Imputations, Death, Baptisms; Rom 6: 1 – 4 Tape 2.

This is a basic overview of spiritual life concepts as explained by the Apostle Paul in the epistle to the Romans. Romans: 1 – 5, sets up the contexts and then in Romans 6 – 8 Paul develops the doctrines of Sanctification related to Justification. That is at the essence of both the distinctions between Roman Catholic theology and Protestant Theology. It is also at the essence of the debate between what is called the Free – Grace Gospel and the Lordship Salvation issue.

Romans 6:1 begins “What shall we say then? This implies a conclusion is being developed, there is a context for this question, and Paul is asking this question as a rhetorical device to advance his argument. He says, “Are we to continue in Sin that grace might increase?” In other words, since there was so much grace when we were sinners, well! Why should we stop sinning? Just continue to sin and there will be even more grace. Why does he ask that question? We started with an overview of Romans 1 – 5 last time and it sets the context. Paul is developing in Romans an extremely intricate logical argument. Roman’s is a meditation on righteousness, the righteousness of God.

Overview Romans 1 – 5

1. The purpose of Romans is to explain God’s demand of righteousness, His absolute righteousness. To explain man’s lack of righteousness and God’s gracious provision of His righteousness to satisfy His demand.

2. The key verse in the opening introduction is in Romans 1: 16 – 17 where Paul states;

NASB translation:

“...For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. For in it {the} righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith; as it is written, "BUT THE RIGHTEOUS {man} SHALL LIVE BY FAITH." ...”

Corrected Translation:

“...For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it [the gospel] is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. For in it [the gospel] the righteousness of God is revealed from faith [saving faith] to faith [sanctifying faith, spiritual life faith] as it is written, “The one who is righteous by faith shall live’ ...”

That is the theme of this epistle to explain how someone becomes righteous by faith and then what that life is like. This is what we are looking at in Romans 6 – 8, which is the explanation of that life.

3. The word for righteousness is DIKAIOSUNE, the root being DIKE, which means righteous or standard. The verb DIKAIOO, the noun DIKAIOS which is justification. A word search of the root DIKE shows that in chapters 1 it is used 2 times, in chapter 2 it is used 4 times, in chapter 3 it is used 13 times. You see how all of a sudden how justification and righteousness becomes a major subject matter. In chapter 4 it is used 12 times, chapter 5 it is used 8 times and in chapter 6 it is used 6 times. In chapter 7 which describes the believers struggle with sin it is only used 1 time. In chapter 8 it is used 5 times. So by just looking at that data we can see that it is a major subject of chapters 3, 4, 5 and 6 leading into the spiritual life. The interesting thing about that is that between 3:21 and 6:1, cognates of DIKAIOSUNE and all the related words are used 29 times. That tells you that that is the subject helping us understand what the spiritual life is based on, and what it grows out of.

4. In contrast to that ADIKIA or ‘unrighteousness’ is used 6 times between 1:18 and 3:20.

Ø 1: 17 ends the introduction.

Ø Romans 1: 18 down to 3:20 is the first section which deals with the condemnation of the human race and why they are all under condemnation. During that section ADIKIA unrighteousness is used 6 times and the cognates of KRINO which means judgement/condemnation is used 15 times between 1:18 and 3:20, so that tells you very clearly what the subject matter is in those verses.

Ø From 3:21 through 6:1 we have 29 uses of DIKAIOSUNE or DIKAIOS or one of the other cognates of justification which helps break down the understanding of how the book is divided.

5. If we were to outline Romans 1 - 5, it looks something like this:

Ø From 1:1 – 1:17: Introduction… “The one who is righteous by faith shall live” That is the theme of this epistle, to explain how someone becomes righteous by faith and then what that life is like.

Ø From 1:18 – 3:20: The whole human race is condemned for their lack of righteousness, and we saw that this is developed first of all for the Gentiles. Paul is very systematic in the way he breaks this down.

i. Gentiles: in Romans 1:18 through 2:16 – he starts with the Gentiles and shows that they are condemned for lack of righteousness. (Of course they were Gentiles before Abraham so he is treating it historically.)

The key verse would be Romans 1:18, “...For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness [ADIKIA] of men who suppress the truth in unrighteousness …”

So, unrighteousness and condemnation is a major theme in this part of the section.

ii. Jew: in Romans 2:17 through 3:8 – Then the next major theme in this section is to show that the Jews are also condemned for there lack of righteousness, here he develops the whole idea that they have the law, they have a higher standard yet nevertheless they did not maintain the law, they did not keep the law.

He concludes there in Romans 2:29 “...But he is a Jew who is one inwardly; and circumcision is that which is of the heart, by the Spirit, not by the letter; and his praise is not from men, but from God...”

He attacks them for having an external religious life but no true regeneration in the soul.

iii. Conclusion: Romans 3:9 through 3:20 –The conclusion is Gentiles are condemned, Jews are condemned, all are condemned.

Romans 3:20 states, “...because by the works of the Law no flesh will be justified [declared righteous] in His sight; for through the Law comes the knowledge of sin...”

Ø Romans 3:21 – Romans 5:21: God’s provision of righteousness to the human race.

i. This is first explained in Romans 3: 21 – 31 the provision of righteousness or the basis for that provision and that of course is based upon the work of Jesus Christ on the cross.

Romans 3:21 states, “...But now apart from the Law the righteousness [DIKAIOSUNE] of God has been manifested, being witnesses by the Law and the Prophets, even the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe; for there is no distinction...”

Romans 3: 21 – 31 lays the basis for the provision of righteousness.

ii. This is then illustrated in Romans 4. The entire chapter of Romans 4 illustrates that in the life of Abraham that he was justified by faith and not by works.

Romans 4:3 states, “...For what does the scriptures say? ‘And Abraham believed God [Genesis 15:6], and it was reckoned [imputed] to him as righteous.’ ...”

Genesis 15:6 expresses a previous action, Abraham had believed God and it was because of God’s provisions of the Abrahamic covenant, this occurred prior to Gen 12, that Abraham was saved before God had even called him out from Ur of the Chaldeans, Abraham believed God and it was reckoned to him as righteousness.

iii. Chapter 5 gives us the results of imputed righteousness. In 5:1 – 21 we have these results. There are two divisions to that chapter:

a) Romans 5:1 – 11: The first half of the chapter explains that we have peace with God. This is the doctrine of reconciliation.

b) Romans 5: 12 – 21: The second half of the chapter explains the basis for realised righteousness. There we have the comparison of Adam and the Lord Jesus Christ. The first Adam and the second Adam.

6. The key verses that we have to understand in order to catch the key moves in Paul’s logic are:

i. Romans 5:12 – 13 states, “...Therefore, just as through one man sin entered into the world, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men, because all sinned--for until the Law sin was in the world, but sin is not imputed when there is no law...”

Sin in its entirety including the sin nature, not personal sin – you are not condemned because of all the bad things you have done, rather you were born a child of Adam with an inherited sin nature, to that sin nature was imputed Adam’s original sin. We are condemned because we are sinners by nature, that means we possess a sin nature, we are in Adam and we have imputed to us Adam’s original sin, that is the basis for our condemnation not our personal sins, personal sins were paid for by Jesus Christ on the cross.

“...and so death [spiritual death] spread to all men, because all sinned. For until the Law sin was in the world; but sin is not imputed when there is no law...”

So, sin was not the result of the Mosaic Law, the Mosaic Law was not written until about 1440BC and the world was created at least by 4140 BC, that’s about 2500 years between creation and the Mosaic Law.

ii. Romans 5:19 states, “...For as through the one man’s disobedience the many were made sinners, even so through the obedience of the One [Jesus Christ] the many will be made righteous...”

Now that future tense there at the end ‘will be made righteous’ has to do with future tense from the prospective of the author, Paul looking at when they trust Christ, at that point they will be made righteous/declared righteous at the instance of salvation. That is covered under imputation.

7. Basic principles related to the Character of God:

Ø The righteousness of God is the standard of his character, (righteousness expresses his standard, i.e. absolute perfection).

Ø The Justice of God is the application of His standard to his creation, to the angels to mankind to all creation.

Ø The Love of God is what initiates his actions towards his creatures (based on John 3:16)

Ø Therefore, what the righteousness of God (his standard) demands the justice of God supplies. What the righteousness of God approves, the justice of God blesses, what the righteousness of God rejects the justice of God condemns/judges.

Ø But the Love of God initiated a perfect solution whereby man could meet the divine standard and man meets the divine standard because God supplies what is necessary, that is called imputation. God supplies what is necessary; he credits it to our account.

8. And then Paul says as his conclusion to this chapter 5.

Romans 5:20 states, “... and the Law came in that the transgression might increase;”

In other words it wasn’t as clear that they were sinners without the Law, so the Law came in to make sure everybody understood how totally depraved they were. Total depravity is one of those words that people don’t understand. It doesn’t mean you are as depraved as you could be; total refers to every category of our nature, so that in the totality of our being we are depraved as fallen creatures. So when the Law comes along and if you go through Leviticus you will realise that just about anything and everything we do and touch and see and smell rendered a Jew ceremonially unclean. And the point of that is that we are so rotten and filthy through and through with sin that anything and everything we do just about is tainted by sin and keeps us from having a relationship with God. That’s what Paul is talking about in 5:20; the law came in to make this clear.

Romans 5:20 states, “... but where sin increased. Grace abounded all the more...”

So, in other words their knowledge of sin increased because they became more aware of and the necessity of grace.

Romans 5:21 states, “... As sin reigned in death [spiritual death], even so grace might reign through righteousness to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.”

Now, you could see how someone might just come along and say ‘well, if Christ paid the penalty for every one of my sins and they are already paid for then it doesn’t matter whether I sin or not!’ That’s called antinomianism and lawlessness and it is licensciousness – it is taking the grace of God and using it as an excuse to sin and Paul is getting ready to slam– dunk that in Romans 6:2.

The Doctrine of Imputations

1. Imputation is the operation of the Justice of God motivated by divine love in ascribing, reckoning, or crediting something to someone for cursing or for blessing. Imputed sin for cursing or imputed eternal life and righteousness for blessing, so it goes both ways.

2. There are two kinds of imputation categories:

i. Real imputations – credits to a person something which belongs to him, something which finds a correspondence or proclivity in between what is imputed and its object. Thus, there is an attraction between what is received and where it is received to the person who received it. A real imputation has a place to go where it’s at home, where it is comfortable and consistent. e.g. Adams original sin is imputed to our sin – nature.

ii. Judicial imputation – credits to a person something which does not have an attraction, affinity or correspondence to the person or thing it is given. e.g. Jesus Christ is impeccable or sinless. When our sins are imputed to him on the cross, there is no affinity between our sin and His impeccable nature. So that is a Judicial or legal imputation.

3. There are seven imputations: Five are real imputations and two are judicial imputations.

Real Imputations:

i. Human life to the soul at birth, Gen 2:7 and Job 33:4

ii. Adam’s original sin to the sin nature at birth, Romans 5:12 – 21

iii. Eternal life imputed to human spirit at the moment of faith alone in Christ alone, 1 John 5:11-12.

iv. Blessings in time are imputed to the righteousness of God in us. It is not our good behaviour that gets the blessings. It is the righteousness of Christ that’s already imputed to us. Eph 1:3 and 1 Cor. 2:9.

v. Blessings in eternity are imputed to the resurrection body which has of course, experienced ultimate or final sanctification and has no sin nature and is perfectly righteous. 2 Cor. 5:10.

Judicial Imputations

vi. Our personal sins to Christ on the cross, Romans 8: 31 – 32.

vii. Christs perfect righteousness to the believer at the point of salvation. Romans 3: 3 – 4 and 2 Cor. 5:21.

The only ones we are concerned with (in this study) are the two judicial imputations and one real imputation – the second one, Adams original sin to the sin nature at birth.

4. Understanding the imputation of Adams original sin to our sin nature is found in Romans 5:12.

Romans 5:12 states, “...For this reason just as through one man [that is Adam] the sin of Adam entered the world, and death [spiritual death consequently through the sin of Adam] spread to all mankind, because all sinned. [When Adam sinned]...”

At the same instant in time that soul life is imputed to the physical body because the physical body has inherited through the male the sin nature at the same instant that soul life is imputed to the body so is Adams original sin to the sin nature.

5. Our personal sins were then at the cross imputed to Jesus Christ. God in his justice attributes to Jesus Christ our sins; he imputes them or credits them to His account and then instantly judges them on the cross. So that Jesus Christ bore in his body on the cross our sins.

2 Cor. 5:10 states, “...He who knew no sin was made sin on our behalf...”

6. Christ’s righteousness is then attributed to us at the instant of our salvation. Now that we possess righteousness God then declares us to be righteous. It is NOT – JUST AS IF I NEVER SINNED! This does not explain it, God declares us to be just because when ho looks at us – (the image in Zech 3:4 – 5, is of Joshua the high priest who is clothed in white garments, and that is what happens to us in terms of an image.) We are clothed in the righteousness of Christ, so that when God looks at us he doesn’t see our sin anymore but he sees the perfect righteousness of Jesus Christ.

We have the perfect righteousness and justice of God but we are – R, we lack righteousness.

Isaiah 64:6 states, “…all our righteous deeds are like a filthy garment…”

At the cross God imputed to Jesus Christ our sins, because Jesus Christ continued to be personally righteous. By Judicial imputation it doesn’t make him personally a sinner, he never volitionally chose to sin, he remains impeccable on the cross, though he is legally paying the price for our sins; His perfect righteousness is then imputed to us. So that it is on that basis that God blesses us, it is never on the basis of our good deeds, obedience or anything else, not even when we obey him and learning the word and walking by means of the Spirit.

What happens is that God has already determined the blessing packages that He is going to give each one of us, both in time and in eternity. When we grow as a believer we are developing the capacity for those blessings. So God is not giving or bestowing those blessings on us because of what we do, it is our obedience under the filling of the Holy Spirit and applying the word that develops maturity and capacity so that as we grow. God then bestows these blessings upon us when we are ready for them spiritually. And if we do not grow then those blessings are never bestowed and they just stay as potential blessings in heaven and they remain there and they are never bestowed and when we get to heaven we will see what we missed out on because of our failure to grow (negative volition).

Now the next thing we need to do is come back to our passage in Romans 6:1 one more time.

Romans 6:1, “...What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that Grace might increase? ...”

The antinomian response, he is really using this logically as a way to move the argument forward. He has been arguing that man is righteous because of what Christ did on the cross and what he has imputed on us, and it is not on the basis of anything we do. ‘If it’s not on the basis of anything we do, why should we be obedient?’ What exactly is the relationship of the believer to his own personal sin? That’s the next stage in the argument. If our personal decisions are not the basis for our righteousness then why should we be concerned with sin at all?

So Paul says, “…are we to continue in sin that grace might increase?” Then he responds in the next verse “May it never be!” ME GENOITO it is a very strong rejection in the Greek, you couldn’t say it in a stronger way, Not at all, Never, No! It is extremely harsh, indicating a complete rejection of the antinomian assumption.

Then he asks another question, “How shall we who died to sin still live in it?” The point that he is making there is that Jesus Christ’s death, burial and resurrection is not merely a historical fact for the believer, it is an experiential reality in our life. Christ died on the cross for our sins and at the instant we expressed faith and trust in Christ alone for our salvation, we were identified and we died to sin. It is not only a historical reality but it became an experiential reality (not that we felt anything) but it is applied to us so that it is as if we were there on that cross, it indicates a complete separation that is the sense of death in the scriptures. We need to briefly review the doctrine of death in the scriptures.

Doctrine of Death

1. The first kind is spiritual death – this was the penalty for sin that was announced in the perfect environment of the garden of Eden in Genesis 2:17 when God said “… on the day you eat of fruit of the tree of good and evil you shall certainly die.”

That phrase in the Hebrew translates a Hebrew syntactical construction which combines a qal imperfect second masculine verb with a qal infinitive construct. Now, what happens in Hebrew is that there are times when you want to intensify the meaning of the verb, so what you do is you repeat that verb but you use an infinitive construct along with it. This intensifies and emphasises the reality of that verb. It should not be translated as a gerundive or as a participle. i.e. “dying you will die.”

Spiritual death is the cause of every category of suffering and it is the cause of every category of physical death, misery, adversity, heartache that takes place in the human race. Spiritual death is transmitted physically and genetically through the male of the species, so that every human being is born physically alive but spiritually dead. This means that our condemnation is based not on what we do but on what Adam did, so that our salvation again is based on not what we do, but on what Christ did.

2. The second kind of death is physical death – the separation of the soul from the body with the cessation of temporal mortal life. This applies to both believer and unbeliever alike, and the only ones to escape this are the rapture generation and perhaps those believers who survive the tribulation.

3. The third category of death is the second death – which is the technical term for describing the eternal condemnation on the unbeliever only and his eternity in the lake of fire.

4. The forth death is sexual death – this is mentioned in relation to Abraham and Sarah and is the loss of the ability to procreate and to produce children. Romans 4:17 – 21 and Hebrews11: 11 – 12 because Abraham was 100 yrs old and Sarah was 90 and they where well past the age of being able to produce children. That was the miracle involved in the birth of Isaac
5. The fifth death is positional death – this is the subject of Romans 6. That is, the believer at the moment of salvation is identified positionally and legally with the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ, so that as Jesus died on the cross so to we died to sin. There is that break, if you don’t understand that concept you will not be able to comprehend the development of this argument. We who died to sin positionally at the moment of salvation.
6. The sixth death is carnal or temporal death – this is when the believer is operating out of fellowship in carnality under the control of the sin nature, at that point we are said to be dead. James 1:15 “Then when lust has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and when sin is accomplished, it brings forth death.” This is characteristic of the carnal life as opposed to the spiritual life which produces life. That is the capacity for life.
7. The seventh death is production death or dead works – when we are out of fellowship in carnality we can not produce anything that is of life that counts for eternity. In Hebrews 6:1 and Revelation 3:1, it is called “dead works.”
8. Finally there is the sin unto death – outlined in 1 John 5: 16 which explains the fact that a believer if he continues in sin and continues in rebellion and refuses to either;

(a) Confess sin and be restored to fellowship or

(b) He decides to use 1 John 1:9 continuously as a license to sin and doesn’t grow and doesn’t advance but just acts like a boomerang and bounces in and out of fellowship. He spends most of his time out of fellowship and eventually he takes him through a series of increasingly intense disciplines and if there is no response then God will remove him from this life in a miserable manner that is exemplified by Saul in the Old Testament.

Paul asks the question in verse 2, “...How shall we who died to sin still live in it? ...”

It was a reality if you are a believer and there is a reality to your identification with Christ on the cross.

So, how can you who are separated (remember that is the nuance of death, physical death is separation from the body, spiritual death is separation from God) we who died to sin still live in it?

And then he asks another question, verse 3; “Do you know that all of us who have been baptised into Christ Jesus have been baptised into his death?”

Now this raises another important terminological phrase here and that is Baptism.

The doctrine of Baptism:

1. Definition: Baptism – the Greek word is BAPTIZO which literally means to dip, to plunge and to immerse. The significance of baptism is not immersion but what it portrays or pictures and that is identification.
2. There are eight baptisms in the New Testament. Three are ritual baptisms and five are real baptisms:

Ritual Baptisms:

These are water baptisms.

i. The baptism of Jesus which is unique in history because Jesus did not get baptised with the baptism of John the Baptist (That was for repentance. Jesus did not need to repent as he was the impeccable second person of the Trinity). The baptism of Jesus in Matt 3:13 – 17 was a ritual water baptism.

ii. The baptism of John the Baptist (for repentance) in Matt 3: 1 – 11.

iii. The believer’s baptism in Act 2:38, 41 and 8: 36 – 38 is by immersion after salvation.

Real Baptisms:

In a real baptism it has to do with identification and it focuses on the fact that the person who does the identifying is a member of the God head.

i. The baptism of Noah in 1 Peter 3: 20 – 21

ii. The baptism of Moses in 1 Cor. 10: 2

iii. The baptism of Fire in Matt 3: 13 – 17

iv. The baptism at the cross, which is Christ’s identification with our sins. Mark 10: 38 – 39.

v. The baptism of the Holy Spirit. Romans 6: 3 and 1 Cor. 12: 13.

1 Cor. 12: 13 states, “...For by one Spirit we were all baptised into one body, whether Jews or Greeks, whether slaves or free, and we were all made to drink of one Spirit...”

The verb there is baptised, now in the Greek you have a phrase EN PNEUMATI by means of the Spirit. Now some people have looked at this passage and just taking this in isolation and say ‘Well, we are baptised by means of the Spirit, then the Spirit is the one who performs the baptism.’ But there is a problem with that. That is ‘all’ would recognise that this verse is a fulfilment of the prophecy that John the Baptist made back in Matt 3 and Jesus made in Acts 1:5 that is that in the future you will be baptised by means of God the Holy Spirit, he will baptise you.

John the Baptist announced regarding Jesus Christ that he will baptise you, he there, (Jesus Christ), is the one who performs the action of baptism not the Holy Spirit. So if 1 Cor. 12: 13 is the fulfilment of Matt 3 and Acts 1 prophecies then we have to say that in 1 Cor. 12: 13 Christ is the performer of the action of the verb. And just as in those passages it states that he will baptise you by means of Spirit EN PNEUMATI.

EN PNEUMATI merely expresses the means of identification just as John used water to express the means of identification, just as with Moses in 1 Cor. 10:2 the water and the cloud were the means of identification, what we have here is that Jesus Christ uses the Holy Spirit as means of identification of the believer with Himself.

The picture is this, John the Baptist took a person who came forward who said they were repenting for the Kingdom of God was at hand, he would take them and he would plunge them into the water and when they came out they were in a new state, indicated by the Greek clause, ACE METANOIA that new status always indicated by that ACE clause in the Greek. Jesus uses that analogy he says, “ In the same way I am taking you and plunging you into the Holy Spirit and using Him, its by means of the Spirit, just like John did it by means of water and I am entering you into union with Me, by means of the Holy Spirit. That makes sense when you think of passages such as Titus 3:5, “He saved us, not on the basis of deeds which we have done in righteousness, but according to His mercy, by the washing of regeneration [Baptismal imagery] and renewing by the Holy Spirit.”

So technically we need to translate this phrase ‘baptism by means of God the Holy Spirit.’ To be precise it is not that it is God the Holy Spirit who identifies us with Christ but that Christ uses the Holy Spirit to identify us with his death, burial and resurrection. So that is the issue in understanding baptism in Romans 6.

Romans 6:1, Paul says, “What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that Grace might increase?”

In other words, can we just sin with impunity because they have all been paid for at the cross? No! Not at all! Something happened at the cross. We were actually in reality separated from sin, now we still have a sin nature, we are still going to sin but the power of sin is broken. The analogy shifts a little bit, we have the issue of death to sin and unity with Christ in the first eleven verses of Romans 6. In Romans 6, the first half of the book uses imagery of union with Christ, the second half of the chapter uses the imagery of slavery to sin and slavery to God. The sin nature has actually been broken and this frees the believer to live in obedience to God.

Verse 3 says; “Do you know [are you ignorant of the realities of what happened at salvation] that all of us who have been baptised [identified] into Christ Jesus have been baptised [identified] into his death?”

Next time we will see that at the cross there are two levels of reality, our eternal realities and our temporal realities. At the moment we put our faith and trust in Christ alone the scripture teaches that we enter into Christ, we are ace Christos – in Christ, this is our legal position and it is affected by means of the baptism of God the Holy Spirit. And because we are in that left circle, that IN CHRIST circle, we can never get out. And because that has taken place it changes our relationship to God on a temporal basis. So that it frees us now to not live outside of the right circle in carnality but to live inside that circle on the basis of the filling of the Holy Spirit to advance to spiritual maturity. So everything we have in the spiritual life is based upon understanding positional truth (our identification with Christ at salvation) and the imputation of His righteousness to us.

Father, we do thank you that we can understand these fantastic and incredible aspects of our salvation that you have done so much for us. You have given us truly everything beyond anything we could ask or think and you have supplied for every contingency and every exigency in the spiritual life. Now Father as we go from here we ask that you might help us to think and meditate on these things and to reflect upon our positional identification with Christ on the cross our retroactive positional truth and our identification with his death, burial and resurrection, that it actually frees us from the power of indwelling sin so that we might live for you. May we be challenged by these things! In Jesus name, Amen!