"The most significant part of our Bible is the book of Romans. Romans is the key to the gospel. Anyone who tries to understand what Jesus Christ has done, must grapple with Romans. The most profound and most significant part of Romans, if there were such a thing, would be Romans 6-8. I have read these repeatedly and have studied them intently. I've diagrammed each Greek sentence. I'm praying that the Lord is going to help us. I must tell you that there are great aspects of this which seeming escape you. Even when you read it you wonder, am I grasping what the Apostle Paul is saying. It's not often I think my sermons are all that important. But I think these series are
absolutely the most vital that I'll ever preach to you. I'm sure that I'm going to say some things that will be maybe misunderstood. As a matter of a fact, if you don't flirt with Antinomianism, you haven't followed the Apostle Paul. You don't begin yet to comprehend the tremendous depths that he's taken us to in these chapters."
- Don Pickerill If there were a verse that introduces Romans 6-8 then it would the closing verse of chapter 5, verse 21.
Romans 5:21 RSV
So that as sin reigned in death, even so grace might reign through righteousness to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.
The title from verse 21 would be "That Grace Might Reign in Life Through Jesus Christ!" Romans 6-8 are an exposition of the "Reign of Grace" - King Grace, Grace on the Throne, Grace Properly Understood! It's the great key to the human solution!
Main Theological Truth:
Romans 6:14 RSV
For sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law but under grace.
I can honestly say that 90% of the people that I know, even in the church, are still under the law. I know the depth of my own heart, and I know the tendency
constantly to quote "be under the law." To "be under the law," means basically to be on your own and in some way to be down on yourself. Anyone who is "under the law" is in a sense down on themselves. They have a judgment against themselves. We call it guilt and condemnation. This is very far-reaching. If you are slightest bit down on yourself, you don't stand the ghost of a chance to enter into life. You are "under law." You are under NOTHING but Grace! It's the only way to be delivered by sin. There's on one way to enter into life and that's to enthrone grace. If Grace Reigns, it's then that you enter into life. If it does not, then you are going to find on phases of death in all of its various ways. THAT'S THE MAIN TRUTH OF THESE THREE CHAPTERS IN ROMANS. You are not under law. No law of any kind. Again let me repeat. If you don't come
dangerously close to Antinomianism, then you have not followed the Apostle Paul. There is no claim upon me. I'm not under law. May the Holy Spirit even faintly begin to reveal to us the implications of that. Most of us just gasp at the thought of it and can't even believe it. You are not under law. You are under grace and that's all you are under. If that only faintly dawns upon our
consciousness. It would be such an emancipation and such a liberation that few of us could stand it.
Main Practical Truth:
Grace might reign to eternal life. Romans 5:21 RSV
So that as sin reigned in death, even so grace might reign through righteousness to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.
We want life.
Romans 8:21 RSV
Because the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay and obtain the glorious liberty of the children of God.
Seven characteristics of this life:
Romans 6:17 RSV
But thanks be to God, that you who were once slaves of sin have become obedient from the heart to the standard of teaching to which you were committed.
(1) Heartfelt obedience Romans 6:22 RSV
But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God, the return you get is sanctification and its end, eternal life.
(2) Sanctification - wholesomeness. wholeness Romans 7:4 RSV
Likewise, my brethren, you have died to the law through the body of Christ, so that you may belong to another, to him who has been raised from the dead in order that we may bear fruit for God.
(3) Fruitfulness
Romans 8:6 RSV
(4) Life & (5) Peace Romans 8:21 RSV
Because the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay and obtain the glorious liberty of the children of God.
(6) Liberty of children of God Romans 8:29 RSV
For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the first-born among many brethren.
(7) Christlikeness - Conformed to the image of His Son
Ask average person what is keeping you from life, what's keeping them from enjoying life?
I'm sure most of us would say something like this: Well, it's my set of
circumstances. It's the problems I'm in. I've got problems that's why. Can you live in this life and not have problems? Can you live in this life and not suffer? Well that can be like a bondage. It can be like a dominion. Things that would want to drive us into the ground as it were, and destroy us. A set of circumstances round about us can be very lethal indeed. Full of all kinds of bondages.
Well, the Apostle Paul is going to address himself to that very real problem in Romans 8.
Circumstances, how does one face them? What do they really mean? What's really going on in these trying circumstances. Is Romans 8:28 really true? Do all things really work together for good? Most of us have difficulty believing that. We are going to have to take a close look again at Romans 8. We're going to see that you're going to meet a very terrifying reality; tribulation, distress, nakedness, famine, perils, sores, etc. Thanks be unto God there is a way we can face all of these things and find deliverance from them so that you're not under bondage. Deliverance from the bondage of circumstances.
Secondly, I believe most of us would say the problem is me.
If I had a different personality. If I were a different kind of person, then I'd be able to enter into life. Well you're on the right track. You're the problem. But you see, you know the difficulty is with most of us? Most of us do not know how deadly we are in that problem. I urge you to listen to the next message, "The Reign of Sin". I'm going to say some things that may utterly surprise you. You've got to hear
this message. It has to be heard. It's the only way I know to help set the true life of our nature. And I'll just anticipate that by saying, "You can do nothing but sin!" That's all you can do. I sin even when I will against it. I don't want to sin and I do. Any you're not kidding me, you're exactly like I am and most of you just haven't admitted it. We're going to look at that in the next message, "head-on." As the great Apostle Paul, like open-heart surgery, opens up his heart and our hearts. As he uses that great rhetorical, "I", describing all people. And his verdict is sew them up, they are beyond hope, there're dead. Impossible, but most of us won't believe that. I tell you, we are the problem. They cannot perform righteousness.
Paul is going to looks at this in Romans 6
That's why you've got to be only under grace! If you are under only 1" of the law you're doomed. If it's not grace and anything but grace, then there is no
deliverance for the human heart. If there's any demand on you whatever, the slightest demand. I know how easy it is for us as parents and teachers to get that all mixed up. We just do it constantly, as meet up with one another
constantly with a spirit of law and expectations. Romans 6 is going to take a
look at the self.
But now there's a third thing that most of us would not know anything about. Here's
where you need an Apostle. This is where we need the great Apostle Paul to help us see what the problem is. If you were to go to a doctor you may have some problem. You may have a headache. And you say doctor my head aches. Oh, you see you have this pinched nerve in your spine. You would not have known that. Would we know that the connection between law and sin? Most of us would not understand that. Well, I want to in very clear terms tie that together and show you how that works. What is the
connection between law and sin.
Most people don’t realize the connection between law and sin. Romans 7 is freedom
from the law.
There are three great things that keep us out of life. Our trying circumstances, the reality that we're in that overwhelm us and make us suffer or our own natures and finally the connections with the law. But this is the great practical point - that we have the glorious liberty of the children of God. And let me tell you, I don't take it for granted that any of you have heard the gospel. It's amazing to me what people can say who have been in the church for all of their lives. And like the Apostle Paul, was the best religionist on the face of the earth. He kept the law perfectly, and he turned around and put the Son of God to death. It's very easy for us to be caught up in a self-righteousness which we are not aware of, whatever.
May the Lord Jesus Christ help us to see how we can come into the glory of His liberty of the children of God.
Main Exhortations
There are two primary exhortations in Romans 6-8, Romans 6:12-13 & Romans 8:12-14.
Romans 6:12-14 RSV
Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal bodies, to make you obey their passions. Do not yield your members to sin as instruments of wickedness, but yield yourselves to God as men who have been brought from death to life, and your members to God as instruments of righteousness. For sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law but under grace.
Romans 8:13 RSV
For if you live according to the flesh you will die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live.
The main theoretical truth of Romans 6-8 is that you are NOT under the law. You are under grace and that's all you're under. Grace Reigns! And let me tell you this, that grace is greater than your sin. Where sin abounds, grace does most more abound. What's the answer to sin? It's GRACE! And if the medication isn't working just increase the dosage. But most of us try to turn that around. We try to use the law in some way to control sin, and it will not work. There's only one answer to it and that's the grace of God. Mankind had 1,500 years to experiment under the law, to show that it brings nothing but rebellion and winds up crucifying the Son of God. I wonder when we're ever learn this lesson? When will come to our hearts individually and show up in our
relationships. Again let me tell you that most people I know and including myself, labor under a spirit of the law. YOU ARE NOT UNDER THE LAW, YOU ARE UNDER
GRACE. There is no demand on you whatsoever, not one. . .not one! Oh, you say, "Pastor then let's sin that grace may abound!" Well, let me tell you this. If you do sin, grace will abound all the more. I'm not making that up, that's Paul's word. Obviously, that brings us to a certain problem. Pauls going to answer that in Romans 6-8. But if you don't come close to that doctrine, you have not understood the grace of God.
YOU ARE NOT UNDER LAW. It's all over, there is no obligation. You couldn't do anything, if there were except rebel and sin all the more. If it's not grace then we of all men are miserable. And the main point is life, that's His glorious liberty. I'm as free as a bird! My conscious and the devil would like to get me all bound up. Like to get me in all kinds of little bondages. Well, I'm not going to let you do it. I was made for freedom brother! I was made for glorious liberty. And that's why I want to be set from the law of sin and death. I want to be FREE. I want the glorious liberty. I don't want to tip down and toe around through life, hung up and under dominion, all bent out of shape. There's only one life and it's soon gonna be over and I want to live. Give me plenty of elbow room brother.
We've found the formula though, and it's by the Spirit I can put together the deeds of the body. I'm going to live by the Spirit!
