Now in 5.12-21, let your eyes
scan that section, 5.12-21 we see
that our justification reaches all the way back
to Adam and covers our Adamic involvement in
his sin, so that we are justified not
only for our personal transgressions, but justified from
past Adamic sin.
We are sinners by nature, that's the reason
we sin.
We got forgiven for our sins, but thank
God we've been justified from all things, even
from Adamic sin.
In union with Christ, listen, in our union
with Adam, sin reigned, and there followed condemnation
and death.
In our union with Christ, the last Adam,
grace reigned, and whereas in the first Adam
there was sin, condemnation, and death, they followed
one the other, sin, condemnation, death.
So now under grace's reign, under the reign
of grace, there follows righteousness, justification, life.
Three things down, three things back up, three
things down in the first Adam, three steps
up in the last.
Now, every man in this world, every man
in this world is united to one Adam
or the other, but not to both at
the same time.
If I am in Adam, I am in
sin and condemned, awaiting death and execution.
If I am in Christ, I have his
righteousness, justification, and life.
You find all that in 5, 12, 21.
These are great facts.
I have used them in years past, and
I don't remember when I last took a
series on Romans 6.
I don't know whether it was last year
or the year before, but I find that
we need to do this continually because this
is the great doorway into victory over sin.
Great facts.
The Kaiser, Kaiser Wilhelm of Germany, was once
asked to entertain a group of men called
German.
They called themselves German-Americans.
He says, who are they?
German-Americans.
Oh, he says, Germans I know, and Americans
I know, and Germans I know who became
American citizens and ceased to be Germans.
But German-Americans I don't know, and he
didn't entertain them.
Huh.
He refused to entertain a group who came
to him on the basis of a double
-minded citizenship.
Now, you're either in Adam or in Christ,
but you're not an Adam-Christ believer.
Away with your double-headed, double-minded, double
-notioned idea.
No, no.
I'm not an Adam-Christ believer.
I am a Christ-one and His only.
All right.
In 5.12-21, in 5.12-21,
which is dealt with sin in Adam and
righteousness in Christ, that passage concludes.
Look at it.
Look at it in 5.20-21.
Notice how it concludes.
Will you please?
And the law came in besides, that the
trespass might abound.
But where sin abounded, grace did abound more
exceedingly, that as sin reigned in death, even
so might grace reign through righteousness unto eternal
life through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Now, so I come up to chapter 6.
Are you there now?
You're saved, you're justified, God has declared you
righteous.
I come up, you and I come up
to chapter 6 as a justified man, having
been taken out of Adam and put into
Christ.
So that where sin abounded, grace superabounded and
outreached sin's deepest dye.
Do you know what was said about Bunyan?
It was said about Bunyan that when he
started to swear in his unsaved days, when
he started to swear, even ungodly people got
afraid the heavens might drop down on their
heads if they stayed around a man like
that.
Even unsaved men feared him.
What an awful man he was.
But where sin abounded, grace did much more
abound.
No wonder he wrote, Grace abounded for the
chief of sinners.
What an amazing salvation was his.
In other words, the deeper the sin, the
greater the grace.
Wonderful.
Now the question arises, either naturally or subtly,
either naturally or subtly, what should we say
then?
Shall we continue in sin that grace may
abound?
If sin once magnified the grace of God
in my salvation, then shall I conclude that
the more sin, the more grace?
Shall I continue in sin, what does it
say, that grace may abound?
Do you know the way we put it
today?
We put it a little differently.
Shall we continue in sin that grace may
abound?
We put it differently.
We say, may I not continue in sin
because grace abounds?
That's our reversed version of this question.
Or to put it in modern terms, because
grace abounds.
Now the answer, God forbid, that's the repulse.
Shall we continue in sin that grace may
abound?
God forbid, perish the thought.
Away with the idea.
And what is that based upon?
What is the God forbid based upon?
You've got it right there.
I'm reading your revision and for that reason,
God forbid, watch it.
We who died to sin, how shall we
any longer live therein?
That brings me to consider my second R.
My second R, recognition.
Recognition.
Recognition of what?
Recognition of our union with Christ.
All right, going on now.
The apostle says, or are you ignorant?
Are you ignorant that all we who were
baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his
death?
Now, here, just here, it is clearly implied
that I may not recognize, I may be
ignorant of my union with Christ and of
all that that union with Christ implies.
I may be ignorant.
I may not recognize it as, I may
not know, know ye not?
I may be ignorant.
I may need instruction.
I may be ignorant.
I may not recognize because of my ignorance
my union with Christ and all that that
implies.
Read on.
As you read on there, you find my
union with Christ.
My union with Christ.
Now, we're going into another step here.
My union with Christ could only have been
at the place called Calvary.
I couldn't be joined to Christ except at
the cross.
I needed not an example to follow and
imitate him.
I needed him first in his dying to
give me what I've already noted, reconciliation.
Now, I have my reconciliation, but I need
to recognize the implications.
Let's see it.
When I came to Christ, I was united
with him, but it could only have been
at the cross where I came in touch
with Christ for my justification.
I am justified in Christ through union with
him, and that union is necessarily, unavoidably, inevitably
a union with him in death and resurrection.
The apostle therefore points me to my union
with Christ in death and resurrection when he
says, We who died to sin, how shall
we, such people?
How shall we, the like of us?
How shall we, we, we who died to
sin, how shall we live any longer in
sin?
How shall we, such in ones who died
to sin?
This is the first great fundamental fact.
The great fundamental fact, the basic premise, it's
for us to recognize this great fact and
let faith build, fasten on this fact regardless
of feelings.
As you have it brought to your attention,
faith or fact, faith and feelings.
I thought maybe some of you young folks,
by the way you good old dignified folks,
we youngsters would like a little illustration this
morning, and I thought perhaps you older folks
could listen in, and maybe you'll be able
to understand it also.
But I want to put these up in
order now, and would you come up here
you folks?
Now let's see.
What is your name?
Mr. Fax.
Oh, Mr. Fax.
Yeah, and what is your name?
Mr. Feeling.
Oh, Mr. Feeling.
Yeah, so we have Mr. Feeling and Mr.
Fax.
Now I want Mr. Feeling and Mr. Fax
to stand over here with me.
Now, you turn around here.
Now your name is?
Mr. Fax.
Your name is?
Mr. Feeling.
All right.
I'm going to be Faith.
Mr. Faith.
All right.
Now, I've just been saying that it's your
business and mine to fasten on the facts,
and you let the feelings follow.
All right.
Your name is, mister?
Mr. Fax.
All right, you get going.
Go ahead.
He followed the far off.
You were supposed to follow me.
You see, I didn't know or care whether
he would follow or not.
Now get going.
All right, you take him down to Grandma.
Paul and Barbara are preaching in Calgary today,
so that's the reason I used the wheel
odds.
Now, beloved, listen.
Let Faith fasten on facts, and it didn't
matter to me whether he followed or not.
There's your feelings.
Feelings come or feelings go or feelings stay
or feelings follow.
Maybe.
Makes me know never mind.
Faith, Faith follows, fastens on facts, and lets
feelings follow.
You may have feelings, you may not.
But Faith, Faith has nothing to do with
feelings.
Faith has to do only with facts.
And the fact is that I've been united
with Christ in death and resurrection.
That's a fact.
Praise God for the fact.
Now, listen.
Now you've got your thinker there because I'm
going to make it work.
If it's possible.
Maybe it isn't possible.
All right, we'll excuse you.
All right, you ready to work?
Let's go to work and find something.
The past.
Chapter 5.
The past of sin's guilt.
You hear that?
Two things.
Past.
Fact of sin's guilt has been met in
my justification.
But what about the P-R-E-S
-E-N-T?
What about the present of sin's power?
Chapter 6.
Justification has taken care of the guilt of
sin's past.
Sanctification is to take care of sin's present
power.
In Christ crucified, in my union with Him,
I was given my justification.
Now, in my justification.
And what does justification mean?
God declares righteously ungodly, trusting Christ.
Justifies the ungodly.
Reckons them righteous.
Not makes righteous, but reckons us righteous.
All right, follow me.
In my justification was laid the foundation, the
foundation of holiness, by canceling out sin's guilt.
Getting us into the Christian life.
Joined to Christ, trusting Christ.
Now.
Justification, chapter 5.
In that, we have seen the narrow gate
through which we enter into the narrow way
of sanctification in chapter 6.
I want you to watch verses 19 and
22.
Watch 6, 19, and 22, will you?
I'm going to cover so much territory, I'm
going to presume upon your readiness to worship
God in your thinking today.
Because to have your understanding right means a
great deal here.
6, 19.
I speak after the manner of men because
of the infirmity of your flesh.
For as ye presented your members as servants
to uncleanness and to iniquity, even so now
present your members as servants to righteousness unto
sanctification.
The word holiness and sanctification are interchangeably used
in chapter 6.
Look in 6, 22.
But now being made free from sin and
become servants to God, ye have your fruit
unto sanctification and the end of eternal life.
Now there we have the word, the word
sanctification.
In chapter 5, justification.
In chapter 6, sanctification.
Now the foundation, you know what a foundation
is, do you?
The foundation has been laid in justification, chapter
5.
Now we are to see the new life,
the superstructure foundation has been laid.
Now on that foundation of justification, the superstructure
building is to be built.
What do we mean the superstructure?
The new life is to be built up.
For justification was not an end in itself.
Justification was a means to an end, a
foundation for a superstructure of a new life.
You see the two in their connection?
Justification is not an end in itself, but
a means to an end, namely holiness of
life.
I said in class the other day, justification
was not to make me straight, but to
make me sound.
Justification puts me on the foundation, soundness in
a good building of a new life.
Since the foundation was laid in order that
you might have a building on top of
it.
A new life.
Now the question is, how?
Here we are.
The question here is from here on, how
the life is to be lived in holiness.
The new life now.
In chapter 5, the contrast.
Here we are again with a new jumping
off, a new step.
In chapter 5, the contrast in that chapter
was between wrath.
The wrath of God that abides on the
sinner before he's justified.
The contrast there that was considered was this.
Between wrath and justification.
That is, how to be saved from sin's
guilt as a penalty.
In chapter 6, the contrast is between sin
and holiness.
How to be delivered from sin's reign as
a power.
Chapter 5, sin's guilt as a penalty.
Now, chapter 6, sin's reign as a power.
See those two contrasts?
Double contrasts?
Now, wait a minute.
Here's another one.
Justification.
When I was declared righteous, my justification altered,
changed.
Changed my judicial position as a son of
Adam.
Making me now, joined to Christ, a child
of God.
My position was changed because my place was
changed.
Sanctification, chapter 6, is now to alter not
my position, but my spiritual condition.
Not a hint or a word, listen to
me.
Not a hint or a word in chapter
5 in my justification of God making me
good.
But there was emphasis there on God having
declared me good.
God having declared me righteous.
Chapter 6 is to make me righteous.
Chapter 5 declared me righteous in God's sight,
as to position, legal position.
Chapter 6 is going to show me how
to become righteous in life.
Are you getting some truths contrasted and compared
truths here?
Justification, I say again, had not one word
to do with making me good or making
me righteous.
There's not a hint or a word in
chapter 5 about making me good.
But it's an alteration of my legal position
before God.
Now, how to live the new life.
How am I going to become righteous?
How am I going to become righteous in
life?
That's the point.
In chapter 6 we have sanctification.
God declaring, God having declared me holy in
Christ.
God says it.
Now the present problem is how to become
righteous.
Have we been reckoned or declared righteous in
5.1?
And did we have all the benefits following
in chapter 5 of justification?
Therefore, having been declared righteous through faith in
Christ, we have peace, hope, joy, and even
deliverance from the penalty on account of a
damned sin.
For all was handled in my justification.
Great word, justification.
No wonder it's more than forgiveness.
No wonder it's more than pardon.
It's a sweeping word.
God having declared righteous and ungodly wretch.
Putting me in a right position before God.
Not a word about making me good yet.
But chapter 6 has to do with that
all the way through.
All right.
Now we may become.
How, how may we become righteous in spiritual
condition?
Through sanctification.
All right, now I'm going to say something
more.
I'm going to fill your head full until
it bursts.
Ready for some more?
Both justification and sanctification are through the once
for all death and resurrection of Christ.
Both are through that once for all death
and resurrection of him.
Both are, both justification and sanctification, are through
our union with Christ.
Now in sanctification, here I want you to,
was my justification, was my justification in connection
with Christ?
Was my justification in connection with the person
of Christ?
Was I, what did I touch?
Did I touch the atoning sacrifice?
Trust in Christ?
Was I justified in connection with the person
of Christ?
In other words, if I was once in
Adam lost, unjustified, I am now in Christ,
justified.
In connection with the person of Christ.
Now, now, what about next?
Now in sanctification, listen to me.
In sanctification do I get reconnected with Christ?
Or can I as a justified man be
considered at all as isolated from Christ?
A thousand never.
And do I in sanctification have to become
reconnected with Christ?
Or have I been blessed with all spiritual
blessings in the heavenly places?
In Christ.
Is that the minute I'm saved and is
it for every saint of God?
All right, here we are.
How can I be considered, how can I
dare to think of being considered as disconnected
with Christ between justification and sanctification?
Am I not vitally connected with and united
to Christ?
Am I not already as a justified man
in union with Christ?
He that is joined to the Lord is
one.
Hallelujah.
One Lord, one faith, one baptism into Christ.
Well, all right.
Now, the Apostle says, you following me now?
The Apostle therefore says, How shall we, Christ
ones, justified in Him?
How shall we, we, how shall we, the
like of us, saved ones, justified ones, how
shall we who are justified in Him, in
possession of Him, possessed by Him, how shall
we who have been grown, that's the word,
united, planted together, grown together, fused.
I'm a Siamese friend with Him.
Why?
Grown together into Him.
United, planted, grown together, fused.