Friday, 7 March 2025

Romans part 65 - Victory Over Sin 4

Tweet

Romans 6:5-6 For if we have become joined together in the likeness of His death, certainly we also will be joined together in His resurrection - knowing our old man was crucified with Him so that the sinful body might be done away with, so we no longer serve sin.

Did you catch that? "... our old man was crucified with Him ..." It goes right to the heart of our walk with God. How do we identify ourselves? Many have offered this as their identification, "I'm just a sinner, saved by grace." A more scripturally correct assessment would be, "I was a sinner, until I was saved by grace."

Paul is writing so that both the Romans (to whom he was writing) and all of us (who are reading his letter 2,000 years later) will finish that thought ... "But now, I'm victorious over sin as I follow the righteous ways of Yeshua, Who has called me out of darkness and into His marvelous light" (1 Peter 2:9b).

There is another little phrase I want to highlight, "... joined together in His resurrection ..." Yeshua prayed for this. John 17:21b Just as You, Father, are in Me and I am in You, so also may they be one in Us, so the world may believe that You sent Me. Our "oneness" with God carries the connotation of a marriage. Paul addresses this ... Ephesians 5:31 For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh. And Paul goes on to make the connection (of man with God), calling it a mystery. Ephesians 5:32 This mystery is great - but I am talking about Messiah and His community.

One last phrase to highlight today, "... we no longer serve sin ..." Yeshua likens serving sin to having a bad eye in His sermon on the mount. Matthew 6:23 But if your eye is bad, your body will be full of darkness. If therefore the light that is in you is darkness, how great is the darkness! On Passover, God ended the slavery of the children of Israel to the Egyptians. The greater deliverance is from slavery to sin.

Matthew 6:24 No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will stick by one and look down on the other.

If we have been delivered from slavery to sin, and we have, (this is why Yeshua came to earth) how sad to "return to Egypt." That's figurative language for returning to slavery to sin.

To tie all this together is easy. We cannot expect to be one with God if we continue in sin. The Lord is quite clear about it too. Matthew 7:23 Then I will declare to them, 'I never knew you. Get away from Me, you workers of lawlessness!' Or would you rather hear these words? Matthew 25:23 His master said to him, 'Well done, good and faithful servant! You were faithful with a little, so I’ll put you in charge of much. Enter into your master's joy!'

Choose wisely my friends. Shalom shalom.