Triple Jump Christianity Part II – Romans

Please click here For Triple Jump Christianity Part I

Romans: Hop: 1-5    Skip: 6&7     Jump: 8+

If you, like me, when you first read Romans, you reached chapters 6&7, only to have your joy exhausted and find yourself almost shipwrecked. But you pushed on and, thankfully, landed on the soothing shores of Romans 8 ‘For there is no condemnation for those in Christ Jesus’ wondering why Paul had included Romans 6 & 7. If that’s you, you are not alone!

Then, moving through Romans 8, excitement mounting, you’re filled with visions of glory by the with such stirring verses as ‘the whole of creation is standing on tiptoe waiting for the sons of God to be revealed’ or ‘nothing can separate us from the love of God’ and all seems well.

Well it’s not. And you know it.

Like me, the truth is, you’ve fallen, stumbled over Romans 6 and 7, and left loose ends in your theology, in your system, unresolved.

In the past few years, I feel I have moved on a little from simply wishing to convey the truth of Romans 6&7 and what the verses mean, to their relevance. If I can put it this way, without claiming any prophetic gift, their prophetic relevance for the church; a new sense of direction and calling on the church.

To start:

Romans 6 v 6 ‘…knowing this that our old man was crucified with Him…’

Ask yourself, ‘Do I know this?’

If you’re a Romans 1-5 Christian, you’ll ‘know’ some fantastic life-changing truths. You’ll know, maybe, that Christ died for you; that you are justified (put right with God) by faith not by works; you’ll know the peace of God and that by His grace you have received the gift of righteousness. You KNOW these things.

How? Not because you’re clever. Not because you have a brain that can understand biblical thinking, but by revelation.

What do you do when you gaze at a verse of scripture, and it makes no sense? You might believe the bible is the inspired, inerrant word of God…but this does you no good on its own; it is, afterall, the ‘entrance of the word that gives light’, not the existence of the word.

If you find yourself saying things like ‘I know the bible says the old man is crucified but he seems to be grumbling still…’ or ‘I’m a sinner saved by grace’ you may be suffering from the lack of Romans 6&7 SKIP in your triple jump!

If the old man is ‘grumbling’, he can’t be crucified. The old man has been crucified according to Paul in Romans 6, so you can’t still be ‘a sinner’. Either you’re right or Paul is.

Is there any other NT evidence for these statements? Is it consistent with the rest of Scripture?

2Cor 5v17 ‘…therefore if anyone is in Christ Jesus, he is a new creation; old things have passed away. See? All things have become new’

Gal 2 v 20 ‘I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who lives, but Christ lives in me; and the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me, and gave Himself for me’

Colossians 3 v 3 ‘…you died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God, when Christ who is our life…’

CS Lewis wrote of Christians that we are ‘…really new. It is not a change from brainy men to brainier men: it is a change…in a totally different direction – a change from being creatures of God to being sons of God. Christ…is the origin…and life…of all the new men…and He transmits it not by heredity but by being ‘in Him’.

In another quote he said: ‘Every Christian is to become a little Christ. The whole purpose of becoming a Christian is simply nothing else’.

Once Romans 6 v 6 is secure the rest of the chapter falls into place.

Baptists often quote Romans 6 v 3 and 4 as a picture of water baptism. I’m sure that water baptism is symbolic of verse 3 but the spiritual truth of verse 3 is that a believer is someone who has been ‘baptised into Christ Jesus’ – and no Baptist would say that water baptism itself places you in Christ.

The biblical language of being ‘in’ someone is foreign to our usual way of thinking and it is this that is often a barrier to understanding how you can be ‘crucified with Christ’. ‘After all’, says your brain, ‘I wasn’t even alive then, so how can I have been crucified with Christ?’

A key verse to get to grips with this thinking is: 

1 Cor 1 v 30 ‘But of God, you are in Christ Jesus…’

Biblically it is important to see who you are ‘in’. In Old Testament times, for example, Hebrews says Levi was ‘in Abraham’ giving tithes to Melchizedek (Heb 7 v 9,10). The Jews in the Exodus were ‘all baptized into Moses’ as they travelled to the Promised Land. Thinking biblically, whoever you’re ‘in’ means you have participated in all aspects of their life at the time they did. Levi, for example, was alive centuries after Abraham had died, just as we are alive after Christ was crucified hence in Romans 6 ‘our old man was crucified with Him’.

The evangelical gospel falls short, wonderful though it is.

If you’ve become a Christian after hearing the Romans 1-5 gospel you will know your ‘sins’ have been dealt with by Jesus on the cross, but you will have no concept of the ‘sinner’ being dealt with apart from your repentance and ‘dying to sin’ as you commit yourself to God.

To use technical language, you will know that the death of Christ was a ‘substitutionary’ sacrifice – He died instead of me. I deserved to but He took the punishment I deserved.

You may have heard the following illustration. A judge is about to pronounce sentence on a thief, standing in the dock. He declares him, rightly, guilty and the fine is £500. He then removes his wig and speaks to the guilty man in the dock and says ‘You are free to go. Acquitted. Someone has paid the fine.’ I love this illustration, but there is a problem. The thief can’t believe his luck, someone has had mercy on him, he is grateful, of course, and it may encourage him to live a better life, but his sinful Adamic nature has remained unchanged.

Another picture of salvation is the redemption we have in Christ. An illustration often used is of a slave market. A slave is for sale in the public square. He costs £200. A man comes along and pays the price. The slave has been redeemed. In terms of the gospel, Jesus, by dying on the cross, has paid the price for me, a sinner, a slave to sin, to be set free, to be redeemed! That’s wonderful but the nature of the ‘in Adam’ man, the sinner, has not been changed.

But God has achieved far more for us through the death of Christ on the cross.

His death was ‘inclusive’ as well as ‘substitutionary’ It includes you and me. We have been crucified with Christ. The old, ‘in Adam’ (read Romans 5) me has been crucified with Christ and buried. And when Christ was raised…I…the new ‘in Christ me’ was raised as a new creation in Him. A son of God.

Once you ‘see’ this, you can never say ‘I am a sinner saved by grace’. It has to be modified: ‘I was a sinner, in Adam, but now, through the death of Christ Jesus, I am in Christ, and a new creation’.

We can no longer say ‘the old man is grumbling’. He’s been crucified and buried.

The bible does everything the wrong way round as far as our ‘natural mind’ is concerned. I hear you screaming OK ‘but how come, then, that I still sin, still do wrong, still fail?’

But did your salvation become true because you lived a perfect Christ-like life? No. You have faith that you are forgiven, and change started from day one. So too with the inclusive death of Christ; the more our eyes are opened to this NT truth, the more the reality will grip us.

Once Romans 6/7 is in place it makes chapter 8 even more precious. Romans 7 awaits.

Thank you for reading. This is the hard work bit, digging the foundation, so more can be built.