Romans 6 lays the foundation for the Christian’s deliverance from sin.
This liberation from the power of sin may be experienced the very hour a person is born again. They need not experience continual defeat.
Chapter 6 begins with a call to recollect, not to anticipate. It directs our attention to the past, to what is already ours: “Knowing this, that our old man has been crucified with him, that the body of sin might be rendered powerless, that we should no longer serve sin.”
In this verse we find three major parts:
1-“sin” (singular); 2- “old man”; and 3- “the body of sin”.
These three are different in nature.
Sin is personified, representing a demonic spirit. We were formerly slaves of sin. Sin had been the master.
First, we need to recognize that sin possesses power, for it enslaves us. It releases this power continually to draw us into obedience to the old man so that we might sin.
The old man represents the sum total of everything we inherited from Adam.
We can recognize the old man by knowing what the new man is, because whatever is not of the new man belongs to the old.
Our new man involves everything which flows from our newborn spirit.
The old man is everything in our personality which is not from the new: our old personality and all which belongs to the old nature.
We sin because this old man loves sin and is under its power.
The body of sin refers to the vehicle of sin, our physical mortal body. This physical part of mankind has become the instrument in all our sinning.
It is called the body of sin because it is subject to the power of sin, full of the lust and desires of the flesh.
And it is through this body that sin manifests itself, or else it remains an invisible power.
Sin is the power which attracts us or causes us to sin.
The Old man is the physical part of us that we inherited from the first Adam, when he fell.
The body of sin is the physical mortal body we inherit from Adam.
The process of sin follows this pattern: first, sin; next, the old man; lastly, the body.
Sin releases its power to attract the person and forces them to sin. Since the old man delights in sin, he overlooks sin and yields to it, activating the body to sin.
Wherefore the body serves as the instrument and actually practices sin.
It is through the joint operation of these three parts that sin is committed. Unfortinaly our flesh is still present, if we just yield once, the compulsion of sin’s power takes over, the inclination of the old man comes alive, and the body practices sin, and then we must go through the process of deliverance.
THE PROCESS OF DELIVERANCE
Now how can a person be delivered from sin?
Romans 6:6 is apparent as to His way. He neither eradicates the root of sin within nor suppresses the body without. Rather, God deals with the soul of the individual.
The finished work of Jesus upon the cross died not only our sins but also as us.
Romans 6: 6 We know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body of sin might be powerless, so that we might no longer be enslaved to sin.
The verb “crucified” in the original is in the aorist tense, meaning that our old man was once and forever crucified with Him.
As the cross of Christ is the legal aspect of our redemption, so our being crucified with Him is a legal accomplished fact.
Whoever questions the reality of the crucifixion of Christ? Why, then, should we doubt the reality of the crucifixion of our old man?
Many saints, upon hearing the truth of co-death, immediately assume that they ought to die, and so they try their best to crucify themselves, the old self.
Either lack of revelation or lack of faith explains this attitude. They not only do this themselves; they teach others so to do as well. The results are too obvious: no power is theirs to be freed from sin and their old self seems to be still alive.
This is a grievous misjudgment. The Bible never instructs us to crucify ourselves. Precisely the opposite are we told!
We are taught that when Jesus went to Calvary, He took us there and had us crucified.
We are not instructed to begin crucifying ourselves now; instead, the Scriptures assure us that our old man was dealt with at the time Jesus went to the cross.
It is because we are in Him and are united with Him that we can say that when Christ went to the cross, we went there in Him, that when Christ was crucified, we too were crucified in Him. This is the reality of being in Christ!
Mere mental assent of these truths cannot withstand temptation. This word must be in our spirit flowing into our mind renewing it to think accordingly.
The revelation of God is positively essential. The Spirit of God must reveal how we are in Christ and how we are united with Him in one.
This cannot be simply a mental comprehension; it must be a revelation of the Holy Spirit.
When a truth is unfolded by the Holy Spirit it naturally becomes a power in us, a spiritual substance more real than any material substance, which enables us to start to learn how to believe, to bring our soul into agreement with our spirit until it is renewed.
Faith comes through revelation. Believing is bringing our soul into agreement. Without revelation, we cannot believe. If we try to believe it will just be human effort instead of a flow of the Spirit into our mind that brings rest.
This explains why many do not have faith, for though they mentally understand they do not have God’s revelation. Faith has never been imparted to their spirit. So, trying to believe is useless.
Remember that faith is the fruit of our spirit, believing is a function of our soul (mind).
Ephesians 1: 17 that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you a spirit of wisdom and revelation as you come to know him.
Therefore, we must pray until God gives us the spirit of revelation so that “knowing this” in our spirit we may truly confess with our mouth and believe “that our old man has been crucified with him.”
What is the consequence of the crucifixion of our old man? “That the body of sin might be rendered powerless.” The body of sin is “unemployed.”
Beforehand when sin stirred, our old man responded and consequently the body practiced sin.
With the crucifixion of the old man and its replacement by the new man, sin may still stir within and attempt to exert its pressure, but it fails to find the consent of the old man in driving the body to sin.
Sin can no longer tempt the believer for he is a new man; the old has died.
The body’s occupation was formerly that of sinning, but this body of sin is now disemployed because the old man was set aside.
Why does God crucify our old man with Christ and render our body jobless? His purpose is that “we should no longer serve sin.”
What God has done in this regard makes it possible for us not to yield thereafter to the pressure of sin nor to be bound by its power. Sin will exercise no dominion over us. For we are no longer under the Law, but Grace “the empowering presence of God to do what we could not do in ourselves.” Once we decide in God to no longer yield to the flesh, grace kicks in and we experience the fruit of the spirit, consistently.
TWO ESSENTIALS FOR TRANSFORMATION
How shall we walk in daily freedom? Two essentials are indispensable.
FIRST, “you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.” (Rom 6:11).
This is essential to have faith imparted to our spirit.
When God reveals to us that our old man was crucified with Christ we “consider ourselves dead to sin.”
How then do we die? “We consider ourselves alive to God in Christ Jesus.” And then walk in our spirit, with a constant awareness of it, or we will drift back into the soul, and not feel the strength of Lord flowing into it. It is called the principle of displacement.
We are so focused on the things of the Spirit, that we brain become reprogramed by our new lifestyle that the old programs in our mind are erased, we no longer have thoughts that get triggered to play the old programs.
I will have to do a message on how our brain functions, it more advanced that any computer man can make. It has programs and memories stored on the hard drive that must be deleted. Our brain tends to remember good memories, and not bad. Unless it was something traumatic, then we need some inner healing. I don’t think of my past anymore. I can remember some things, but I don’t live in the past, I live in the present so I forget what lies behind me.
When God confirms that we are resurrected with Christ we again trust His Word and “reckon ourselves alive.” How then do we live?
“We reckon ourselves as alive to God.” We become God conscious and find ourselves always talking to him because we know he lives inside of us, we are never alone He is always with us.
This reckoning is none other than believing God according to His Word.
When God says our old self was crucified, we consider ourselves dead; when He insists we are made alive, we consider ourselves as alive. In a short time after we are born again, it is just a natural thing.
SECOND, “neither yield your members instruments of unrighteousness to sin, but yield yourselves to God as alive from among the dead and your members instruments of righteousness to God” (Rom 6:13).
This is the essential of consecration.
We dedicate ourselves to the Lord, and he consecrates our sacrifice, if he accepts it, it must be wholehearted.
That means there is an anointing upon our service and co-laboring with the Lord.
If we persist in holding on to something which God wants us to renounce, sin shall have dominion over us, and our reckoning shall be futile.
If we fail to yield our members as godly instruments of righteousness to speak and do what He desires and go where He directs, should we be surprised we are not yet delivered from sin in our daily lives?
Whenever we refuse to renounce or we resist God’s perfect will, sin shall return to its dominion.
Under such circumstances we naturally lose the power to reckon, that is, to believe God’s Word.
In our ceasing to exercise faith and to reckon ourselves dead, can we still be said to be positionally in Christ?
Yes, but we are living no longer in Him according to the sense of the “abide in me” of John 15.
Therefore we are disqualified to experience receive rewards when we stand before the judgment seat of Christ, and we will not experience the abundant life here on earth.
Now we may from any character defect or defeat of ours that it is due either to lack of faith or failure to obey.
No other reason can be adequate. Conceivably a defeat could flow from both these reasons; or from one or the other.
We need to learn how to live in Christ by faith, never seeing or thinking of ourselves outside of Him.
We need to Learn to believe daily that we are in Christ and that whatever is true of Him is true of us.
Likewise, through the power of God we must learn daily to keep our dedication unspotted. Count all things as refuse, for there is nothing in the world we cannot renounce for the Lord and nothing that we should want to keep for ourselves.
Let us be determined to respond positively to God’s commandments in the New Testament, however difficult or contrary to the flesh they may be.
To experience the fullness of the Spirit no cost is too high. Anything can be sacrificed if our only desire it to please Him. Let us daily learn to be obedient children, because our obedience is participation in the divine nature. We go from grace to grace, faith to faith, strength to strength and glory to glory, once we begin on this journey it is easy to maintain.