Romans 6 - Part 2 — Zac Poonen

Last Saturday we finished up the Roman 6 .14, so we started the Roman 6 .15, but before I go there, I wondered whether you have ever thought how the early Christians met, right at the beginning, almost up to the end of the second year.

We are so used to meeting in church buildings almost all our life that we imagine that that's how Peter and Paul must have met in the early days. It's not true. There were no church buildings at all for almost 300 years of Christianity.

And those were some of the finest years of Christianity. People were willing to be eaten by lions, but they would not say, Caesar is Lord. They would be beheaded and crucified. And those Christians never met in a grand church building.

They were not very rich. 1 Corinthians 1 says, not many rich, not many clever. And if you're not rich, you don't have a big home. So therefore, I've deduced from that that the early Christians were poor, they had small homes, and therefore they would meet only in small groups.

If there were hundreds of believers in a city like Rome, for example, they would meet in a number of different homes. For small groups of people, I wonder if there were more than 50 people. Inconvenience.

I thought of that when we used to meet in our home for six years. Children crying, no mother's room. And I've been in meetings where a child starts crying, and the mother, out of consideration for others, would want to take the child out.

I'd say, no sister, I want you to sit here. Because you're always taking the child out of every meeting. The rest of us can learn to live with listening to children. We can be so inconsiderate. We need to be at a meeting the most.

I try to use my mind to think, how did the early Christians meet? They loved one another, and they could bury one another. The other thing is, they were so diverse. The Bible speaks about Greeks and barbarians.

Can you imagine a Greek and a barbarian having fellowship? The culture that the Greek had, and the crude ways of the barbarian, but they were all redeemed by the blood of Christ. It's wonderful to think of how those early Christians met, and what impact did they have on Roman society.

They were not out there to change Rome. In fact, when the emperor became a Christian in Constantine in 380, that was the beginning of the corruption of Christianity, not the development of true Christianity.

Christianity started getting corrupt when it became accepted by the authorities in the empire of the king. And if you read church history, you see how their own Catholics and even the Calvinists, Calvin and all the others, supported the state.

Even Martin Luther. They were protected by the state. And Jesus never sought the protection of the state. The early apostles didn't. So, what influence did those Christians have then? In terms of society in Rome, nobody recognized them.

There were little groups of people meeting here and there, and hidden away in catacombs underground, persecuted. But God had a witness. That's the main thing. He had a witness on earth. So, I'm always excited whenever I see that happening.

You've seen it happen in different parts of India. We haven't influenced the whole of India, but I believe that God has a witness in different parts of India. You know, small groups of people are like a light in the midst of the darkness.

You know, sometimes when I travel in a plane at night, it's all dark underneath. But here and there, you see a little light, a house. I see that's how God sees little churches in the midst of the darkness of the world.

You know, one family accepted Christian values. They love one another. Or a group of people who are not very influential in society, but they love one another as a light. So, if our goal is to have everything that God wants and not just part of what He wants, many of these truths in scripture become very important to us.

Romans 6:15 and the Believer’s Attitude Toward Sin

You don't need to understand Romans 6 and Romans 7 to go to heaven. In fact, you don't even need to understand Romans 6 and 7 to live a bodily life. That's like saying you don't need to understand your digestive system for your food to be digested.

If you understand, for example, how do we know certain food is junk food to destroy your body? So, certain laws of the body, it's good to know, but it harms us more, doesn't it? So, keeping that in mind, let's read Romans 6.

Verse 15. What then? Shall we sin because we are not under law but under grace? I don't know Greek and I have no intention to study it. Today with so many English translations by scholars who spent years researching meanings of words, I find if I read those translations, I usually use about four or five translations and paraphrases in English, that helps me to understand the meaning of a word better than if I was studying Greek.

So, what I'm told is, there's a difference between verse 1 and verse 15. It sounds the same. Shall we continue in sin, verse 1? Shall we sin, verse 15? But the difference is, in verse 15, what it's saying is, first it's saying in verse 1, shall we continue in sin?

But in verse 15 it says, shall we then sin even once? This message is for those who can answer that question. Shall we then sin even once again in our life? You see, it's following on from sin shall not, verse 14, rule over you because you are under grace.

What then? Then, are we going to sin even once in our life? See, when people come to me for baptism in India, I ask them a question. I say, do you want to sin again? I'm not asking them, will you sin again?

None of us can say, I will never sin again. Do you want to sin again? That, we need to have a right answer to. Do you want to sin anymore? Do you want to sin even once? Do you want to do something which you know is displeasing to God, even once?

If you don't have a right answer to that, I'd say, you haven't understood the cross of Calvary at all. You haven't understood why Jesus suffered for your life and attitude towards sin. So, that's a very important question.

What then? Shall we sin even once because we can take advantage of God's grace? May never be. So, that is the attitude of mind which enables us to understand scripture. God has written his word not for us to find excuses for sin, but to be free from sin.

You know, when I find pastors falling into sin, adultery, and then going back to the Old Testament and say, well, David also fell and he was still king. If these guys are using the Bible not to overcome sin, they're trying to find an excuse for their sin in scripture.

And God allows them to find it. They usually find it in the Old Testament. Think of this verse in Revelation 22. It's quite an amazing verse. You wouldn't think that there's such a verse in the Bible, Revelation 22.

Holy Scripture. What does it say? Let the one who does wrong continue to do wrong. Are you like that? Are there words like that in your life? Are you doing wrong? Continue to do wrong. Are you filthy?

Continue to be filthy. I was puzzled by it for many years. I sought the Lord for a revelation. Can you imagine me telling somebody, are you doing wrong? Just continue to do wrong. Continue to be filthy.

I've got a scripture for you. It's there. And then I got light on it. The thing is, if you've read all these 1 ,000 pages in this book, and you come to the last page, and you still want to do wrong, brother, just go ahead and do wrong.

There's no hope for you. After reading 1 ,000 pages in this book, you still want to be filthy? When you come to the last page, there's no hope for you. Just continue to be filthy. It's as if God says, when you read my book and you still want to be filthy, when you come to the last page, go ahead and do that.

It's our attitude to sin that matters. I find so many Christians get mad at so many other things. Yeah, there are many doctrines in scripture. But if you don't see the centrality of Christ died to save us from sin, you should call his name Jesus because he would save his people from their sins.

And if I make that central, then I understand scripture. Otherwise, I won't understand scripture. And I can even go astray in some other doctrines as well. But if I keep that as a central focus, the very first promise in the New Testament, you should call his name Jesus, Matthew 1, 21, because he came to save his people from all their sins.

Not just forgive their sins. I often say this, that many Christians know Jesus as a forgiver, not a savior. They should not call him savior because ask them, has he saved you from your anger? Has he saved you from your lust?

Has he saved you from evil speaking? No, he hasn't. But then don't call him savior. Say, he's my forgiver. He keeps forgiving me. But he wants to be your savior. The Lord said, you will seek me and find me when you search for me with all your heart.

When you're determined at any cost to get all of God's truth, you'll find it. But if you treat God like some 25 cent quarter that you dropped somewhere in the grass and you didn't find it, you're not going to seek for it long.

If you seek God like that, you'll never find it. Okay, let's continue. Verse 16, Romans 6. Don't you know when you present yourself as slaves for obedience, you're a slave to the one you obey? Either sin resulting in death or obedience resulting in righteousness.

God’s Part and Our Part in Holiness

The Bible speaks about obedience to the spirit or to the flesh. Holiness has got two parts to it. One is God's part and the other is mine. You know, the tragedy is in Christians of being imbalanced. Some people emphasize God's part, some people emphasize man's part.

If my becoming holy was entirely dependent upon God, entirely, I would be like Jesus right now. And all of us would be like Jesus. Because God doesn't care. If it was entirely up to me, I'd be defeated by sin every single day.

But remember the word of Jesus, take my yoke upon you. And we see that frequently in India, two bullocks with a yoke upon them. You have to do that part. And that is, everything is like forgiveness of sins.

Christ did that part for us on the cross, but yet 95 of people in the world, their sins are not forgiven. Even though Christ died for their sins. Because they haven't done their part of repenting and receiving that forgiveness.

So even the very first step, think of the many years that went by in our life without our receiving forgiveness, that we didn't do our part. So remember this, that the Bible speaks about God's part and my part and if something is not fulfilled, it's not because God didn't do his part, it's probably because I didn't do mine.

So he says, present yourself as slaves. In the same way, just like you did once as slaves to sin, now you can be a slave of righteousness. Thanks be to God, verse 17, that though you were slaves of sin once upon a time, you became obedient from the heart to that particular form of teaching to which you were committed.

And having been freed from sin, you become slaves of righteousness. When you read verse 17 and 18 together, you learn something. There's a particular form of teaching or what we would call doctrine. You became obedient to a particular doctrine which we preached and the result is you were freed from sin and became slaves of righteousness.

So that teaches me that the right doctrine is that which leads to freedom from sin and makes me a slave of righteousness. If I have not become free from sin and become a slave of righteousness, wanting to do right whatever the cost, I haven't understood the doctrine properly yet.

Maybe I haven't understood properly. I understand the doctrine fully. I want to be totally free from sin and I'll be willing to pay any price to do what is righteous, what is pleasing to God. So that's the meaning there.

And he goes on to say, I'm speaking in human terms because of the weakness of your flesh. Again he repeats it, just like in the olden days you presented the members of your body as slaves to impurity, now present your members as slaves to righteousness which results in sanctification.

Because when you were slaves of sin, you were free in regard to righteousness. What benefit did you have in those days? Things which are now a shame. The outcome of that life is death. Now verse 22 is a very interesting verse.

It says here about certain steps. First being free from sin and then becoming enslaved or a servant of God. Often spoken of in that verse, if you want to be a servant of God, you need to be free from sin.

Even if you don't know much of the Bible, a lot of people think, let's go to Bible school to be a servant of God. No, you need to be free from sin. Being free from sin and enslaved to God, you derive your fruit.

What is the fruit of our being a servant of God? It's not souls. It's not ministry. It's not a lot of what people call service. It is sanctification. Being free from sin, I become a servant of God and the fruit I get is not, as I said, so many people getting murdered, but sanctification in my own life.

And that's been a very helpful verse for me. Because in my service, in all the service I do, whether it's preaching, whether it's bringing people to Christ, whether it's leading them to God, whether it's following a book, preaching a sermon, going to churches, anything, I know I'm doing it right if I'm getting more and more holy in the process.

My service for God, whatever it is, is not making me more sanctified. It's not really service for God. It can be what the Christian world calls ministry. Helping the poor, planting churches, writing books and television programs and all that.

There's so much that's called service for God today. If it does not lead to sanctification, it is not really serving God. I would be serving myself and finding some satisfaction thinking that I'm doing God's work.

So this has been a help to me to know whether my service is really what God accepts as service to Him. Every service that I do for God should lead me to greater holiness in my own life. That's the fruit that you get.

Eternal Life as the Life of God

Freed from sin, you become a servant of God, and here is the fruit that you get. Sanctification, greater holiness, and the final end, eternal life. And then he says, even this eternal life. They know Romans 6 .23, but they don't know Romans 6 .22.

If someone were to ask you, I have eternal life, I'd say the average Christian would lead that person to Romans 6 .22. I'd say eternal life is mentioned in verse 22 and verse 23. Why is it we take only verse 23?

And this is how we can get wrong teaching. Eternal life does not mean living forever. People go to hell, live forever too, but they don't have eternal life. Because we get the definition of eternity wrong.

We think eternity means having no end in terms of time. No. Eternity means having no beginning and no end. That's eternity. So eternal life is not a life that never ends, but eternal life is a life that had no beginning and no end.

You and I don't have it. That's what we thought about it. So eternal life is another phrase for the life of God. Nobody else has eternal life except God. Because He's the only life that had no beginning and has no end.

And that is a gift He gives us. It's the very life of God, whether you believe it or not, that He gives us. Now we're not thinking in terms of quantity of life here, but quality of life. It refers to a certain quality of life.

Life that's eternal, that's in Hebrews 7, that's called indestructible life. Life that cannot be destroyed. We tried to destroy it when Christ was on earth. We couldn't destroy it. We just came out of the grave.

That's the life God gives us. It's a wonderful thing, the life of Jesus, something that nothing can destroy. Satan cannot destroy it. Sin cannot destroy it. It's eternal life. So it's a gift that God gives me when He sees that I want it with all my heart.

The wonderful thing about God is He doesn't force Himself on anyone. He doesn't force people to go to heaven. Think of it, hundreds or thousands of people died in the last 24 hours and God didn't force anyone to go to heaven.

They had to make a choice. In the same way, if you don't make a choice, you're not going to be holy because God won't force it. If He doesn't force people to go to heaven, He's not going to force anybody to go to hell.

But if I choose, say, Lord, I want this. I want to be totally like Jesus in my thoughts, words, and my attitude to people. I want to love my enemies like Jesus loved his enemies. I want to be pure in my thoughts, not pure as Jesus was.

I want to have the same attitude to money that Jesus had. I want to be forgiving, patient like Jesus was. Even if it takes time, it will take time, but God sees that I really want it at any cost. I want to be obedient to everything Your Word says, like Jesus was totally obedient to the Father.

God will give it to you. There's no doubt about it. He's a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him. He's always been a rewarder. I'm not here to judge other Christians. That's not my mission. The Bible says God is their judge.

But for myself, I know that anything Scripture has promised can be mine if I seek and diligently do it. So eternal life, the life of God, can be ours. The wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life.

We must link it with verse 92. Be free from sin, and we're going to serve the God, and get sanctification, and the outcome is eternal life, which is the free gift of God, so I can't take any credit for it.

Romans 7: Dying to the Law and Marrying Christ

So we move on from there to Romans 7. In Romans 7, 1 -4, he speaks about marriage, spiritual marriage. Don't you know, brethren, that the law of jurisdiction over a person's body is? A married woman is bound by law to her husband while he's living.

But if her husband dies, then she's released from the law concerning her husband. So if while her husband is living, she's joined to another man, she's called an adulteress. But if her husband dies, then she's free from the law, though she's not an adulteress.

And now he's not talking about divorce and remarriage here. He's applying it to our marriage to the law. Therefore, my brethren, you who were married to the law have been made to die to the law, so that you can now be married to Christ, so that you can bear fruit for God.

So, now you read Romans 6 about the old man and the law and Christ. I picture this as three marriages. My thing's in pictures, and that helps me understand Scripture, just like Jesus would use pictures of salt and light and flowers and water and all that to illustrate truth.

I see this as three marriages. So let me explain. I was once married to a person called the old man. Now, you see, I'm the bride in all these three illustrations, in all three marriages. First, I'm married to the old man.

And the old man is an evil person. He always wants me to do something wrong. He's like a husband who always made his wife do something wrong, harassed her, made her do things she didn't want to do. And I got sick and tired of it.

And one day, the old man came back, this wretched man who was troubling me, making me sin. Once you have the old man die, you don't want to sin anymore. So that's the first marriage. And now, I want to be married to a good husband who doesn't ask me to do all those wrong things.

I marry someone who I think is Christ. I see someone who's upright and never does anything wrong, never asks for anything wrong to be done. I say, this is the one I want to marry. I discover after marrying him that it's the law.

The law is different from the old man. He never asks me to do anything wrong, never tells me to do anything sinful. He always asks me to do only what is right. Well, he says, shouldn't you be happy with such a person?

Well, hang on. But, he's very demanding. When he says breakfast must be ready by 8 o 'clock, it must be ready by 8 o 'clock, not 8 -0 -1, 8 o 'clock. The shoes must be polished perfectly. The clothes must be washed without a stain.

And then I discover that though he never asks me to do wrong, life has become such a burden. Everything must be perfect. The house must be slim and spanned. He's a very demanding husband and the worst part of it is he doesn't help me one bit with any of his work.

This is the law. The law is good. God's law is perfect. That was a wretched husband. If I got out of the frying pan into the fire now, married to this guy who is so demanding and my life is so miserable and unhappy.

There are Christians like this. They are married to the law and they try to get other people married to the law too. And you're hoping that this husband will die, but he doesn't. The law of God never dies.

He has no blood pressure, no diabetes. He'll live forever. And you lose all hope of saying, Lord, my life's going to be miserable till the end of my life because I'm married to this person called the law.

And then God does something wonderful. He doesn't kill the law. He kills the wife. He kills you. You die. And when you die, like it says here, when she dies, she's free from her husband. So I have died.

I died to the law and my marriage to the law is broken. Verse 4. You were made to die to the law. The law didn't die, but you died. In the previous first marriage, the old man died. Now the wife dies, but that's not the end of me.

God raises me up. But my old marriage is broken now. And now he says, you can marry Christ. Now is Christ less demanding than the law? Are his standards lower? The law said you should not murder. The law said you shouldn't even be angry.

So Jesus also says, breakfast must be at 8 o 'clock, not at 8 .01. But here is this lazy guy, wife like me, who can manage breakfast only by 11 o 'clock in the morning. What shall I do? The law says, never mind.

We work at it together. And he helps me in the kitchen with great effort. In a year or so I manage to make breakfast by 10 o 'clock. Another year and it makes 9 o 'clock. I'm working towards the perfection the law demands.

And one day, lo and behold, breakfast is at 8 o 'clock. I managed it. But the difference between Christ and the law is, he was a husband who helps me. He never asks me to do anything. He says, let's do it together.

Wouldn't you like to be married to such a person? That's marriage to Christ. You know, this is a perfect picture of how a lot of Christians live. They live under the demands of the law and life is such a burden.

And another person who is living according to all the demands of the law, his life is so free because he is married to Christ. He has somebody who helps him in everything. So that's the picture there.

You're made to die to the law, verse 4, so that you can be married to another, Him who was raised from the dead. And we were raised out of Him. So this is the truth here. And if you meditate more on that, I don't know, go into more detail, you'll see what a wonderful thing it is to be married to Jesus Christ.

And everything in life, His demands are perfection. But He doesn't sort of condemn me because I haven't attained there. He says, we'll make it. You and I will make it, He says. It may take time, but you and I will get there.

We're going to get there. Don't be discouraged. I'm glad I got free from being married to the law. I hope all of you will be free. Some people think being free from marriage to the law means trying to go back to sin again, commit adultery like David, etc.

No. It's completely different. So here we understand what it means to be free from the law. And then He goes on to speak about how it was in the old days when we were in the flesh. Our passing from passions aroused through to death, but now we are released from the law.

Again, the same thing. I died to that husband to whom I was bound, so that now I serve in newness with the Spirit. I'm doing the same thing, but it's not like a heavy burden. You know, a lot of people read the commandments of God in the New Testament.

They say, oh, what a burden it is to do that. What a burden it is to do this. And whenever I hear any Christian thinking that some New Testament command is a burden, I say, brother, you've got to die to the soul of Mary, to Christ, who will make the same demand of you, but it won't be a burden.

He'll help you through it. This is what makes the difference between a truly spiritual Christian and a religious legalist. We've got to be careful here that we don't get married to the law, all these high standards, that we don't lead people to that type of marriages, but to be married to Christ, where we serve in the newness of the Spirit, oldness of the letter.

It doesn't mean we don't keep the commandments. I do the same thing, but not according to a strict legalistic code. I do the same thing, but in the newness of the Spirit, because Scripture says that I shouldn't lust after a woman.

It's not because of a heavy burden, oh, I'm not supposed to do it. It's freedom. I'm glad to be able to live like that. Okay, then he speaks again about our relationship to the law, and he speaks particularly about the Ten Commandments in verse 7.

The Tenth Commandment and the Exposure of Inner Sin

Now if you read Exodus chapter 20, where the Ten Commandments are listed, you'll see that nine of them dealt with our external life. Only the last one, you shall not desire your neighbor's wife, was an inward thing.

You shall not desire your neighbor's house. You shall not desire anything that's your neighbor, your neighbor's daughter, for example. Every woman who walks on the third is your neighbor's daughter or your neighbor's wife, one of the two.

And you must not desire. That was the commandment that even the Apostle Paul found very difficult to keep, and which you and I also find difficult to keep. So we can say, why did God give nine commandments that had to do with our external life, and put this tenth one at the end, which He knew nobody could keep?

I think He was testing people. How many people will be honest and say, Lord, I can't keep all the Ten Commandments. I can keep nine of them, but when it comes to the tenth, I shall not desire, I shall not covet, I shall not lust.

I just can't keep it. But I want to keep it, because I know this is your standard. That's what God was looking for. How many people in Israel will recognize this is God's standard, and will recognize, I'm not able to keep it, but Lord, how can I keep it?

I think there were very few. One of them was Paul. But he's very honest. He said, I can keep all the law. In Philippians, he says, according to the righteousness of the law, I was blameless. That means the nine commandments.

When Jesus asked the rich young ruler, he came to him to keep the commandments. He never mentioned the tenth commandment. Have you noticed that? He only told him the commandment number 5, 6, 7, 8, 9. He never told him the tenth, but he knew he couldn't keep it.

And Paul says here, when he came to the last commandment, he said, you shall not covet. Sin, mercy, taking opportunity through the commandment, produced in me lusting of every kind. Look at the honesty of this great apostle.

He says, I lusted. That's the meaning of, lusting of every kind was in my heart. You know, when we're still defeated in that area, we're afraid to confess that we were like that. Paul couldn't speak about it because he had become free from it.

But he was honest enough to say it. And that's an encouragement, to know that Paul is in the same pit that we're in. God put him under that, and God can put me under it. He said, it produced in me lusting of every possible kind in my heart.

He goes on to say, this law, which is supposed to give me life, produced death. I felt more miserable when I saw God's standards. And that's how a lot of people feel when they hear the standards we preach in the church.

We feel more comfortable in some other church where they don't preach those standards. But then you don't realize how sick you are. It's like, I sometimes think the true church of God is a church that's got a proper scanning machine that's working properly, that gives you a correct report of what's going on inside.

A lot of other churches have got a defective scanning machine that you feel comfortable with because it gives you the impression you're okay. It's like that joke I heard about the man who said, when the doctor, my doctor was so kind when he knew that I couldn't afford the surgery, he just touched up the scan so that it doesn't look like I'm so sick.

That's exactly what a lot of preachers do. They touch up the scan so that you don't realize how sick you are. But Paul said, the law showed me how evil I was and I wanted to be free from it. So then the law is holy, verse 12.

Romans 7 and Unconscious Sin

Let me just go down to this important section, verse 14 to 25. We know that the law is spiritual, dying of flesh, soul, and the bondage of sin. Now here is a very important sentence which describes this whole section, verse 15.

That which I am doing, I do not understand. You could say that's the heading for this whole section. So it's referring to sin which I don't understand and also which I don't want to do. Something which, verse 16, I don't want to do it.

Remember this man reading this section, he's talking about sin which I don't understand, verse 14, and verse 16 which I don't want to do. Paul is speaking about an overcoming Christian who has understood Romans 6, to be free from sin.

Who has understood Romans 7, to be free from marriage to the Lord, to be married to Christ. But still, he finds himself at times doing things which he didn't want to do. It's very honest, I like it. The honesty of the Apostle Paul.

Very few Christians are absolutely honest about it in this area. Either they go to one extreme of saying, oh we've got to keep on sinning, or they pretend that they never make a mistake and never sin at all.

Both are wrong. So what is Paul talking about here? I believe he's speaking about one unconscious sin. That which I'm doing I don't understand. It means there are areas of my life where I'm not like Christ, but I don't see it yet.

Sometimes we can be thoughtless and we don't realize it's sin. I remember in the early days when we were meeting in our home, and you know there are a lot of inconveniences when people live in that home.

We found that sometimes a lot of burden would fall on my wife. Because we had so many people, we had small children at home, and all these folks coming, and we used to have three meetings a week in our home.

And many of the folks who came, I think they were wonderful brothers and sisters, but they were a bit thoughtless about the inconveniences they were causing by a certain thoughtlessness in relation to the inconveniences we were facing when having the meetings in our home.

I don't believe they were sinning. I think it didn't occur to them that they were not consciously trying to harm us in any way. But they were a bit thoughtless. I mean, they think that we've got to clean up after they all leave.

I don't believe they were sinning. That's just one example. Sometimes we can do, you know, in relation to others, do certain things when we don't realize how inconvenient or awkward or difficult it is for someone like us.

So, it's referring to those areas where, I remember, I'll give you another example. I once visited a home, a very God-fearing sister, already gripped by the message we preached. It was many years ago, and I visited that home and I spent one hour there.

And she spoke for 54 minutes, and I spoke for about 4 minutes, and her husband spoke for about 2 minutes. She never gossiped, she never backed it, she never did anything. But I think there was a little disproportionate amount of that in each of us.

And there was not a single sinful thing she spoke about or gossiped or backbiting, nothing. She was just talking about the wonderful revelation she got from this verse and that verse and the other verse, and it was 54 minutes out of one hour.