Another area of collectability is “Wanted Posters.” Again I searched eBay for “Wanted Posters,” and this time came up with 340. Admittedly in this case there are lots of things which only resemble Wanted Posters – like album covers and movie posters. And there are a lot of replicas of old Wanted Posters, but even these are collectibles. In looking over what eBay had up for auction, there were a lot of genuine posters of famous criminals, and in some cases the prices were beyond my reach, even if I had any interest in them.
Looking over some of those Wanted Posters, I found that they usually say the same sort of thing. There was an authentic 1974 poster for Patty Hearst which wasn’t much different from the replica Billy the Kid or Jessie James posters. The 1930’s gangster posters included their finger-prints, and the John Wesley Hardin poster didn’t, but other than that they looked pretty much the same. They all had some sort of picture, and the word “Reward” was nice and big, and then there was the amount of the reward. Some of the early posters did actually bear the words “Dead or Alive” or something to that effect. In our modern, politically-correct society, wanted “dead or alive” isn’t nice enough still to be used. But in days gone by, in some cases – dead was the only way to get close to some of those men and women.
What put me on to that train of thought were some of the words of the Apostle Paul. In verse 11 he used both “dead” and “alive” in almost the same breath. And it’s safe to say that the Lord is looking for people who are described with these two words. But unlike our Wanted Posters, the Lord wants people who are both dead and alive. And that is the title of our message today – “Wanted Dead AND Alive.”
Under the direction of the Holy Spirit Paul gives us several exhortations, concluding with an explanation. And we will use the verbs in each of those exhortations for the points of our message.
And that is the subject which Paul brings up in this chapter. “What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound? God forbid.” Then he points back to the fact that Christ Jesus died to deliver us from sin. And after His death, He “was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father.” He arose victorious over death, in a sense, to begin a new and more glorious life. And of course that new life has been, and will always be, completely free from sin. That Christ could never sin in the first place, is beyond the point that Paul is trying to make right here. “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.” Christ cannot die again because sin, the cause of death, has no claim upon Him. Not only did it never have any personal claim upon Christ, but the sins of those He was determined to save have been thoroughly atoned, and neither death or sin can ever touch Him again.
When we were baptized we testified to these doctrinal details and to the facts in our individual cases. “Know ye not, that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into his death? Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life. For if we have been planted together in the likeness of his death, we shall be also in the likeness of his resurrection.” And verse 8 – “Now if we be dead with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with him.” Flowing out of these things, we are exhorted to “reckon ourselves to be dead indeed unto sin.” There is a wanted poster which says, “Wanted absolutely dead to sin,” and under it is your picture, if you are a child of God.
Before I became familiar with the Bible, I used to think that the word “reckon” was one of those hill-billy, southern, backward sort of words. Then I grew up, learned some things about the Word of God, met some of you, and now I know better. This is a word which is periodically found in the Bible – and in some precious of verses. For example its found in Romans 8:18 – “For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us.”
But “reckon” is a word even more wonderful in the original Greek – the Koine Greek of the Bible. There is the rather obvious meaning which we can see in Romans 2:3 – “And THINKEST thou this, O man, that judgest them which do such things, and doest the same, that thou shalt escape the judgment of God?” Likewise think of yourself as dead indeed unto sin. And we aren’t surprised how it is translated in Romans 3:28 – “Therefore we CONCLUDE that a man is justified by faith without the deeds of the law.” Likewise conclude your self to be dead indeed unto sin. But in addition to these we come to a more delightful use of the word. It is the practical and literal human application of one aspect of divine justification. Romans 4:3 – “For what saith the scripture? Abraham believed God, and it was COUNTED unto him for righteousness. Now to him that worketh is the reward not RECKONED of grace, but of debt. But to him that worketh not, but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is COUNTED for righteousness. Even as David also describeth the blessedness of the man, unto whom God IMPUTETH righteousness without works, Blessed is the man to whom the Lord will not IMPUTE sin.” In all of these verses, which talk about God’s application of Christ’s righteousness to the sinner, the word which the Lord uses is the same one that He uses employs here – “reckon.”
Christian, consider yourself, count yourself, conclude yourself to be DEAD indeed unto sin. And at the same time, picturing the resurrected Lord Jesus, remember that you are also ALIVE unto God. How can you consider committing sin under these circumstances? In Christ you are dead to sin, and you should consider yourself to be so. And you are also alive in Him to eternal glory and eventual sinlessness; so look at yourself that way.
As I say, Paul makes a distinction between “you” and “your mortal body.” And the thing that I’d like to emphasize at this point is that your body is mortal. The word “mortal” an adjective which describes something which is capable of dying. In this case our bodies are not only capable of dying they are in the process of doing just that. And the reason that our bodies are dying takes us back to the original cause of death. Death is the wage paid, and the reward given, for sin. Our bodies are weak and frail because of the curse put upon us for Adam’s sin. “Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men.”
“Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, that ye should obey it in the lusts thereof.” Why? Because when we were saved, we died with Christ and arose to live a new kind of life. “Reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord.”
Just as Paul distinguishes between you and your body, he separates “you” and your “members.” And by “member” he means the various parts which form the body in which you live. You have a head and a mind inside that head. You have two hands and a heart; two hands and two eyes, and a mouth with a tongue inside. Just as some churches have more members than other churches, so do some bodies. Some people don’t have the use of both eyes, and some seem to have only half a brain. Some people don’t have all their fingers, or are missing a hand or foot. But the congregation of members makes up the whole of your body.
As Christians, our whole BODY has been purchased by the blood of Christ and belongs to the Lord. “What? know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own? For ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God’s.” If we should take something which belongs to one King and give it to a rebel king, it is an act of treason. To take our tongues and use them to lie or to blaspheme, are acts worthy of execution. That heart of yours belongs to the Lord – it has been crucified and restored to life – If you choose to love the things that God hates – it is rebellion and sin. If you are quick to loose your temper, when you should be showing restraint if not actual love, you are worthy of a second death.
When that temptation comes along enticing your mind away from wholesome and holy things, what we should quickly do is remind ourselves that we are dead in Christ, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord. “I will not let you – thou wicked sin – to enter my mortal body today. I will not yield my feet to sin, to permit them to enter that place which has been forbidden by Christ. Yes, I know that wicked man’s property is laying there without anyone to watch it, but it is not mine, and I will not permit my hand to take it. And I realize that there are a lot of people who are turning from the doctrine of the imminent return of the Saviour, but I will not yield my mind over to that unbiblical opinion. These members are not really mine to give away – they belong to the Lord – now that I am redeemed. Everyone of my members are now instruments of righteousness unto God, and I will reckon them to be so.”
It seems that during every election year over the passed couple of decades, there has been more and more talk about “family values.” I don’t know about you, but the term means next to nothing to me. Just about every political candidate, just like nearly everyone else in this world, has a family. But from my experience, families and family values can be as different as night and day between two houses side by side on the same block. There are families where the Lord is loved and the Saviour is worshiped. And there are families where there is a great deal of hatred, abuse and conflict. There are families where there is the emotional absence of one or more of the parents. There are polygamist families, communal families and homosexual families. They all have values, and the value of those values may be like the difference between granite and gold.
There are families where the father, or the mother, rules with a rod of iron. There are families with regulations so deep and thick that the kids learn to read for no other purpose than keep the rules straight. You might say that they are kids under the law. And then there are families with some of the best-behaved children of the world, but who have learned to behave in a fashion that pleases their parents, because those kids fully know and understand the love that their parents have for them. You might say that those children know that they are living under grace.
Despite the existence of the law of God, no Christian is actually living under that law as his rule of faith and duty. The saints of God have been saved by grace; they are kept by grace, and they are blessed by grace. That grace flows out of the divine heart which is bursting with unfathomable love. And Paul mentions that grace as the foundation for our holy living. The genuine Christian, the person who is a saint of God because the Lord by grace man him so – that genuine Christ ought to be more in tune, in line and in sinc with the law of God, than anyone trying to save himself through keeping the law. It’s not because he has one eye on the tablets of stone every time he takes a step. It’s because he has one eye on the Lord who first gave those tablets, and he has a desire to please his Saviour. Furthermore, only that saint, has the God-given ability to even remotely resemble an obedient creature. He can obey the law more fully than anyone else, because his “old man” has been crucified with Christ.
Christian, “shall we continue in sin?” God forbid, because we are not under the law, but under grace. You are under grace, aren’t you? You are not trying to be delivered from your sin through your obedience or your service, are you? Christ Jesus is the sinner’s only Saviour, don’t even think about trying to save yourself. Repent of your sin and put your faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.