“Now IF we be dead with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him” (Romans 6:8). That’s a mighty big IF there, brethren. Many believers are in no manner dead with Christ, yet they are absolutely certain they are going to be resurrected by Him and live eternally with Him. “Knowing that Christ being raised from the death dies no more. Death has no more dominion over Him” (verse 9, Romans 6). Do you see the parallel Paul is drawing here? Just as death has no more dominion over the resurrected Jesus Christ, just so sin has no more dominion over the believer as that believer has died with Christ and been resurrected to walk in newness of life – a new creation! “Likewise reckon you 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 you should obey it in the lusts thereof” (Romans 6:11-12).
If sin keeps cropping up in the believer’s life, that believer is letting it do so. “Neither yield your members (your eyes, your imagination, your hands or feet) as instruments of unrighteousness unto sin, but yield yourselves unto God as those that are alive (and new creatures) from the dead and your members as instruments of righteousness unto God for sin shall not have dominion over you (IF you refuse to yield), for you are not under the (death penalty of) law, but under grace (divine mercy and pardon). What then? Shall we sin, because we are not under the law (the death penalty), but under grace? GOD FORBID” (See Romans 6:13-15).
“Know you not that to whom you yield yourselves servants to obey, his servants you are to whom you obey, whether of sin unto death, or of obedience unto righteousness?” (Romans 6:16). Many believers are servants of Satan and don’t even realize it. Their deceived pastors and spiritual leaders have convinced them that God no longer sees any sin they commit and, hence, no longer counts it against them. In fact, they are told repeatedly that they cannot stop sinning – not as long as they are still in the flesh. Their “old man” has not died but is very much alive and will pull them into sin again and again. So they believe, and so it is true with many of them as they were never crucified with Christ. They merely believed Jesus Christ died for them and blotted out all their sins – past, present and future – at that moment. For decades I was duped into believing that devil’s lie and continued to sin daily, even hourly all the while thinking all was well with my soul.
“But God be thanked that you WERE (past tense) servants of sin, but you have obeyed from the heart (the deepest core of your being) that form of doctrine which was delivered you, being THEN made free from sin, you became the servants of righteousness” (Romans 6:17-18). Have YOU been made free from sin? Do YOU have the ability to say, “NO!” to every temptation to sin that comes your way? Turn a deaf ear to that deceived preacher or Bible teacher who says that is impossible for he is an agent of Satan the devil in that regard. God help you to understand.
Christ’s Faithful Servant (Galatians 1:10-12),
Donald Wiley