If We be Dead – Romans 6:8-10

 I’m going to start with a very dark image, but I promise to end up in the light, so bear with me. Isn’t it true that the older we get the more we think about death – and our own death in particular? Rarely do children, especially teens, ever think about death, unless they are diagnosed with a fatal disease. They don’t really think that they are immortal, but they live as though they were. The younger ones just don’t understand the laws of nature – especially the laws of sowing and reaping. But so many in their teens and twenties, despite their understand, defy those laws, convincing themselves that they are invincible, and feasting on the adrenalin that comes with living on the edge of death. But then they eventually reach the age of 30, and they can see various parts of their lives and bodies cease to work as well as they once did. They begin to realize that these earthly lives of ours may actually come to an end some day. And then comes an accident or a disease, which really does bring them closer to eternity than ever before.

At some point we are all forced to consider what it would be like to be dead. Probably first, we think about the people around us and what our absence would be like to them. If we are in a particularly dark and gloomy mood, we’ll probably think they will be happier without us. But then we get a little more full of ourselves, and we wonder how they will survive without us. Nine times out of ten, they will survive quite well, thank you. Nevertheless, we increase our life insurance, and prepare some sort of parchment, discussing the disposal of our meager assets.

And then sometimes there might be things that come up in our lives that make us think about how death will affect us personally. As Christians, we know that eternity has been arranged by our Saviour, but still we might think about what it will be like to enter the physical/spiritual presence of the Lord. What will Heaven be like? what will the Millennium be like? what will eternity be like? And what will our new, glorified body be like? And then as we are suffering through a really bad disease or scare, we may even think about the actual process of death. I have walked with several people through the valley of the shadow of death. It is an awe-inspiring journey, and no two people make the same trip in exactly the same way.

Here in Romans 6 Paul talks about death – not only the death of the Lord Jesus, but ours as well. In order to understand what Paul is teaching it’s important to recognize something. These three verses are used as an illustration, which is applied in verse 11 with the word “likewise.” Verses 8 to 10 are talking about our salvation and our death in Christ. It’s not about the mere crucifixion of our “old man,” but about our judicial death in Christ. “Now, if we be dead…” The Apostle is assuming that we are dead. This is a variety of death which we should think about, contemplate and meditate upon. It is an important step to another equally important truth that begins with verse 11 – “Likewise reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord.”

Let’s think about: “If we be dead.”Before we get to the subject of this death, it might be appropriate to ask: “what is the essence of LIFE?” The Bible answers that question several ways, but it always comes back to one thing. Proverbs 12:28 says, “In the way of righteousness is life; and in the pathway thereof there is no death.” Jesus said, “This is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent.” Paul adds, “For to be carnally minded is death; but to be spiritually minded is life and peace.” And “the Spirit is life because of righteousness.” Essentially these boil down to Psalm 30:5 – “In his (GOD’S) favour is life: weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning.”

We aren’t surprised that the Biblical description of death is pretty much the opposite to these things about life. “What fruit had ye then in those things whereof ye are now ashamed? for the end of those things is death.” “The wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.” “For to be carnally minded is death; but to be spiritually minded is life and peace.” Do these things help us to understand Paul here in this scripture? Not really, because this is special. In this one case the favour of the Lord is passed on to us in death, and not by life.

Notice that Paul doesn’t say, “If we be dead IN Christ.” The statement is that we are dead WITH Christ. This is not a case of conforming to or imitating the Lord, but identifying with, and participating with Him. So it’s not directly about us at all; it’s all about Christ Jesus. And yet this is about our death to sin.

So how did Christ die to sin? Was it that during His thirty-three years on earth, Jesus fought against temptation and sin, but eventually He died and sin hath no more dominion over Him? Absolutely not. Although tempted like us, Christ Jesus was never under the influence or power of sin. The Lord’s death doesn’t teach us how to fight sin – His death killed sin. Jesus’ death was in regard to the condemnation of sin – the just punishment for sin. “The Lord laid upon Him the iniquity of us all,” and Christ died. He died “under the law” – meeting its demands and bearing it’s penalty. And through that death, the condemnation of the law against sin was completely averted. “There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus.”

Let’s do a little spiritual mathematics. Picture a really wicked man – a rapist, a pedophile, a murderer. Thus far, he has not been caught, even though the police suspect him for several crimes. According to American law he is innocent until proven guilty – but in reality he is guilty. And certainly in the omniscience of God, he is guilty. According to John 3:36, is this wicked man going to be condemned or is he already condemned? “He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life: and he that believeth not the Son shall not see life; but the wrath of God abideth on him.” Couldn’t we say that condemnation has already been applied, but the execution hasn’t taken place? In a similar way, under the decree of the God-head, Christ came into this world to give His life a ransom for many. And during the 33 years that He ministered upon earth, it was as a condemned man. In a sense the wrath of God abode upon Him all during that period. But then there was a Spring day over 2,000 years ago, when He was crucified and subsequently died. In Christ’s death, the condemnation came to an end because the demand of the law was paid.

And yet, there was no actual sin in the Lord Jesus for which He had to die. He bore my sin in His own body on the cross. And when He gave up the ghost, fulfilling the demands of the law, MY condemnation ended.

Furthermore, because our Saviour arose from that death, there is a sense in which we arose as well. “Now if we be dead with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with him: Knowing that Christ being raised from the dead dieth no more; death hath no more dominion over him. For in that he died, he died unto sin once: but in that he liveth, he liveth unto God.” It is impossible for any saint of God to be condemned again, because Christ died to death, the penalty for sin, and now He lives eternally.

And that leads us to our second thought – “We shall also live with him.”As surely as life followed Jesus’ death, life followed our death. I didn’t say that life will follow our death, but that life follows our death in Christ. And what kind of life is it?

First, it is eternal life – it is life without end. Christ died unto sin one, and now death has no more dominion over Him. Christ cannot die a second time. And since the saint of God died in Christ, there is no more death for us as well. The Saviour has told us, “He that heareth my word, and believeth on him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation; but is passed from death unto life.” And he emphasized the thought with the preface, “Verily, verily, I say unto you.”

We are done with death, Christian. Oh, don’t fret over that little terrible car wreck or that fatal disease, they don’t bring any real death. Those events are mere transitions, like a graduation or a marriage ceremony. What about that funeral procession for that elderly saint of God, with the man of God in that hearse? You are mistaken, he is not in that hearse. That body you may have seen was merely the cage that held him for nearly a century. Now that man is free – do you want to call that death? That isn’t death – that is freedom.

The life that we now live in Christ is a life unto God. Someone might wonder whether Jesus lived unto the Father before His death. He certainly did, but it was under the law, under a kind of bondage; it was under condemnation – our condemnation. But once He died and rose again, he was freed from all restraints. And it is the same with us – even today. We are freed from the law – we are a special kind of libertarian. We are freed to serve the Lord from our hearts without tablets of stone standing between us. But of course, the godly life of the Christian will resemble someone obedient to the Law, because both that saint and the law came from the same source.

And the life which we now have will eventually be lived in Heaven. At the Lord’s ascension, He didn’t become an omnipresent spirit-creature indistinctly filling everything and in the process filling nothing at all. Christ Jesus ascended into Heaven – to His father’s house – there to prepare a place for all his saints. And there He sits at the Father’s right hand, and we in prospect with them. One of these days, we will all be right there. “God, who is rich in mercy, for his great love wherewith he loved us, Even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ, (by grace ye are saved;) And hath raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus: That in the ages to come he might shew the exceeding riches of his grace in his kindness toward us through Christ Jesus.”

Now let’s return to Paul’s point.In verse 6 he teaches us that our “old man” was crucified with Christ upon the cross. It was in order that the body of sin might be destroyed. And the lesson is that we should not serve sin. “For he that is dead is freed from sin.”

But with verse 8 Paul returns to a discussion of how we actually died with Christ. The “old man” is merely crucified and dying, but in another way we are already, actually dead with Christ. And as dead with Christ we are actually raised with Christ as well.

Then with both of these things being true, and applying both of these things equally…. “Likewise reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord. Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, that ye should obey it in the lusts thereof.”

Every Christian should be baptized – that is he should be buried in water and resurrected from it. That act symbolizes what has happened to us in Christ and with Christ. Now it rests upon us to live as though we were dead to sin – and alive to God.