Peter Barnes | Romans 6:1-4
SERMON NOTES
DIED TO SIN, RAISED WITH CHRIST
(Romans 6:1-4)
Be of sin the double cure,/ Cleanse me from its guilt and power (Augustus Toplady)
1. Grace is not lawlessness.
– 6:1-2a; people can twist Romans 5:20; see Jude 4; 2 Peter 3:15-16
– Calvin: ‘Medicine does not foster the disease which it destroys.’
2. To be converted means to die to sin and to live to Christ.
– 6:2; what we do (6:11-14) is a result of what has been done (6:2)
– Isa.55:7; there is no perfectionism (1 John 1:8, 10), but we are to forsake sin.
– Col.3:3.
3. Conversion is illustrated by baptism.
– assumption is that all Christians are baptized; Col.2:11-13
– Martyn Lloyd-Jones says this is Spirit baptism, not water baptism (cf. Mark 10:38-39)
– the mode of baptism is not so much in view as the meaning. Ancient burials were in caves i.e. above ground
– nor does it necessarily imply believers’ baptism; infant circumcision had a spiritual meaning (see Jer.4:4; 9:25-26).