I want to express appreciation this morning to
my children for sharing their coals with me.
We have tried to teach them generosity, and they
sometimes practice that in the most unfortunate
ways. The chief enemy of the child of God is
Satan. He has two allies that work with him,
the world system. and the flesh. The world system
is the pressure that we feel from without, arising
from the age in which we live. The flesh is the
pressure which comes from within. It arises from
indwelling sin in our bodies. The flesh is that
pattern of actions and attitudes left over from
the old man. The flesh is the vehicle for sin's
expression in us. As someone has said, it's the
enemy that is in me that is not me. Paul seems
to have said something similar in Romans chapter
7 when he says, Yet not I, the new I, the new
me in Jesus Christ, but sin that dwells in me.
All of these enemies, Satan, the world, and the
flesh, confront us throughout life. None of us
is immune to any of them, but especially is that
true of the most intimate of the enemies, the
flesh. None of us escapes the possibility of
fleshly temptations or even of carnal living
as we discussed last week. Carnal living is an
extended period of life. Under the domination
of the flesh. How are we to deal with this enemy,
the flesh? How can we keep ourselves from domination
by this spiritual foe? If I were to ask you the
question, how many of you this last week experienced
at least one time when the flesh dominated you,
would probably have all hands go up. if we were
all honest. Because, you see, we struggle every
day that we live with this enemy, the flesh,
this intimate enemy within us who is not the
real us as we are in Jesus Christ. The wonderful
news is that God has made provision for the believer
to experience freedom from fleshly living. We
never get to the point that we don't struggle
with it. But God has made provision for us so
that we can experience consistent freedom from
fleshly living. I'd like us to think about that
this morning. We probably won't get through the
whole outline as it's found in your worship folder.
If not, we'll pick it up next week. But first,
let's think about the basis for this freedom
that God has provided for us. The basis for our
freedom is our identification with the Lord Jesus
Christ. The whole of our relationship with God
rests upon this significant Bible doctrine, the
believer's identification with the Lord Jesus
Christ. Now think with me for a moment about
this. Our identification with Jesus Christ is
the basis for our salvation. All people of all
ages have been identified with our father, Adam,
in his fall from innocence, which occurred in
the Garden of Eden. You see, Adam was what theologians
call our federal head. Now, we live under the
federal system of government. What that means
is that we have representatives who vote our
wills in Washington. That's the theory anyway.
They represent our will in Washington. They are
representative of us, the people. So when we
talk about Adam being the federal head of the
human race, we mean that when he was here on
the earth, he represented all of his descendants
to come. He represented his children, who then
inherited from him a sinful nature and condition
before God. You see, Adam's sin was imputed to
the entire human family. Let's think about the
word impute. It is a biblical word that's used
in the book of Romans a number of times. It really
is not a difficult word to understand. It simply
means to place to the account of another person.
It is an accounting term. When you go to your
bank to deposit a check, you hand them the check
with a deposit slip. And what you are doing is
imputing that amount to your account. You're
placing it on your account so that it is there
for your use. It becomes also your responsibility.
When Adam sinned, his sin was imputed to, put
to the account of, the entire human race. Now
we'll explain why that's important in just a
moment. But would you turn with me to Romans
chapter 5, where we have a key text regarding
this. Romans chapter 5, verse 12. Therefore,
just as through one man sin entered into the
world, and who was the one man? Obviously it
was Adam. and death through sin. So death spread
to all men because all sinned. Now verses 13
through 17 really, I think, form a parenthesis
in Paul's thought. So let's skip on down to verse
18. He says, So then, as through one transgression
there resulted condemnation to all men. Notice
that, through one transgression, all men. Verse
19. What Paul is doing here is contrasting Adam,
our father... the first man created, with Jesus
Christ, who is the last Adam, the eternal Son
of God, come in human flesh. Now he says on the
one hand that through our father Adam, we all
inherited from him sin, condemnation, and death.
It was imputed to us. It was put to our account.
He represented us in the garden. You say, wait
a minute, that's not fair. Why is it that I'm
held accountable for something that Adam did?
Let me suggest a couple of things about that.
First of all, if you were in the garden instead
of Adam, you would have done exactly the same
thing he did. So you see what he did was simply
to represent us. If we had been there in exactly
the same innocent condition, given the same choice
and circumstances, each one of us would have
done exactly the same thing. So it's not just
that he blew it and we wouldn't have. We would
have all done the same thing. But God allowed
Adam to represent all of us in that test. There's
something else that's even more important than
that. That is that because He represented us
in His failure and condemnation, so God in His
wisdom can have one man represent us in paying
for sin and bringing salvation. Do you understand
that? It was the wisdom of God that Adam was
allowed to be the federal head or the representative
of the entire human race. He represented us in
failure and condemnation, but he did represent
us as one man. Consequently, in God's plan, one
man, Jesus Christ, can also represent all of
us. in one great act of redemption at the cross.
And that's what I want to talk about secondly.
Adam, in his failure, in his sin, in his fall
from innocence, represented all of us. And we
inherited from him our sin, our nature, our position
before God. But all of us were represented by
Jesus Christ as well in His saving work. When
the Lord Jesus Christ hung upon the cross, our
sin was imputed to Him. Imputation really has
three parts. We've talked about the one from
Adam to us. That's the first act of imputation.
The second one involves our sin. being reckoned
to the account of the Lord Jesus when He died
on the cross. As Paul says in 2 Corinthians,
For God made Him who knew no sin to be made sin
for us. What does he mean by that? He means that
when the Lord Jesus died on the cross, your sin
and my sin was put upon Him. It was put to that
account so that he could pay the price that we
could not pay. Now the third step of imputation
is that the righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ,
for he knew no sin personally. He lived out a
life of perfect righteousness because he was
the righteous one. His righteousness is imputed
to the account of the believer. For God has made
him who knew no sin to be made sin for us, that
we, the apostle says, might be made the righteousness
of God in him. When the Lord Jesus died at the
cross, we were identified with him. Our sin was
put on him. He paid the price. And then his righteousness
was applied to our account. That is the doctrine
of imputation. And that is the reason that God
can justify the believer. When God declares us
righteous in Jesus Christ, it doesn't mean that
he hides his eyes and holds his nose and says,
well, you're righteous even though you really
aren't. That's not what it means. It means that
God has fully dealt with our sins in the death
of His Son. And now He has given to us the perfect
righteousness of Jesus Christ. So when He declares
us righteous, it is because we are righteous.
We have the righteousness of Jesus Christ in
our account. So when the Lord Jesus died, He
died as our substitute. We were identified with
Him at the cross. He died in our place. We are
identified with Him in His resurrection. His
righteousness is given to us. God declares that
we are righteous in His Son. When God looks at
you, He does not see you as John Doe or whatever
your name is, but He sees you as one who is in
His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. you are thoroughly,
completely righteous as far as He is concerned
legally. God knows that we don't always live
up to that righteous position that we have. That's
why we're talking about the struggle we have
with the flesh. But as far as our legal standing
before God is concerned, because of our identification
with the Lord Jesus Christ in His death and resurrection,
We have been forgiven of our sins. Jesus paid
the price. And we have now received the righteousness
of God. We are justified in Jesus Christ. As
Paul says earlier here in Romans, Therefore,
having been justified by faith, we have peace
with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. We're
at peace with God. So you see, this doctrine
of identification is the basis of our salvation.
If we had not been identified with the Lord Jesus
Christ at the cross, there would be absolutely
no hope for our salvation. We would be condemned
forever to have to keep on attempting to pay
the price for our sin by bearing our judgment
in hell. But thank God, Jesus paid the price.
He endured our hell for us at the cross. And
now, as it says here in verse 17, those who receive
the abundance of grace, and the gift of righteousness
will reign in life through one, Jesus Christ.
Now let me go on to say this, that the doctrine
of identification is not only important or vital
or forms the basis for our salvation, it is also
the basis for our sanctification, our being made
like the Lord Jesus in the way that we live.
And that is, of course, the real thrust of what
we're talking about now. Paul goes on to talk
about that in chapter 6 of Romans. He says in
verse 1, What shall we say then? Are we to continue
in sin that grace might increase? May it never
be. Paul has said that God gave the law so that
our sin could be exposed. And as the law does
its work, it agitates even more sin out of our
lives. It exposes sin upon sin upon sin. How
is God going to care for that? Well, He says
His grace abounds more than our sin. However
much sin is exposed in our lives, God's grace
is abundantly more to take care of it. That's
what he says as he closes chapter 5. And so the
question is, well, shall we then continue in
sin that grace might even increase more? Apparently
some people felt that way. And he says, may it
never be. How shall we, notice verse 2 now, how
shall we who died to sin still live in it? I
want you to underscore in your Bible, if you're
prone to do that, those words, we died. Because
now the Apostle Paul is going to talk about how
to know freedom over sin in our lives. He's not
talking now about the guilt. He's dealt with
that in chapters 3, 4, and 5. The guilt question
is settled. Now he wants to talk about the power
of sin that we still have within us after we're
saved. So he begins by telling us that we died
to sin. You say, now wait a minute. When did
that happen? I don't recall dying. Well, he goes
on to explain. He says, do you not know that
all of us who have been baptized into Christ
Jesus have been baptized into his death? You
see that word baptized? That is not a translated
Greek word. That is a transliterated. In other
words, the translators in coming to this term
chose to bring into the English the Greek word
by giving those Greek letters an English equivalent.
The Greek word is baptizo, so you can see obviously
where baptize comes from. Now, we often think
that baptize always has H2O at the end of it,
right? We spell B -A -P. Have you ever noticed
how people tend to spell baptize, B -A -B -T
-I -Z -E? You can always tell someone who's a
Baptist or not a Baptist by the way they spell
that. It's B -A -P -T -I -Z -E. That's usually
how we spell it, isn't it? Because when we see
the word, we immediately think of that tank right
there in the water. We need to understand that
the word baptize is used literally that way.
It means to dip or to immerse. To place into.
But it also was used in that day as it is today,
sometimes, metaphorically. In other words, there
was nothing literal about the word in terms of
water or dipping something in something else.
But it had a metaphorical meaning, a figurative
meaning. And when it was used that way, it meant
to identify with or to unite with. You find it
that way not only in the Bible, but you find
it that way in secular Greek literature from
that day. The word baptized had a figurative
meaning, and that is the way that it's used here.
It is used that way one at a time, and let me
illustrate it to you by turning over to 1 Corinthians
chapter 10. Look at verse 1. Paul says, For I
do not want you to be unaware, brethren, that
our fathers were all under the cloud and all
passed through the sea. What's he talking about?
Well, our fathers would be the Jews of old. When
were they under the cloud and passed through
the sea? Only one time. And that was at the exodus
from Egypt. Now in verse 2 he says, And all were
baptized into Moses. in the cloud and in the
sea. Does that mean that they created some baptistries
back then? Or like we used to do, they got cattle
tanks from their herds and they dipped people
in water? Of course not. What he's saying in
verse 2 is that when they went through the sea,
there was water, a wall of water here and a wall
of water there, and there was a cloud overhead,
which is water. Though they didn't get wet, it
pictured baptism, number one. But what happened
was they were baptized into Moses. In other words,
they were identified with Moses as their leader.
They were identified with Moses as their leader.
So that not too much longer after this, he was
able to go up to the top of a mountain. on behalf
of the whole nation, and there received the law,
the Ten Commandments and all the ordinances of
the law, on behalf of the nation. He was their
representative. They were identified with Him.
Now going back to Romans chapter 6, we see the
same kind of a figurative meaning. Water is not
here. He is talking about our being identified
with the Lord Jesus Christ or united with Him.
In a figurative way. A real way, but a figurative
way. He says, do you not know that as many of
us as have been identified with Christ Jesus
have been identified with His death? It's a legitimate
way of reading this. He says, therefore, we have
been buried with Him through identification into
death. in order that as Christ was raised up
from the dead through the glory of the Father,
so we too might walk in newness of life. For
if we have become united with him in the likeness
of his death, certainly we shall be also in the
likeness of his resurrection, knowing this, look
at verse 6, that our old self, the old man, was
crucified with him. that our body of sin might
be done away with. In other words, that our body
in which sin is still a tyrant, that the expressions
of sin in our bodies, is what he's saying there,
might be done away with or rendered powerless
or inoperative in us, that we should no longer
be slaves to sin. For he who has died is freed
from sin. Now, if we have died with Christ, we
believe that we shall also live with him. Knowing
that Christ, having been raised from the dead,
is never to die again, death has no longer mastery
over him. For the death that he died, he died
to sin once for all, but the life that he lives,
he lives to God. Verse 11, notice this. Even
so, consider yourselves to be D -E -A -D. to
sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus. Therefore,
do not let sin reign in your mortal body, that
you should obey its lusts. And do not go on presenting
the members of your body to sin as instruments
of unrighteousness, but present yourselves to
God as those alive from the dead. Tell us back
away from the text for just a moment. What do
we see here? Number one, we see this, that we
who have trusted the Lord Jesus Christ have been
identified with Christ in His death, burial,
and resurrection. The result of that is a provision
for our freedom from the domination of sin in
these bodies. The result of it is freedom from
fleshly living. Because you see, he says in verse
6 that our old self, time out, what is the old
self? That refers to the old man that we were
in Adam. The old us. What we were before our
conversion. He says that old self, that old man,
was crucified, it was executed with the Lord
Jesus Christ. And now through the resurrection,
we have a new self. that has been created, a
new man, a new person, so that what you and I
essentially are, what we really are, has dramatically
changed as a result of our conversion to the
Lord Jesus Christ. Before we were the old man
under the domination of sin, held as slaves to
it, what we were in Adam, we lived out in sinfulness.
We were the subjects of the wrath of God and
lost on our way to hell. God in His grace reached
down and revealed to us the truth of the gospel.
And we responded in faith and trusted the Lord
Jesus. And as a result of that, what we were
in Adam, was nailed to the cross with Jesus.
And when Jesus said, it is finished, that old
man that you were died at that point and no longer
exists. It's gone. Dead, executed, crucified.
It died as much as Jesus literally died at the
cross. You say, well, then who am I? Because
I'm still around. In that instant of time when
you trusted the Lord Jesus Christ, that old man
was put to death and a new you was created on
the inside. A new man created in righteousness
and true holiness. Ephesians chapter 4. Through
the power of the resurrection, the Holy Spirit
entered you and created a brand new you, a new
self. And he says that this new self, the new
me, no longer has to listen to sin. Sin is an
old master. I have a new master, Jesus Christ.
Can I still hear sin? Oh, yes. Sin still speaks,
and I can hear sin. It seeks to exert its pressure
in my life. It seeks to work out its desires
through my flesh, that old pattern of action
that I still retain. It's still there. It's still
very real. But you see, I am now a new man in
Jesus Christ, and I do not have to listen to
sin anymore. Can I? Yes. I can allow sin and
flesh to dominate me. And as we saw last week,
I can even lead such a contradictory life as
to be called a carnal person. It's like Lot was
in the Old Testament. We examined his example
last week. I can do that. I can be a contradiction
and a disgrace to God. But I don't want to do
that. What I want is freedom. Freedom! God says,
I've given you freedom. Here's the basis for
it. You are a new person in my son. You are no
longer related to sin. You no longer have an
obligation to sin. Verse 6 says, you are no longer
slaves to sin. Verse 14 says, sin shall not be
master over you. So that now when sin approaches
me through that old fleshly pattern of the old
man that used to be, I as the new man do not
have to respond. That is the basis for my freedom.
It is my identification with the Lord Jesus Christ.
You see, the truth of the cross is that Jesus
died for me, and I died with Christ, the old
I. It's a two -fold thing. Because Christ died
for me, I'm saved. Because I, the old I, died
with Christ, I'm free. from sin's domination.
Because Christ died for me, I no longer bear
the guilt of sin. Because the old I died with
Christ, I no longer have to subject myself to
the power of sin. That's the basis for our freedom.
I want to talk just briefly about the power for
our freedom. Because once you get a hold of the
basis, Once you can write it upon your heart,
what we just talked about, you need to be able
to get to that next step. How do I then appropriate
this freedom? And by the way, if you're having
a hard time understanding what I just said about
identification, I want to encourage you to meditate
in Romans chapter 6. And allow the Spirit of
God to write those verses on your heart until
you begin to get a hold of it. That is not going
to happen between now and 7 .30 in the morning.
That is going to take time. Remember last week
we said that this kind of thing takes time and
the knowledge of the Word of God and experience.
You have to put all those together if you're
going to grow. It's going to take time for you
to meditate. If you want to read another book
that may be helpful to you, let me encourage
you to buy the book Birthright by David Needham.
I have mentioned it before. There are some parts
of the book that I have a little hard time with,
but the kind of thing he says in general is exactly
what I believe the Word of God teaches regarding
who we really are in Jesus Christ. We have a
new identity. But now let's talk about the power
for our freedom. Let's get started on that. The
power for our freedom comes from the indwelling
of the Holy Spirit. I've already said to you
that God has created within us a new self, a
new man. We need to understand that that new
man is joined with the Holy Spirit. The Holy
Spirit does not indwell us like some foreign
kind of substance. I have a glass of water here
and I need to take a drink of it to clear my
throat. Now that is in my body as another substance.
And my body will be able to assimilate that.
But you see, the Holy Spirit is not in us in
that way at all. He is not in us as a foreign
substance. The Holy Spirit has come in us. and
created the new man, and that new man that you
are in Jesus Christ, that new person that you
are, is inseparably united with the Holy Spirit.
You cannot pull apart the Holy Spirit in the
new you. He brings the newness of life to you
as the spirit of the resurrection. He comes to
teach us. how to apply the finished work of Jesus
Christ in our daily living. So understand that
the Holy Spirit who indwells you is there to
teach you how to apply the truth we've just talked
about so that you in your daily life can experience
an increasing freedom over sin and the flesh.
1 Corinthians 2 .12, it says that He has come
that we might know the things freely given to
us by God. That's why He's there. Now, I want
you to skip over a page or two here in your Bible
to Romans chapter 8, where we're going to do
the rest of our study for this morning. The Holy
Spirit operates within us a brand new regulating
principle. Now we see this in what is said in
the beginning of Romans 8. There is therefore
now no condemnation for those who are in Christ
Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ
Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and
death. Do you notice two laws there in verse
2? These laws are not like the Ten Commandments.
That's not the meaning of the word law in this
context. Here the word law is used in the sense
of a principle that regulates. It's like the
law of gravity. That's not written down in a
law book anywhere. It is a principle that regulates
the way that we live in the world by holding
us down. I have decided that I... I am not overweight.
What I have is a sense of gravity that is overexercised
so that when I get on the scales, it pulls down
harder than it really should. Maybe that's your
problem, too. You see, gravity is a principle.
Whatever we do, we're affected by it. It regulates
us in this life. Now, in the similar kind of
sense, when he uses the word law in verse 2,
he's talking about a regulating principle. He's
saying that before we were saved, we were controlled
by the regulating principle of sin and death.
It operated within us. It dominated us. That's
all the principle we had. There was no other
regulation in our lives. That was it. But now
the Holy Spirit has brought to us a brand new
principle, a brand new regulation, and it is
what he calls here the law of the spirit of life
in Christ Jesus. This new regulating principle
is able to overcome the old one. I can still
live according to that principle of sin and death.
But what he's telling me here is that when the
Holy Spirit came into me, he brought a brand
new principle that can control my life. It's
the principle of the spirit of life in Christ
Jesus. And that new principle is able to override
the old so that I will obey God and live out
righteousness rather than obey sin and death.
We can illustrate it perhaps going back to gravity
again, using that as the old law, the gravity
that holds us down. If the law of gravity were
the only one that we had, we could never operate
an airplane because we could never get it off
the ground. In fact, I'm still amazed they get
those things off the ground. But they do. Now,
why is that? Because, you see, they discovered
somewhere back there. Another law, another regulating
principle besides gravity, it's called aerodynamics.
Now it would take an engineer like some of you
to explain how that works. I'll leave that to
you. But all of us are familiar with the fact
that the law of aerodynamics works. And it is
able to overcome the law of gravity. so that
an airplane can take off the runway and fly through
the air to its destination, where it again uses
the law of gravity to lower itself to the ground
and let the people up. So you see, there is an
example of one regulating principle that is overridden
by another to accomplish a certain purpose. The
Holy Spirit brought a new regulating principle
into your life. It is the principle of life.
And that new regulating principle is able to
override the law of sin and death, which is still
trying to work its way in you. And through that
new regulating principle, as verse 4 says, the
requirement of the law is fulfilled in you. In
other words, the righteous demands of the law.
The life of obedience. the life that reflects
what God is in His righteousness, that is able
to be experienced in your life because of the
new regulating principle that the Spirit of God
has brought. That's why He says what He does
in verse 13. If you are living according to the
flesh, you must die. But if by the Spirit you
are putting to death, the deeds of the body,
you will live. Notice that he talks there about
putting to death the deeds of the body. We're
going to talk about that again next week. But
he says that you and I cannot deal with the expressions
of sin in our bodies apart from the Holy Spirit.
He says it is by the Spirit that you put to death
the deeds of the body. not by the strength of
your own resolve. You'll never make it. But it's
by learning how to release the Spirit of God
in your life so that this new regulating principle
overrides the law of sin and death and the deeds
of the body are put to death. It's by the Spirit.
My friend, the thing that is important for us
to concentrate on as we close the service is
this. How free is the Holy Spirit to teach me
these things? If He is in me to show me these
things that God has freely given me, how free
is the Spirit of God to teach me? You see, He
can never teach me if I'm never in the Bible.
If I'm not reading it and meditating upon it.
He can't teach me because this is the instruction
book. So how much time do you spend in the Word?
Not as some rule, not as some legalistic thing
you have to follow, but how much time do you
spend in the Word allowing the Spirit who is
in you to teach you the things of God? And the
second question is, is the Holy Spirit... Free
to teach you. Because you see, it's possible
for us to grieve the Holy Spirit, as we saw last
week, and it's possible also to quench the Holy
Spirit, to put Him down, to squelch Him by disobedience
in our lives. Perhaps the most important question
that confronts us today in light of the message
is, what is my relationship right now? To the
Holy Spirit. Is the Holy Spirit squelched and
quenched and put down in my life? Or am I saying
to the Spirit of God, I want you to teach me.
I want you to show me these things. I want to
yield myself to you. Spirit of God, my teacher
be, showing the things of Christ to me. You see,
that's the attitude that's needed if we're going
to know the freedom that God has provided for
us. Let's pray. With our heads bowed, our eyes
shut, and as the Spirit of God does His work,
in part, and as to bring awareness to us of our
spiritual condition, I wonder if He's not whispering
in some ears here this morning, My child, I love
you, but oh, how you're hurting me. in the way
you're living. The way you ignore me. The way
that you let sin just roll over you, have its
way in your life. The way you turn me off when
I try to speak to you. My child, I'm grieved
today. My friend, if that's you, will you right
now say to the Holy Spirit, Spirit of God, I
love you. And because I love you, I submit myself
to you. I acknowledge my sins. I acknowledge
my independent, selfish way of living. And I
give you myself right now. Be my teacher. Oh,
Lord, I pray that in my own life, And I ask that
it will be the real prayer, the real desire of
every one of your children here. Spirit of God,
descend upon our hearts and show to us the things
of Christ, the things that are freely given to
us by the Father. Show to us how we can experience
the freedom from fleshly living that you have
provided so graciously for us in our identification
with the Lord Jesus.