SPEAKER: DAVID TAN
TEXT: ROMANS 6:1-4
The Bible has important things to say about newness: a new covenant; new heaven and earth; God’s mercies are new every morning; we are born again into a new life, a new creation. Yet we do not always feel new. For many of us, our Christian faith feels old, our life somewhat dull. What does the Bible mean by new life? How does a Christian receive it and live out this new life?
Newness of Life When a person becomes a believer, he receives through faith in Jesus a new life. It is a new spiritual reality that we cannot fully understand but can only experience. A believer has a new direction and begins to think, feel, act in a completely new way as if he is a new creation (2 Cor 5:17).
Jesus our righteousness Newness of life is a status we receive when Jesus’ righteousness becomes ours. Paul describes how Jesus’ death justifies us, grants forgiveness and saves us from God’s wrath.
Roms 5:17 For if, by the trespass of the one man, death reigned through that one man, how much more will those who receive God’s abundant provision of grace and of the gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man, Jesus Christ!Paul goes on to say that we do not earn our salvation – this gift of righteousness is free, thanks to Jesus’ finished work on the cross!
Dead to sin, alive to God Paul refers to baptism to explain a believer's identification with Jesus in death and resurrection. We died with Christ (Rom 6:5) when He “died to sin once and for all” (Rom 6:8-10). Therefore the power of sin no longer enslaves a believer.
Paul is however not saying that the effect of justification only happens during baptism – justification takes place upon a simple confession of faith in Jesus’ death and resurrection As Rom 4:25 declares, “He was delivered over to death for our sins and was raised to life for our justification.”
Baptism is a visible display of obedience and an acknowledgement of God’s ownership of our life: “You belong to me now,” God says. “I’ve made you new. Live for me because I will live in you.”
Reign of righteousness In writing about new life, Paul refers to two kinds of rule. He writes of the reign of righteousness: Rom 5:17 17 For if, by the trespass of the one man, death reigned through that one man, how much more will those who receive God’s abundant provision of grace and of the gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man, Jesus Christ!
And he writes of the reign of sin: In Rom 6:12 “Do not let sin reign in your mortal body…..”
A believer is given a new passport – citizenship in the Kingdom of Heaven. The laws of the other kingdom no longer apply and the believer escapes God's wrath . The believer who has now been saved by grace is therefore motivated by love and thankfulness to serve the rule of righteousness, to live a life that pleases God more and more.
Process of sanctification More than a status, the new life is also a process where the believer is being made holy by the Holy Spirit. This process is called sanctification. An evidence of new birth is a vital relationship with God. We want God more and more; yet unless we are made holy, we can’t have that relationship. So the Holy Spirit sanctifies us to desire more and more of God, to live in righteousness.
But what happens when we fall into sin? Thankfully, we can turn to God who forgives (1 John 1:8,9)
John Newton: "My exercise of grace is faint, my consolations small, my heart is full of evil, my chief burdens are, a wild ungoverned imagination, and a strange sinful backwardness to reading the Scriptures, and to secret prayer….But my eye and my heart are to Jesus! His I am; Him I desire to serve; to Him this day, I would devote and surrender myself anew."Like John Newton, though we fail, we ought to keep our eye and heart on Jesus. In confession and repentance, God will forgive and make us whole.
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