Identification Means the End of the Sin Nature’s Tyranny
Romans 6:3–7
Romans Lesson #069
August 9, 2012
www.deanbibleministries.org
If we come to understand what Paul says in the first eight verses of Romans chapter six the rest of the chapter is fairly easy. We see that at the instant of salvation Scripture says that we are baptized into Christ. Normally when we read passages that talk about being in Christ that is the Greek preposition EN, but what we have here when we are identified “in Christ” is the preposition EIS. It is important to understand the implication of that. It is very similar; these two prepositions often overlap. What it is focusing on is our identification with Christ in His death, burial and resurrection, which means that there is this radical break and transformation in relation to the sin nature that is the foundation for our spiritual life.
The key words we see here are sin and grace, died to sin, and then the contrast “how shall we live in it?”—the contrast between death and life—and then the phrases related to baptism in v. 3, “baptized into Christ Jesus” and “baptized into His death,” and in v. 4 “baptism into death”--all of these have to do with that basic idea of identification—for that ultimate goal of living day-to-day, moment-by-moment in “newness of life.” This promises real change, true transformation from what we were before we were saved to what God intends us to be.
There are a lot of people who are skeptical because they look around and see people who don’t change very much, and they don’t think that real change is possible. But this is the promise here that radical transformation is not only possible, it is expected of anybody who is a believer in Jesus Christ. We see that the verb baptism here is expressed as a past tense, indicating that this is something that has happened in the believer’s life. It is something that has occurred in the past and the way Paul talks about it is present results that are the result of this previous action. And the result is that we are to walk in newness of life. This is expressed as an imperative. It is a subjunctive but it is expressed as something that we should be doing.
We have seen previously that the word “baptism” means to dip, to plunge. When John the Baptist baptized in the Jordan River he was literally immersing people in the water. But it is not the physical immersion that is important, it is what it represented. It was a ritual that had a symbolic meaning and it was designed to teach something. It is a ritual that has the sense that it proclaimed a truth in the same way that communion does. It only has a reality for people who understand the significance. It is not the baptism that does anything, it is a teaching tool so that we understand what we also refer to as positional truth. Positional truth is a term that goes right over a lot of people’s heads because they don’t understand what the position is and what the truth is. Paul is talking about this as the foundation for understanding everything that we are to do in Christ.
To understand this is to give us the foundation for thinking about who we are and how we are supposed to live in terms of what Christ has done for us. It is re-tooling our thinking. Whatever image we have of ourselves, however we think about who we are, this is the image that is foundational: that we are transformed and have been identified with Christ in His death, burial and resurrection so that there is this definitive break with the tyranny of the sin nature.
At the instant that we trust in Christ God uses the Holy Spirit to identify us with Christ in His death, burial and resurrection. That is an eternal reality, an eternal position, the foundation for the Christian life. We are to walk in the light, and when we are walking in the light we are being filled by means of the Spirit with God’s Word. We are walking by means of the Spirit, walking in the light, walking in the truth, abiding in Christ; all of these terms mean roughly the same thing. But we sin, and when we sin we are out of fellowship and are walking in darkness. But positionally we are still “children of light.” That is why Paul said in Ephesians 5 that we are children of light and we are to walk as children of light; we are to live as children of light. Walking indicates day-by-day, moment-by-moment lifestyle. And the way to recover from carnality is to confess our sins (1 John 1:9) and we are instantly forgiven and cleansed of all unrighteousness and restored to fellowship.
The act of baptism is a radical reality, but it is not experiential. We have to walk by faith, not by feeling, not by sight, not by experience; we have to make this a foundational element in how we think about who we are and what we are supposed to do in our Christian life.
The baptism of Noah is a baptism that a lot of people have trouble with. It is connected to the incident in Genesis chapter six where we are told that the sons of God looked upon the daughters of men and saw that they were good to be their wives, and they cohabited with them. Later in the passage it talks about the product of that—men of renown and giants were on the earth in those days, indicating that there was some sort of monster children from these unions. Who were the sons of God? There are three different views and the only view that makes sense biblically is the view that these were the fallen angels, because that term “sons of God” in the Hebrew always refers to angelic beings in the Old Testament. The implication from various passages of Scripture is that angelic beings had the ability to transform themselves into human bodies with normal human biological functions. The 1 Peter chapter three passage is a reference back to those fallen angels who were identified as the sons of God, a term that refers to both fallen angels and elect angels.
1 Peter 3:18 NASB “For Christ also died for sins once for all, {the} just for {the} unjust, so that He might bring us to God, having been put to death in the flesh, but made alive in the spirit; [19] in which also He went and made proclamation [KERUGMA = announcement] to the spirits {now} in prison …” (“spirits” – PNEUMA in the plural often refers to angelic beings). So who are these spirits who are in prison? In Jude 6 and 1 Peter 3:19 we have this phrase that they are in prison in bonds of deep darkness. But in the parallel passage in 2 Peter 2:4 it is translated “into hell,” but literally in the Greek it is Tartarus, which is a compartment in what the Bible generally describes as Hades. It is viewed as the domain of the angels, part of which is the abyss where there are certain demonic armies confined until the second half of the Tribulation.
This gives us a picture of Sheol or Hades as it is described in Luke 16. Abraham’s bosom is where Old Testament believers went when they died, because the door hadn’t been opened to heaven yet because Christ is the firstfruits and is the first to open that. They were there until Christ dies, and at that point we are told that Paradise goes to heaven—2 Corinthians 12:1-4. So Paradise as a compartment in Hades or Sheol is vacated after the resurrection when all the Old testament believers are led into heaven. Torments remains as well as Tartarus. Torments is the holding cell for all unbelievers until they are resurrected at the end of the Millennial Kingdom for the Great White Throne Judgment. “ … [20] who [the spirits in prison] once were disobedient, when the patience of God kept waiting in the days of Noah …” This clearly states that these spirits did something at the time of Noah that is the cause of their incarceration. What could it be other than the sons of God and that infraction as they took on the form of human beings and sought to pollute the genetic pool of humanity. This was a satanic attack in order to prevent the seed of the woman being truly human. “… during the construction of the ark, in which a few, that is, eight persons, were brought safely through {the} water.”
The eight persons are Noah and his three sons and their four wives. They are brought safely through the water. The NKJV translation there is not accurate when it says “brought safely through the water.” The verb is an aorist form of the preposition DIA plus the verb SOZO, which means to be saved through something. So it should be translated “they were saved through the water.” They didn’t get wet though. Nobody gets wet in the real baptisms except those who are judged by God. But in the case of Noah they were saved through the water, it becomes a means of delivering them. They are elevated above everything in the ark and they are saved through the water.
Then we have an interesting statement that is difficult to capture in the next verse. 1 Peter 3:21 NASB “Corresponding to that …” What does that mean? Corresponding to what? The ark? Salvation through the water? English breaks down there because we don’t have relative pronouns and pronouns that have gender and indicate precisely the word to which they are referring. It is not “ark” because that is a masculine noun. It has to be water because water is a neuter noun and the ANTITUPOS and the pronoun translated “that” is a neuter pronoun. So “that” has to refer back to a neuter noun. The only neuter noun in the immediate context is water, so it is corresponding to the water. ANTITUPOS means a copy or a symbol. In the Lord’s table there are two elements: the symbol and what the symbol represents. The term that is used for the symbol is the Greek word TUPOS meaning a type, an image, a mark, a mould for something. Then what it represents/pictures is called the ANTITUPOS . So the type is the symbol and the antitype is the reality that the symbol represents. For example, the Passover lamb is the type, the symbolic representation. The Lamb of God, Jesus, is the antitype. That is what the type is depicting. In the same way what this is saying is that the flood water is the type; it is picturing something. Noah and his family are saved through the water.
We should ask another question. What kind of “saved” is this talking about? For Noah and his family that salvation is a physical deliverance. But when we get to 1 Peter 3:21 and it says, “Corresponding to that, baptism now saves you,” is this phase one (justification) or is this phase two (sanctification)? What is Peter talking about in this chapter? He is not giving us a dissertation on how to be justified or how to be regenerated. He is not talking about phase one in this chapter at all, he is talking about phase two—spiritual life truth. What Peter is saying here is that corresponding to that act of the deliverance of Noah and his family through water baptism now in the Christian life is the basis for our sanctification growth.
What baptism is he talking about? He tells us: “not the removal of dirt from the flesh.” This isn’t about ritual baptism; it is not believer’s baptism because it is not talking about that physical water baptism. It is “not the removal of dirt from the flesh, but an appeal to God for a good conscience,” and that relates to the cleansing of sin. Is that phase one or phase two? It has to be phase two. Then he says, “through the resurrection of Jesus Christ.” Is the resurrection of Christ related to justification, phase one, or the spiritual life, phase two? Resurrection is a spiritual life illustration. The death of Christ and His payment for sin is a justification focus—phase one. When we trust in Christ the penalty of sin is removed. But we still have the presence of sin. We have to be saved from the present reality of sin, and that is sanctification—newness of life.
The antitype is a baptism that is a present tense reality. There are only two options: water baptism or baptism by the Holy Spirit. It can’t be water baptism because Peter makes it clear it is not the removal of dirt by the water (it is not a physical thing) but it is a cleansing of the conscience. That is what it stands for. And it is through the resurrection of Christ.
Romans 6:4 NASB “Therefore we have been buried with Him through baptism into death …” Justification. That is identification. “… so that as Christ was raised from the dead (resurrection) through the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life.” Resurrection is related to newness of life. That is phase two. So Romans 6:4 is saying the same kind of thing that is said by Peter in 1 Peter 3:21. So Peter is saying that the baptism by the Holy Spirit has an ongoing reality because of our new position in Christ that is related to the resurrection model and imagery that is the basis for our new life in Christ. It is the same thing Paul is saying, that the baptism of the Holy Spirit, while it happened instantly at the time we were justified, the reality is that we have to understand this because it is going to revolutionize how we think about ourselves. We don’t think of ourselves anymore as someone who is a sinner (we are, by the way), that is not our fundamental identity anymore because our real identity is in Christ and we have been identified with His death, burial and resurrection. So we are no longer a bond slave to sin; we are a bond slave to righteousness. So why keep going back and making ourselves a slave to the sin nature? We don’t have to, but we all make those choices far too frequently.
All through the early church baptism was not viewed as something that was optional for the believer. If you trusted in Christ as your savior you were expected to be baptized almost immediately.
Acts 19 is at the end of Paul’s second missionary journey. Paul finds that there is a group of people who have learned about John the Baptist and his baptism and they come to him to hear what he has to teach. So he is asking questions to find out what they have understood and what their background is. Acts 19:3 NASB “And he [Paul] said, ‘Into what then were you baptized?’ And they said, ‘Into John’s baptism.’” Remember that John’s baptism was for the Jews in relationship to the kingdom message, so they are Old Testament believers. They don’t know anything about Jesus, about the day of Pentecost, anything about church age doctrine. So Paul tells them, [4] “John baptized with the baptism of repentance, telling the people to believe in Him who was coming after him, that is, in Jesus. [5] When they heard this, they were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus.”
At the same time roughly he has written in his opening chapter to the Corinthians in 1 Corinthians, a passage that sometimes has been misunderstood. The Corinthians divided up into little factions. Paul asks: 1 Corinthians 1:13 NASB “Has Christ been divided? Paul was not crucified for you, was he? Or were you baptized in the name of Paul? [14] I thank God that I baptized none of you except Crispus and Gaius.” He is saying he is glad that he was not getting into this divisive battle that is going on in their church. [15] “so that no one would say you were baptized in my name.”
His associates did the baptizing. But he is not making a blanket statement here that there is something wrong with baptism. What is wrong is the Corinthians’ attitude of using it as a foundation for division. At the same time that Paul is making this statement he is also baptizing the disciples of John the Baptist in Ephesus.
Getting back to the baptism of the Holy Spirit, there is a lot of confusion about just what this is since the beginnings of the holiness movement and the Pentecostal movement. Pentecostals and holiness people believed in two baptisms because they were building their doctrine off of the translation in the KJV which basically translated the same Greek phrase with two different English translations. So in Matthew 3:11 John the Baptist said that somebody would come after him who would baptize with the Holy Spirit. In 1 Corinthians 12:13 the statement is made: “For by one Spirit …” It is “with” the Holy Spirit in Matthew 3:11; “by the Spirit” in 1 Corinthians 12:13. But the Greek phrase is exactly the same in both places—EN with the dative of the Greek noun PNEUMA for Spirit, indicating means. They are not two different baptisms, but the Pentecostals made the mistake of thinking that because there is with in one passage and by in another passage that there must be two different baptisms; one you get at salvation and one you get sometime after salvation.
What we have in 1 Corinthians 12:13 is a clear statement: “For by one Spirit we were all [all Christians] baptized into [eis] one body …” The verb is an aorist passive indicative, which means we are receiving the action of that verb. That is important because in the Matthew 3:11 passage it is an active voice—Christ will baptize you. So who performs the action there? Christ, not the Holy Spirit. Jesus performs the action and He uses the Holy Spirit. Just as John used the water to indicate the new state of the repentant Jew, Jesus uses the Holy Spirit to identify us with His death, burial and resurrection, and to bring us all into one body.
The baptism of the Holy Spirit is first prophesied by John the Baptist. In all the Gospels it is a prophecy and then Jesus Christ reiterated it in Acts 1:5, and in all of those times that baptism of the Holy Spirit was future. In Matthew the subject, the one who performs the action, is Jesus: “He will baptize you by means of the Holy Spirit.” Just as John performed the action, so Jesus performs the action of baptism. And He uses the Holy Spirit just as John used the water as the instrument for the baptism. “For by one Spirit we were all baptized into one body …” It states the direction of the baptism, which is into Christ, i.e. the new body of Christ which is the church. That is what is symbolized by water baptism but is the abstract doctrine that is the foundation for the new spiritual life.
Paul now states the reason for this in Romans 6:4, which is that we should now walk in newness of life. This break has occurred so that each of us has the capability to live this new life that he is talking about. It is not just magic, it is a reality, but we have to get into our head what has happened. That phrase “newness of life” is indicated by the noun KAINOTES. It is used in Romans 7:6 NASB “But now we have been released from the Law, having died to that by which we were bound, so that we serve in newness of the Spirit …” So we connect the new life with the Holy Spirit. They are both talking about this new life that we have and the Holy Spirit is the one who makes that possible.
Conclusion: The purpose for the baptism of the Holy Spirit is to break the tyranny of the sin nature by identifying us with the death, burial and resurrection of Christ. That authority of the sin nature in our life is broken. Unfortunately, it is still there. But it no longer has the right to dictate terms. The problem is we let it all the time.
What Paul says in these first four verses is that believers should no longer abide or continue to walk by the sin nature. Just stop it. Believers have been separated from the authority of the sin nature, or died to sin, vv, 2, 9, 12. This identification with Christ’s death equals a death or separation from the authority or tyranny of the sin nature. It is a reality. Believers are also identified with Christ’s resurrection to new life, which means we now have this new life for ourselves. It is a new mode of living and we have a new authority: we are slaves of righteousness. That is who we are. We can’t act as slaves of sin anymore because we have been freed from sin.
This is stated in a hymn we often sing:
O for a thousand tongues to sing,
My great Redeemer's praise,
The glories of my God and King,
The triumphs of His grace!
He breaks the power of cancelled sin, Notice how brilliantly that is written. “He breaks” is a present tense. When we trust Christ that is when it is broken in our life. “Of cancelled sin,” it is already cancelled—expiation, which is the cancelling of the debt which occurred at the Cross.
And sets the prisoner free:—present tense, it is when we trusted in Christ as savior.
His blood [indicating His death] can make the foulest clean;
His blood availed for me.