grace did much more abound. And at once the natural mind says, well, of course, if that's so. If it's true to say in a sense that the more sin abounds, grace does much more abound, well, let us sin. The more we sin, the more grace will abound. So grace becomes a wonderful cloak for sin, indeed almost an encouragement to sin. The apostle therefore knew that many did argue in that way. He was constantly being charged with teaching what is called antinomianism, that his gospel of grace was such as to give the impression that law no longer counted in any sense at all and that sin didn't matter, but nothing mattered save this wonderful grace of God that covered our sins in such an overwhelming manner. So the apostle, by his teacher as he was, anticipates this criticism even from the church at Rome and takes it up at once and deals with it. He rejects it with horror God forbid, he says. And then he goes on to say, not only is it unreasonable and an utterly false deduction to draw from his teaching, but that furthermore, anybody who ever thinks like that, who speaks like that, is showing quite clearly that he's never understood the doctrine. For the doctrine of Paul, truly understood, is a doctrine which teaches not only that grace does not incite one to sin, but that grace in a sense makes it impossible for one to sin, and that ultimately its grand purpose is to deliver us entirely from sin and all its consequences. Now that is what the apostle does. Now I am calling your attention to it all this morning, not precisely in that way. but from a slightly different angle. It's the same argument exactly, but we are going to deal with his argument not in reply to this theoretical question that he poses, but in a slightly more practical manner. We have been engaged for a number of Sunday mornings now with this problem, this question, which we have described as spiritual depression. We are considering the case of the miserable Christian. The case of men and women who, while clearly Christian, are not happy in their Christian lives and are not enjoying their Christian lives. We are considering the case of those Christians whose lives seem to be bound in shallows and in miseries. And we've been considering some of the greatest causes of that and applying the remedy and the cure which is provided for us in the New Testament scriptures. Now we come, therefore, to another cause of this depression, this defeatism, this unhappiness in the Christian life as it afflicts so many. And the particular one that obviously is dealt with here is depression or disappointment or unhappiness in the Christian life which arises from a sense of failure in living the Christian life. the sense of depression that arises because we tend to feel that we are being conquered by sin rather than conquering sin. There are many people like that. They've been Christians for years and yet they're ever unhappy and are always analyzing themselves and condemning themselves. And this is the cause. They say, I don't seem to be living this Christian life as it should be lived. I'm not getting this sense of victory and of conquest. They're aware of failure in the actual practical living of the Christian life, and particularly in this whole question of the conflict with sin and with evil and with temptation. Now that's a very great subject, of course, and there are many causes for that failure, and many causes of that feeling. But we can be perfectly certain that the main cause, the fundamental cause, of which all the other causes are but subsidiary manifestations, the central cause is the thing that the apostle deals with in this chapter. And that is, I say, a failure to realize our true and full relationship to the death of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. And that is the thing to which I want to call your attention this morning. This is Palm Sunday. Now the apostles' whole concern here is to deliver men and women from that appalling misunderstanding and incomplete understanding of the death of the Lord Jesus Christ upon the cross. Very well then, I say, that raises acutely for us this profound question. What exactly was happening there? What was it? What's it mean? What does it really say to us? God grant that we may take hold upon this, not only that our thinking may be adequate during these coming days, but in order that we may enter into the glorious liberty of the children of God. It is only a true understanding of the cross that does that, and all sanctification comes out of the cross. The cross is central in all these matters. Very well then, what is it? Well now then, the answer is this. The Apostle rarely has been giving the whole answer in the previous chapter, the fifth chapter, not the whole answer, but the basic consideration. It's there, starting at that twelfth verse, where we begin to read in the fifth chapter, and it runs right through this present sixth chapter, and indeed goes on also to the seventh. The way to understand what really happened on the cross on Calvary's Hill is to know something about the biblical doctrine of the covenant. The biblical doctrine of the covenant. I say you don't begin to understand the cross until you understand the covenant. What do I mean by that? I mean this. The way to approach the cross is to understand the great covenant that was made between God the Father and God the Son before the very foundation of the world. A covenant was there made between the Father and the Son, and it was this. God knew that man was going to sin and going to fall, and of all the consequences of sin and the fall. And he made a covenant with his Son, and he gave unto his Son certain people out of humanity who were to be redeemed and rescued. And the Son came into the world to do that. Do you remember how he puts it himself? In his great high priestly prayer, there, just under the very shadow of the cross, listen. As thou hast given him power over all flesh, that he should give eternal life to as many as thou hast given him. Read again the 17th of John. It's a great exposition of this idea of the covenant. God has given these people to the Son, and the Son came into the world to do something to redeem and to rescue those people. And furthermore, it goes on to say this, that all these people are in union with the Lord Jesus Christ. They're all bound to him. Now take this great working out of the argument in the fifth chapter of this epistle to the Romans. Did you notice it? Here was the argument. Paul keeps on saying that the relationship of Christians to the Lord Jesus Christ is exactly the same as was the relationship of the whole of mankind to Adam. You noticed how he kept on saying it, as in Adam, so in Christ. He repeats that argument in the first epistle to the Corinthians and in the 15th chapter. But here it is, as by one man's offense, so by one man's obedience. Adam, Christ. It's an exact parallel. And this is his argument. In Adam, he tells us, the whole human race fell. Why? Well, for this reason. that Adam was not only the head of the human race, he was also the representative of the human race. The whole of the human race was in Adam. Moreover, God appointed Adam as the federal head and representative of the entire human race. So this is what happened. When Adam sinned and fell, the entire human race sinned and fell with him. That's the argument of the fifth of Romans. Read it again for yourselves at leisure. He says, Wherefore as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin. And so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned, and they all sinned in Adam. It is his one transgression that did it. It's no use saying that you don't like that sort of statement. You either accept the scripture or you don't. It's not you saying, I think it's unfair. My dear friend, are you pitting your little mind against that of God and God's gracious purpose? That is the teaching of the scripture. That we are all in Adam, and we've all fallen with Adam. And we've all derived the consequences of Adam's sin. That is the doctrine of original sin and of original guilt. And thank God for the bat, for it brings in the entire gospel. Now comes the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God. And the statement and the argument is that all who believe in him now are in the same relationship to him, the Lord Jesus Christ, as they were before to Adam. with the Lord Jesus Christ in a vital and in a mystical sense. The Father has given us to him and we are joined to him. He is in us and we are in him. The union of the believer with Christ. It's a great doctrine in the scripture and I'm suggesting this moment that we cannot possibly understand the true meaning of the cross unless we are clear about this doctrine of the covenant and of the mystical union of believers with the Lord Jesus Christ. Now then, what does it mean? It means this. All that happened to him has also happened to us, therefore. Adam sinned because of the relationship. We sinned with him. Christ has done certain things because of the relationship that subsists between us. We have also done those things. That's the argument of these two chapters. Now then, the Lord Jesus Christ, you say, died on our behalf. Yes, perfectly true. But it is equally true to say this, that as he was doing it all, we were doing it in him and with him. That's the proof. That's the case. So we are told a number of things in this chapter and elsewhere in the scriptures. Here are some of them. We are told that we were crucified with him. The apostle goes on saying that not only in this epistle but in the epistle to the Galatians and elsewhere. I have been crucified with Christ. I was crucified with Christ, he says. So that on the cross and Calvary it isn't simply that the Son of God was being crucified, I was being crucified with him because I am in him, I am bound to him. Not only that, we've died with him. Knowing not that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into his death. We are baptized into him. Forget water baptism at that point. The important thing is that it means that we are incorporated into him. That is the way he describes the union. The means don't matter at that point at all. The fact is that we are baptized into Christ. We have all, says the apostle again in 1 Corinthians 12 verse 13, we have all been baptized by one spirit into this one body, the body of Christ which is the church. That's it. Now then, there is the indissoluble union, and therefore he says, because of that we have died with him. Indeed, he goes further, we are buried with him, we have been buried with him by baptism into death. You see, everything that's happened to him has happened to us. That's the inevitable conclusion which you must draw from this doctrine of the covenant and of the union. And then he goes on to say that we're not only buried with him, but that we've also risen with him. Of course, we must. Everything that happens to him has happened to us. If we are one with him, nothing happens to him, but that it happens to us also. So we are risen again. If he, therefore, be risen with Christ, he says, God willing, we are going to consider that next Sunday morning. And indeed, the apostle, you remember, goes even further in the second chapter of the epistle to the Ephesians, in the fifth verse. where he actually says that we've not only been quickened with him and raised with him, but that we are seated with him in the heavenly places, and we must be. If this doctrine of the union is correct, and it's the whole teaching of the scripture, everything that happens to him happens to us, so we are seated with him in the heavenly places. Now then, There then, I say, are the specific actual statements which are made here by the Apostle. And his concern is to say that in the light of all this, this argument of let us continue in sin that grace may be abound is something that is utterly inconceivable. Indeed, it is impossible. It can't happen. But we this morning are concerned in particular with this aspect of the crucifixion and the death. And what are we told about that? Well, there are certain statements again which are made here and which the apostle makes elsewhere, and I must call your attention to them. The first thing that he tells us, therefore, that must be true of us because of all that is this. We are dead to sin. That's the second verse. God forbid, he says. How shall we that are dead to sin live any longer? Now at this point, the authorized version is not only poor and weak, but it's misleading. This is one of those cases where the revised version is altogether superior. What it really is saying is this, God forbid, how shall we that have died to sin live any longer therein. It isn't our dead. It's something that's happened once and for all. We have died to sin. That's the apostle's statement. He then goes on to show how we have died to sin. Because of this union being baptized into him and therefore into everything that happened to him. But here's the result. We have died to sin. Every Christian is a person who has died to sin. Now that's not an argument, it's a categorical statement. But again he puts it like this in the sixth verse. Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with him. Again, he takes a revised version. Our old man was crucified with him? When was my old man crucified with him? When he was crucified on the cross on Calvary's hill. That's the significance of the cross. My old men, my old nature was, has been crucified with Christ. It's happened. That's the sixth verse of this sixth chapter of the epistle to the Romans. And then there are other statements which he deduces and he puts them in this form. The result of all this is that we who are Christians are dead to the law. We have died to the law. I'll explain in a moment what that means. But the categorical fact is that we have died, we are dead to the Lord. And again he puts it like this in Galatians 6 and the 14th verse. God forbid that I should glory save in the cross on my Lord Jesus Christ by whom the world has been crucified unto me. and I have been crucified unto the world. I have been crucified unto the world, and the world has been crucified unto me. Those are his deductions. And finally, he has this astounding statement in the third chapter of the epistle to the Colossians, in the third verse. You are dead. You are dead. and your life is hid with Christ in God. Now here surely are the most momentous statements that can ever confront us while we're in this life. What's it all mean? What's it all amount to? What am I to say to myself in the light of all these things? Now here are the deductions which I would put for your consideration. The first is this, that all these things are facts. They are not something that I am to regard as if they were facts. That isn't what the apostle is saying. All this doctrine is a statement of fact. Now let me put it in as bold and as blunt and as challenging a manner as I can. I'll put it like this. I am as much in Christ at this moment as I shall ever be. Do you agree with it? I am as much in Christ now as I shall be when I'm in the glory. It's a fact. It is something that has happened. It is something that has been done by God. I have died with him. I have been buried with him. I have risen with him. I am seated with him in the heavenly places. Now let's be clear about this. My knowledge of that and my realization of that can grow and increase and develop, and they should. But as to the fact itself, that can't grow, that can't develop. You are either in Christ or else you're not in Christ. You can't be partly in and partly out. You can't be going in and out. You are either in Christ forever or you're not in Christ. The thing itself is a fact. And you know half our troubles and half our depressions are due to this, that we confuse the fact and our consciousness of it. I was talking in this pulpit last Friday night about Martin Luther and the Reformation and the doctrine of justification by faith only. Do you know it was the realization of that that set that man free? He'd never realized the difference between the fact and the consciousness of it. And it was when he came to realize the fact that his soul was set at liberty, and he began to sing, and the whole world began to sing in the glorious Protestant doctrine. And here it is again. I say that I am in Christ. My realization of it varies, but the fact is an absolute. It's an eternal fact. That's the argument of the apostle. And therefore all these things are of necessity true. Here's the second deduction, therefore. I am never called upon in the scripture to crucify myself. Never. The scripture never calls upon me to crucify myself or to crucify the old man that is in me. But we are often told to do that, are we not? This is how this doctrine of the cross is often preached. People say, Christ has been crucified for you. All that remains now is that you submit to be crucified yourself with him. Haven't you heard it like that? That's how it's generally preached. Christ has been crucified for you, but now you've got to give yourself up to crucifixion with him. I say that that is totally and completely unscriptural. It is something that is never found in the scripture at all, because it's something that you and I cannot do. I'll tell you something still more wonderful. If you're a Christian, you have no need to do that for this good reason. It's already happened. I have been crucified with Christ. I was crucified with Christ when he died on the cross on Calvary's hill. It's happened there. I'm not called upon to crucify myself because the thing has already taken place. When he died, I died with him. You are dead. I live, yet no longer I. That's it. I have been crucified with Christ. So my friends, let's be careful. Of that false devotional attitude towards the cross, which has ever been the bane of pietism, it's quite wrong. Yes, you are told to crucify the flesh with its affections and its lusts, You were told to mortify your members which are on the earth, but what you're never told to do is to crucify yourself. And if you're trying to, you're wasting your time. You never do it and it's quite unnecessary. I say the thing to do is to realize that it's happened. Knowing this, listen to it again, knowing this, that our old man was crucified with him. It's taken place on Calvary's cross. so that I go on to my third conclusion, which is this. The old Adamic man that I once was is dead and is no longer in existence. Let me open that up just a little. Every one of us born into this world is born a child of Adam. We inherit from him that old sinful nature, which is governed and controlled by sin and is opposed to God. The natural, the carnal mind is enmity against God, is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be. And we're all born like that. We're all born God-haters. We are all born rebels against God, every one of us, without a single exception. Every child born into this world starts with a prejudice against God. We all dislike him and hate him. We wish he wasn't there. Ah, but you say that's going to... It's true of every one of us. And it is only as we are taught and are given to see and to know the truth that we get rid of it. It's in everybody. That's my old Adamic nature. But this is the glorious truth. I'm no longer that. My old Adamic nature died with Christ upon the cross. It wasn't only Christ who was dying there. My old man was dying with him. He took on him human nature. He took on him our sins. He was made sin for us. And that is how it happened. We were dying with him. all for whom he came died with him there, that he might give eternal life to them. So that we must say with the apostle here that our old man was, has been crucified with him and he's no longer here. Now I assert that, and we must all assert that, and that's the way to get rid of spiritual depression, and that's the way to put the devil to flight, to say, I am no longer a child of Adam, I am in Christ. That old Adamic man has been dealt with once and forever, and can never come back. You see, it's only when you say something like that that people begin to think you're preaching antinomianism. And it was because he said things like that people thought Paul was preaching antinomianism. It's the charge that's always been brought against this great doctrine of grace. But it's inevitable. So I go on to another deduction to put it still more strongly. The law as a system set against me and that condemns me is no longer there as far as I am concerned. Now you notice what I say. That doesn't mean that you and I don't have to keep the Ten Commandments. I say that the law, as a system set against me and under which I'm living, and which is condemning me, as far as I am concerned as a Christian, is no longer in existence. I am dead to the law, and the law is dead to me. Because of Christ's perfect work with respect to it. Let me hurry on to the next conclusion which puts all that positively. Listen to Paul saying it. There is therefore now no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus. Ah, but you say, how can that be true because I sin and I'm conscious of sin and failure and I'm made unhappy by my sin. Does that mean that Paul was claiming sinless perfection? Of course it doesn't. What Paul is saying is this. that I am no longer under condemnation, there is therefore no longer any condemnation for me for this reason, that the man in me that was under the law has died with Christ. I am no longer under the condemnation of the law. Of course I feel condemned when I sin, but I go to God and I confess it, and the blood of Jesus Christ cleanses me. I'm no longer under a state of condemnation. That has been finished with. I'm out of the court. I'm a free man. The court has nothing more to do with me. I have passed from judgment to life. Those are scriptural statements. And you see, it is only as you and I take hold of these things and stand upon them that we can enjoy the glorious liberty of the children of God. We must assert that there is no condemnation for us. There cannot be. Because the man in me that was under condemnation has been dealt with and has died, has gone out of existence. He is not there. So I go on to say another thing, which is this. I no longer belong to the realm of sin. I no longer belong to the dominion of Satan. Sin shall not have dominion over you, says Paul, for you are not under the law, but under grace. How often does he say that sort of thing? You have been translated from the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of his dear son. He was given the commission by the risen Lord himself on the road to Damascus to preach that. Teaching them, he says, and enlightening them, and turning them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan unto God. The Christian is not under the dominion of Satan, he's no longer under the power of Satan, he's been translated out of that, he's been put into a new kingdom. And John, they all say the same thing. Do you remember John, in that first epistle of his there, right at the very end, says this mighty and magnificent thing? We know that whosoever is born of God sinneth not, but he that is begotten of God keepeth himself, and that wicked one toucheth him not. And we know that we are of God and that the whole world lies in the wicked one. We don't. I no longer belong to the realm of sin or to the dominion of Satan. And this isn't boastfulness. This isn't the kind of spiritual arrogance. This isn't foolhardiness. This is faith. I must say this and it is only as I say this that I can meet Satan. I turn to him and say, you can't touch me. Resist the devil and he'll flee from you. This is using the sword of the spirit. This is having the shield of faith in the other hand. This is taking unto me the whole armor of God and standing upon faith and defying hell and the devil in the name of this Christ to whom I belong. The statement, I no longer belong to the world. And I don't hesitate to say that. Thank God. I don't belong to the world with its mind and its outlook and its power and all that it represents. I make my boast in the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ by which the world has been crucified unto me and I have been crucified unto the world. Don't you want to say that? Don't you rejoice in saying it? If the world is still to you what it always has been, you're not a Christian. By nature, we all belong to the world and we love it and we like its things. By nature, we all like the kind of life that's depicted in the newspapers with its supposed glamour and its excitement and its thrill and its wonder. A very good way of knowing whether you're a Christian or not is this. Is that the sort of thing that still appeals to you? You see, when you become a Christian, there's no need to argue about it. A shutter drops. You don't know why you no longer want those things. Something's happened to you, you can't help yourself. They've become distasteful. You see how small and untrivial they are. You've finished with them. Something in you has finished with them. Quite right. You're a new creature. The old man, you see, who belonged to that is dead, is not there. That's the lung of the shirt of it. It's a support and a proof of the Apostle's great argument. Are you still with me, my friends? Well, I wonder whether you'll come still further with me, or whether you're now about to think that I'm about to become a heretic. Listen. I'm going to say this to you. Listen carefully to me. If then I do that which I would not, I consent unto the law that it is good. Now then, this is what I'm going to say. Now then, it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me. I must say that if all I've said so far is true, this must be true. When I as a Christian sin, it is no longer I that am doing it, but it is sin that dwelleth in me. It's my flesh. It's this law that's in my members, not in me. Is that heresy? Well, you notice I'm quoting Paul from the Seventh of Romans. I wouldn't dare say such a thing myself. But Paul says it, and to make doubly certain, he says it twice. There it is in verse 17 of the 7th chapter, now then it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me. Listen to verse 20. Now if I do that I would not, it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me. He says it twice over. Because he knows what fearful creatures we are, and how lacking in faith we are, and how fearful we are. But he says you must say it. If all I've said is true, this must be true. What's it mean? Well, I think it means this. He's already said it, you see, in the second verse of the sixth chapter. How shall we that are dead to sin, who have already died to sin, live any longer therein? Now, I am dead to sin. There's no need to argue, says Paul. It's an absolute fact. What happened to you in Christ and with Christ on the cross means that you are dead to sin, that you are finished with it and with its role. You yourself. Yes, but notice this. Though I myself am dead to sin, what the apostle calls a body of sin remains in me. Take verse 6. knowing this, that our old man has been crucified with Christ in order that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin. A kind of body of sin remains in me and that still has to be destroyed. I myself am built of sin, finished with it, but there is a kind of relic or remnant of sin left in me. This body of sin, this sin in my flesh, this sin within my members, you notice he puts it like this, I know that in me, then in brackets, that is in my flesh, dwelleth no good thing. That's the flesh, this body of sin, and that's why the apostle looked forward so much to the redemption of the body, you see. He keeps on talking about this redemption of the body. Yes, this relic, this remnant, this body of sin remains in the body, in the flesh, but not in me. And therefore it is no longer I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me. And that, therefore, according to his mighty argument, is the relationship of the Christian to sin and to living the Christian life, and it all arises from this doctrine of the cross. Yes, while we are left in this world, we'll have this problem of the body of sin that remains, and the apostle tells us how to deal with it, and the essence of it is this. There's no time. Obviously, I'm simply giving you the essence of his argument. It's this. Verse 11. Likewise, reckon yourselves also to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God. Now that doesn't mean that you persuade yourself of something that isn't true. What it means is this, that you say to yourself, I am dead to sin. All these things are true of me. Yes, well very well, because all these things are true of me, am I going to allow myself to be subjected to this body of sin that remains in me? Certainly not. I'm going to reject it, I'm going to repulse it, because I know these things. In other words, the way to fight this fight against the remnant, the body of sin that remains is to stand upon your doctrine, to say these things to yourself and to the devil and to every temptation. And then to go on to say what we'll be looking at next Sunday morning about our having risen with Christ, about the new life that's in us, about his life in us, and about the Spirit that he gives us, and the power, and all these things. But wait a minute, start with this doctrine. I have been crucified with Christ. I am no longer under condemnation, nor ever can be. I am dead to sin. dead to the world. And because of that, I'm not going to be foolish enough to allow a thing like that to control me. Sin shall not have dominion over you. It can't have, it mustn't have, it won't have. And therefore I mustn't yield my members as instruments of unrighteousness and of sin, but I must yield my members and myself as those who are alive from the dead unto righteousness and unto God. Well, there it is very hurriedly and I'm afraid inadequately. But my dear friend, if you've got this, you've got the fundamental postulate out of which you can deduce all the rest. When the Lord Jesus Christ was crucified on the cross on Calvary's hill, you were also being crucified with him. Your old Adamic men that you were died there. He is no longer in existence. Realize that. Thank God for it. Rejoice in it. And face every problem in life, in death, everywhere in the light of that glorious knowledge. Stand fast, therefore, in the liberty wherewith Christ hath set you free. Glory in it and in the cross by which All this has been brought to pass. Amen. We do hope that you've been helped by the preaching of Dr. Martin Lloyd-Jones. The MLJ Trust retains exclusive copyright ownership to all audio files of Dr. Lloyd-Jones sermons, including all derivatives, such as translations, modifications, or edited versions of the files. You must gain written permission to license, distribute, or broadcast the audio files, and under no circumstance may the files be offered for sale to or by a third party. You can find our contact information on our website at mljtrust.org. Thank you.