Romans 6-8
Issues of Life
and Death
0 MIN READ
Psalm 131:1-3 Resting Humbly in Peace
I Have Stilled My Soul
1O LORD, my heart is not lifted up;
my eyes are not raised too high;
I do not occupy myself with things
too great and too marvelous for me. 2 But I have calmed and quieted my soul,
like a weaned child with its mother;
like a weaned child is my soul within me.
3 O Israel, hope in the LORD
from this time forth and forevermore.
Application
God answers and blesses us for His glory and the benefit of others, not for us to become prideful.
Prayer
God, thanks that You graciously answer my prayers and bless, may I always depend upon You and encourage others to hope in You. Amen.
TMS 2 Corintians 5:17 A New Creation
Bill Blurb: Last post concluded the Proverbs of the Day, and this one introduces verses from the Topical Memory System (TMS). I was originally planning on doing NT “proverbs” but I “reckoned” that it would be more profitable for folks to better understand verses they've already memorized. For those of you unfamiliar with the TMS, it's 60 verses selected to help people remember what the Bible teaches about key topics of the Christian life. These are really useful for renewing one's mind (see comments Romans 12:1-2) especially if you understand and meditate (think through implications for applications) on them. It's the only way I know to experience the metamorphosis from being a carnal caterpillar to a spirituality successful butterfly. I'll be using the NKJV text, except where noted.
Observations
Everyone who believes in Jesus as their Savior is forgiven, born again, and has a new life (John 1:12; 3:16), as well as a capacity to know and serve God. What you were doesn't matter; what counts is what you are becoming as you live your new life.
Two verses from the context are worth noting:
2 Cor 5:15 “and He died for all, that those who live should live no longer for themselves, but for Him who died for them and rose again.”
2 Cor 5:21 “For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.”
Being “in Christ” is not just a term for being a Christian. A good translation which accounts for most of the contextual usages of the phrase, would be “in union with Christ.” Those who abide (Jn 15) and obey (Jn 14) would fit this category. The old person which we were, has gone. All things “have become” new (perfect tense, happened in the past with continuing results up to the present). Those who don't abide in Christ and go back to their old ways, aren't living the new life. But, by abiding in Christ, one experiences a new life, drawing on His life. See Romans 6-8 below for help.
Application
If you are abiding in Christ, your life should be new and shiny; what is past, is past, it's time to live the new life.
Prayer
Heavenly Father, thanks for giving me new life in Christ; may I live it to the fullest. Amen.
Romans 6-8 Issues of Life and Death
These are some of the most important chapters for believers in Jesus to understand and master, because they tell justified believers how to be righteous, sanctified, and glorified. They are not about justification by faith, nor getting forgiveness, nor believing that Jesus died for your sins. Paul's audience already believed that (see chapter 1) and those topics were already discussed in chapter 3-5.
Getting a running start by understanding Romans 5 on DailyTruthbase.blog will help with Romans 6. Knowing Romans 6 will help with Romans 7. Most people do not understand these chapters because they read them with too many theological/sermonic preconceptions, and then don't read them with the contextual preconception. Thus they wind up having Romans 7 clearly contradict Romans 6. The net result is they live defeated lives and are not sanctified, nor holy, nor righteous. Part of the difficulty lies in the fact that Paul uses different meanings for righteous, grace, salvation, life, death, etc. There is a righteousness that all justified believers possess, by believing that the Father accepts Christ's death as their substitute, but there are elements of righteousness (being rightly related to God) that Paul will say are gained by obedience.
These three chapters are prefaced by the conclusion in 5:20 “The Law came in besides, that the trespass might abound; where sin abounded, grace abounded more exceedingly; 21 that as sin reigned in/by death, even so grace might reign through righteousness to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.”
The context of chapter 6 is not just what Paul wrote in the first five chapters, and not just Gospels-Acts, but the OT. The Law (Genesis-Deuteronomy) sums up the Law's teaching about life and death, the key items in this section, with
Deuteronomy 30:6 And Yahweh your God will circumcise your heart and the heart of your descendants, to love Yahweh your God with all your heart and with all your soul, that you may live. 9 The LORD your God will make you abound...the LORD will again rejoice over you for good as He rejoiced over your fathers, 10 if you obey the voice of the LORD your God, to keep His commandments and His statutes which are written in this Book of the Law, and if you turn to the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul. 14 But the word is very near you, in your mouth and in your heart, that you may do it. 15 "See, I have set before you today life and good, death and evil, 16 in that I command you today to love the LORD your God, to walk in His ways, and to keep His commandments, His statutes, and His judgments, that you may live and multiply; and the LORD your God will bless you in the land which you go to possess. 19 I call heaven and earth as witnesses today against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing; therefore choose life, that both you and your descendants may live; 20 that you may love the LORD your God, that you may obey His voice, and that you may cling to Him, for He is your life and the length of your days; and that you may dwell in the land which the LORD swore to your fathers, to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, to give them."
See comments on Dt 30.
Life is blessing, reward, and rulership or dominion, being the preeminent nation. Death is cursing, and loss of sovereignty and dominion. The land was given to Israel as an act of God's grace. Enjoying the land was dependent upon being obedient and righteous (doing what was right in God's sight). If you don't grasp that, you need to pay a little more attention next time you read the OT. Adam and Eve “died” the day they disobeyed. They were still walking around, playing hide and seek with God, and talking to Him. The thing that changed, is they lost their glory (were naked 2Cor 5:3), and holiness/relationship with God, and immortality (right to live forever). Our relationship with Christ reverses the effects of the Fall, by saving us in three progressive stages: first, from the lake of fire through the payment of the death penalty for our sin (justification Rm 3:23 this is the past action of God toward those who believe); then our relationship with God is restored and grows as we grow in holiness (or sanctification Rm 6-8a); finally, we are restored to pre-Fall glory (glorification Rm 6b).
Enough theology, on to the text.
Romans 6 Free to Be Righteous
Dead to Sin, Alive to God
1 What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? 2 By no means! How can we who died to sin still live in it? 3 Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? 4 We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life. 5 For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his. 6 We know that our old self was crucified with him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing, so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin. 7 For one who has died has been set free from sin. 8 Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. 9 We know that Christ, being raised from the dead, will never die again; death no longer has dominion over him. 10 For the death he died he died to sin, once for all, but the life he lives he lives to God. 11 So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus. 12 Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, to make you obey its passions. 13 Do not present your members to sin as instruments for unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life, and your members to God as instruments for righteousness. 14 For sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law but under grace.The Wages of Sin
15 What then? Are we to sin because we are not under law but under grace? By no means! 16 Do you not know that if you present yourselves to anyone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin, which leads to death, or of obedience, which leads to righteousness? 17 But thanks be to God, that you who were once slaves of sin have become obedient from the heart to the standard of teaching to which you were committed, 18 and, having been set free from sin, have become slaves of righteousness. 19 I am speaking in human terms, because of your natural limitations. For just as you once presented your members as slaves to impurity and to lawlessness leading to more lawlessness, so now present your members as slaves to righteousness leading to sanctification. 20 For when you were slaves of sin, you were free in regard to righteousness. 21 But what fruit were you getting at that time from the things of which you are now ashamed? For the end of those things is death. 22 But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God, the fruit you get leads to sanctification and its end, eternal life. 23 For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.Application
Reckon yourself dead to sin, and you won't let it reign over you. If you are busy presenting yourself to do God's will throughout each day, you won't be able to do Satan's will.
Prayer
God thanks for Your grace that effects my forgiveness, empowers my sanctification, and rewards my service; may I live my life in union with the Lord Jesus, serving You. Amen.
Romans 7 Freed for Fruitful Service
Release from the Law
1 Or do you not know, brothers—for I am speaking to those who know the law—that the law is binding on a person only as long as he lives? 2 For a married woman is bound by law to her husband while he lives, but if her husband dies she is released from the law of marriage. 3 Accordingly, she will be called an adulteress if she lives with another man while her husband is alive. But if her husband dies, she is free from that law, and if she marries another man she is not an adulteress. 4 Likewise, my brothers, you also have died to the law through the body of Christ, so that you may belong to another, to him who has been raised from the dead, in order that we may bear fruit for God. 5 For while we were living in the flesh, our sinful passions, aroused by the law, were at work in our members to bear fruit for death. 6 But now we are released from the law, having died to that which held us captive, so that we serve in the new way of the Spirit and not in the old way of the written code.God’s Law Is Holy
7 What then shall we say? That the law is sin? By no means! Yet if it had not been for the law, I would not have known sin. For I would not have known what it is to covet if the law had not said, “You shall not covet.” 8 But sin, seizing an opportunity through the commandment, produced in me all kinds of covetousness. For apart from the law, sin lies dead. 9 I was once alive apart from the law, but when the commandment came, sin came alive and I died. 10 The very commandment that promised life proved to be death to me. 11 For sin, seizing an opportunity through the commandment, deceived me and through it killed me. 12 So the law is holy, and the commandment is holy and righteous and good.Struggling with Sin
13 Did that which is good, then, bring death to me? By no means! It was sin, producing death in me through what is good, in order that sin might be shown to be sin, and through the commandment might become sinful beyond measure. 14 For we know that the law is spiritual, but I am of the flesh, sold under sin. 15 For I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. 16 Now if I do what I do not want, I agree with the law, that it is good. 17 So now it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me. 18 For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out. 19 For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing. 20 Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me. 21 So I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand. 22 For I delight in the law of God, in my inner being, 23 but I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. 24 Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? 25 Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I myself serve the law of God with my mind, but with my flesh I serve the law of sin.Application
God delivers us from powerlessness over sin though our relationship with our Lord, Jesus the Messiah, so we can bear fruit for Him.
Prayer
Lord Jesus, thanks for the power you provide so I can be victorious over sin, and do what's right in Your sight. Amen.
Romans 8 Putting to Death the Deeds of the Flesh and Living
Walking by the Spirit
1 There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. 2 For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death. 3 For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh, 4 in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit. 5 For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit set their minds on the things of the Spirit. 6 For to set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace. 7 For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God's law; indeed, it cannot. 8 Those who are in the flesh cannot please God. 9 You, however, are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if in fact the Spirit of God dwells in you. Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him. 10 But if Christ is in you, although the body is dead because of sin, the Spirit is life because of righteousness. 11 If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who dwells in you.Heirs with Christ
12 So then, brothers, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh. 13 For if you live according to the flesh you will die, but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live. 14 For all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God. 15 For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, “Abba! Father!” 16 The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, 17 and if children, then heirs—heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him.Future Glory
18 For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us. 19 For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God. 20 For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it, in hope 21 that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. 22 For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now. 23 And not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. 24 For in this hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what he sees? 25 But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience. 26 Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words. 27 And he who searches hearts knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.God Works in All Things
28 And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose. 29 For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. 30 And those whom he predestined he also called, and those whom he called he also justified, and those whom he justified he also glorified. 31 What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? 32 He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things? 33 Who shall bring any charge against God's elect? It is God who justifies. 34 Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died—more than that, who was raised—who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us.More than Conquerors
35 Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? 36 As it is written,“For your sake we are being killed all the day long;
we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.”
37 No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. 38 For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, 39 nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Application
Submit to the revelation and leading of the Holy Spirit in conforming you into the image of Christ, so you will share in the Messiah's glory.
Prayer
God thanks for graciously providing all I need to please You and enjoy all Your blessings. Help me respond in faithful obedience to all You want me to do. Amen.
Digging Deeper
Outlines are on Blogspot
Romans 6 exegetical outline
Romans 7 exegetical outline
Romans 8a (vv. 1-13) exegetical outline
Romans 8b (vv.12-25) exegetical outline
Where to go for more
The ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®) © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved. The ESV text may not be quoted in any publication made available to the public by a Creative Commons license. The ESV may not be translated in whole or in part into any other language.
Users may not copy or download more than 500 verses of the ESV Bible or more than one-half of any book of the ESV Bible.