In the sermon 'Planted in the Likeness of His Death,' Pastor Steve Hopkins explores Romans 6:5-7, focusing on the concepts of justification and sanctification. He explains 'gratuitous justification' as being freely justified by God's grace, emphasizing that believers are justified by faith in Christ's righteousness, not by their own works. Hopkins addresses the misconception that grace permits continued sinning, arguing that true believers, through their union with Christ, are dead to sin's condemning and enslaving power and are progressively sanctified. This sanctification manifests in a changed life, marked by growing holiness and obedience to God. Pastor Hopkins stresses the inseparable connection between justification and sanctification, positing that while believers still sin, they no longer live in sin as they did before conversion. This transformation is the work of God, who raises believers from spiritual death to life, enabling them to resist sin and live in conformity to Christ's likeness. The sermon concludes with a call to praise God for freeing believers from sin's power and condemnation through Christ's death and resurrection.

Welcome back to Barnet Bible Church. Join us this week as Pastor Hopkins continues his sermon series through the Book of Romans. Good afternoon. If you would, turn with me in your Bibles to the book of Romans. We'll be picking up with Romans chapter 6 and verses 5 through 7, and let's stand for the reading of the Word of the Lord.

We'll be reading verses 5, 6, and 7. We'll have some review and then be moving forward. Let's read together the Word of the Lord. For if we have been planted together in the likeness of His death, we shall be also in the likeness of His resurrection. Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with Him, the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin, for He that is dead is freed from sin." Let's pray.

Father, we thank you once again for your Word, oh God, and we ask you once again to enlighten our understanding of your Word. And we pray, Lord, that you might grant a mighty work of the Spirit in this time upon the hearts and minds of your people, for we ask it in Jesus' name, amen. Let's be seated. So in our last session, this would have been back on December 11th, the Apostle Paul posed a question in verse 6, you'll remember, what shall we say then? That is, what should our response be to the things that we've just learned, the things that I've been teaching you?

The apostle had been laboring the doctrine of gratuitous justification. How many know what gratuitous justification is? Little children, it's free, gratuitous, it's free, gratis if you speak Spanish, justification being justified at God's sight freely, gratuitous justification. What should our response be to this doctrine that grace triumphs over sin in the life of the believer, having come to understand that our justification in God's sight is all of grace, and that our works contribute nothing to our right standing or coming into a right standing and our justification before God, understanding that we are saved on account of Christ's work alone on the ground of Christ's righteousness alone imputed to us by faith, apart from any work or merit of our own, such that no matter the extent of our sin or the number of them, the grace of God is abounded and does abound to cover it all. What should our response be to this doctrine?" The Apostle Paul says, And he possibly is anticipating this type of an objection, this type of a question, or more likely that he's being attacked.

And there are those who are accusing him falsely, which I believe is the case. But he says, what shall we say in response to this? Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound? How many remember going through this? Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound?

It was a rhetorical question that the apostle posed, And in our last session we saw that he responds to that question with abhorrence. Abhorrence in the strongest terms. God forbid. God forbid that we should conclude that. The apostle recoils in horror at the very thought of such a conclusion.

Would any true believer ever reason that since it is true that we are justified by grace alone through faith alone in Jesus Christ and what He has done alone, that it follows that What we do after we're saved, after we've been justified in God's sight doesn't really matter. Would anybody really, any true Christian ever come to that conclusion? Would any conclude that we're saved by grace alone and no good work of our own on our own part That because that, because we are saved by grace alone and no good works of our own, would any conclude that we may as well go on sinning just as we did before we were saved? Because after all, the more we sin, the more grace we can expect? Would anybody really conclude that?

He says, God forbid. Yet, as I said in our last session, that seems to have been the charge leveled against the apostle. Apparently, this is the charge, that the doctrine of justification by grace through faith encourages continuation in sin. Evidently, Paul's enemies were going about and twisting his words or taking them out of context and charging him with preaching antinomianism, anti, against Nomi, law, against the law-ism that he was saying the law doesn't matter, you know, away with the law, against the law-ism. People were apparently charging Paul with teaching that works don't matter as long as you're a believer.

And of course that isn't what the Apostle taught at all. While it is true that our works don't count with regards to our justification in God's sight, it doesn't mean that our works don't matter. While it is true that our works don't count with regards to our justification in God's sight, all our righteousnesses being as filthy rags, the best of our finest deeds being tainted with sin, not able to, in the least part, merit any acceptance with God or favor from God. It doesn't mean that our works don't matter. It doesn't mean that they don't matter.

Paul has been teaching the doctrine of justification by faith alone that a man is, quote, justified by faith apart from the deeds of the law. He's been driving that home. He's been driving that home. But he's also stressed the fact that gratuitous justification, free grace, justification to God's sight, the fact that we are justified by grace through faith alone, doesn't mean that we make void the law through faith. Remember, we looked at it back in chapter 3.

God forbid, he uses that term again. He can't believe that such a thing would be suggested. God forbid. Back in Romans 3.31, he says, do we then make void the law through faith? Is that what we do?

We've got faith, so now the law doesn't matter. We don't keep the law. We don't worry about the law of God. You know, commandments of God, away with the commandments of God, you know. No, do we then make void the law through faith?

Romans 3.31, God forbid. God forbid. No, rather we establish the law. For the first time in our lives, we're able to willingly start to keep some of the law of God and grow in Christ's likeness. Upon conversion, the true believer in Jesus Christ being indwelt by the Spirit begins for the first time in his or her life to walk in the power of the Spirit and establish or uphold, your version may say, the law.

Not perfectly, but progressively. It's a progressive sanctification. Sanctification means growth in holiness and conformity to the image of Christ and Christ-likeness. It is a progressive. It's a little by little growth in Christ-likeness, not perfectly, but progressively.

The life of the true believer, the moment he or she comes into union with Christ by faith is marked because there's a change. They're now marked by increasing tenderness and sensitivity to the commands of God. Before they just said, whatever. Now they're marked that they have a sensitivity to the law of God they didn't have before. They have a tenderness to the law of God that they didn't have before and they really wanna keep it.

And for the first time in their life, they have some power working inside of them, the power of God, to help them to obey God. Where before they just lived in violation of God's command on a daily basis and didn't care about it. For some reason, incomprehensible to their old friends and their former companions, the life of those who have been justified before God, who have come into union with Christ through faith begin to be marked by obedience to God's commands. Their old friends and neighbors and relatives can't comprehend it. They don't understand what's happened to this person.

They've got a sincere desire to please God. What in the world took place? It's because the lives of all those justified by grace through faith in Christ begin to reflect the reality of what has happened to them. Something has taken place, something has happened to them. That didn't happen to these other people.

There is a reflection of the reality of the change that has taken place and the new life they now have in Christ Jesus. That's what happens to everyone who's saved, who are justified by faith, who've come into union with Christ. The fact of their justification is evidenced by their sanctification. The fact, the reality, that they have truly been justified in the sight of God. There's evidence now in their life by their sanctification, by their growth in holiness, by their beginning little by little more and more to conform to the image of Christ.

That is the fact that they are now saved manifests itself in ever increasing growth in holiness and obedience to God and conformity to the character of Christ, the perfect law keeper, Jesus. As I said in our last session, there is an inseparable connection between justification and sanctification. Everyone understand that? There is an inseparable connection between justification, being justified in God's sight through faith in Jesus Christ and sanctification, growth and holiness. In fact, it's impossible for the one to exist apart from the other.

It's impossible. I quoted Dr. Sproul in our last session, quote, we are not justified, that is, saved by God, by our sanctification, that is, by our growing in holiness and Christlikeness, but we are justified unto sanctification. The fruit of true faith, the fruit of true justification will always be conformity to the image of Christ." The moment a man or woman is justified, The moment a man or a woman or child comes to saving faith, the process of sanctification begins. It's begun.

It isn't perfected, That'll never happen in this lifetime, but it is initiated. It has begun. The moment God regenerates us, the moment He by grace gives us a new heart and the gift of faith to believe, the moment we come into union with Jesus Christ by faith and are thereby justified in God's sight, our lives begin to manifest it because a change has taken place within us. A change has taken place within us. Not a perfect change, as I said in our last session, but absolutely an evident change.

An evident change. And again, an immediate change. An immediate change. True Christians are truly changed people. True Christians are truly changed people.

And there's nothing that is more destructive to the gospel of Christ, the furtherance of the gospel of Christ, than when you have people who profess to be Christians, but they're not changed people. And they're even in the pulpits of our land. They're not changed people. True Christians are truly changed people. The moment we come into union with Christ by faith, we're a different person than we were before.

We're a new creature, the scripture says in 2 Corinthians 5 17. We're a new creation, it might say in your version before you. Second Corinthians 5, 17 says, therefore if any man be in Christ. Says if, it's a good thing to look at, isn't it? If the apostle Paul says, if any person is truly united to Christ by faith, if any man be truly in Christ, he is.

That's instantaneously. He is right now a new creature. Old things are passed away, Behold, all things are becoming new. Old things are starting to really disappear. The new life is beginning to be lived.

New things are beginning to appear because there's been a change in that person. When he says that those who are in Christ are a new creation, we understand that he's speaking of a new person, which is why the Bible talks about the old man and the new man. Right? The Apostle Paul is always talking about the old man and the new man, which we're gonna get to in just a moment. We're a changed person.

If any man or woman is truly, or child is truly in Christ, they're a changed person. Union with Christ changes a person. A new person is made by the work of God upon the heart. It's a work of God upon the heart and upon that soul, upon that person whereby this new creation is made. It's a new work.

It's a work of God. It's His workmanship. In Ephesians chapter 2 and verse 10, Paul writes, for we are His workmanship created. There it is. Created a new creation in Christ Jesus unto good works.

In other words, unto conformity to Christ, unto conformity to Christ. Our works don't save us, works don't save us, but our works manifest that we're saved. Not perfectly, progressively. Our works avail nothing with regards to our justification in God's sight, but they do provide proof of it over time. Sanctification, just in short, sanctification is the inevitable fruit of justification.

Sanctification, growth and holiness, and conformity to Christ's image is the inevitable, it's going to happen, fruit of being justified in God's side of being saved. The one follows the other like day follows night. And where the one is not, the other is neither. Where the one is not, the other is neither. To be justified in Christ is to be alive in Christ, and to be alive in Christ is to be dead to sin.

Not dead to sin in the sense of having no attraction to it, no? Like one who's physically dead, the perfectionists teach that false doctrine, you know? You have to be dead to sin, in other words, like a dead person if you go and put the alcohol under the nose of the person who's an alcoholic, he's not going to respond because he's dead. Not that, are you? No, we can still be tempted in this life.

We still sin, we still fall to sin, right? We still have that within us, but we are dead to sin in the sense that we are alive to Christ It refers to union with Christ in his death and in his resurrection In a spiritual sense so Paul asked how shall we then who are dead to sin by virtue of our union with Christ, live any longer in it. How could that even be possible, he's saying. And the answer is it is an impossibility. How shall we who are in union with Christ in his death, burial, and resurrection continue in sin as we did when we were still in the unregenerate state?

Not possible. Not within the realm of possibility. Can't go on living that way. We won't go on living that way. It not only should not happen, the apostle says it will not happen.

We are now alive from the dead, regenerated, raised from the spirits of death to spiritual life. Martin Lloyd-Jones comments here, quote, the solid ground and absolute security that believers will not, shall not go on living in sin is shown to consist in their union with Christ. That's the solid ground that you can rest your foot on. That's the absolute security you can put your trust in is that you're a believer, you're not going to go on living in sin because you're in union with Christ by faith. You're not going to go on living in sin.

And Paul's going to go further into this doctrine as we go forward in the weeks to come. But all our hope and trust and assurance is grounded on the person and the work of Jesus Christ in His life, in His death, and in His resurrection from the dead. Not in ourselves at all. That we, our hope, our trust, our assurance is grounded on the person and work of Christ, that we being in union with Him by faith when He died, we died. When He was raised, we were raised we were raised from the dead raised from spiritual death No longer dead in trespasses and sins and thus no longer under sins condemning power, and no longer under sins enslaving power.

There's a difference between, I think this is a sprawl quote, but it may not be exactly right. There's a difference between, you know, being a sinner or sinning and living in sin. There's a difference. Do we still sin? Regrettably, yes, we do still sin.

And God brings us to brokenness and he brings us to a place where we just we have to come before him and say God Forgive me His Holy Spirit is indwelling us But we can't go on as we did before we were Saved before he saved us and we will not go on that way. We won't live the same way we used to live. We're no longer under sins enslaving power. It's not our task master anymore. We have a new master.

Know you not that so many of us, as we're baptized into Jesus Christ, we're baptized into his death, Paul goes on, this is not speaking of the day we submitted to the outward sign of water baptism as today with Richard, but of the spiritual baptism every believer experienced the day we were immersed in Christ. The day we went under with Him and were raised with Him to walk in a new life. Paul is saying, do you not understand that every one of us who were immersed into Christ, the day we came into union with Him by faith, were immersed into His death? We were baptized into His death. Water baptism is intended to be an outward sign of an inward reality of something that God has done in us spiritually.

It's an outward sign of what God has already done in us spiritually, the work that he's done in us in raising us from death to life. In raising us from the dead. The day we came to saving faith, he brought us to saving faith. When we're baptized, we publicly profess and confess our faith in Christ and Him crucified, dead and buried for our sins, risen from the dead the third day, it's a public proclamation that when He went under, we went under. When He died for our sins, we died to our sins.

That is to our old life of sin. And when he was raised, we were raised. That's what happened to me, and that's what I'm going to show all the world, and I'm going to confess to everyone that in a spiritual sense, we died with him, We're buried with Him and are risen with Him to walk in newness of life with Him. Not alone. I quoted Calvin last week, December 11th, I think it was, if we receive the grace of justification, baptism is a reminder of our union in the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ.

We're not only baptized into his death and burial, but also into his resurrection. All these things are a part of what is being communicated graphically with the sign of baptism." Paul goes on, therefore, we are buried with him by baptism into death, that like as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so also we should walk in newness of life. Martin Lloyd-Jones comments here, the same glorious power of the Father that raised Jesus from the dead has done the same to us. Is that your experience? The same glorious power that raised up Christ from the dead has done the same thing to us.

When he died, we died. When he was raised, we were raised. The moment that we come into union with Christ, we come into union with Christ in His death, His burial, and in His resurrection to new life. Does everyone get that? We were dead in Adam, but we're alive in Christ.

In Ephesians 2, 1, Paul writes, You hath he quickened, that is, you have he made alive, who were dead in trespasses and sins. You're no longer dead, You're alive. This is true of every believer. We're no longer dead, but alive. We are not the same people we were in the unregenerate state in which we were born.

Having died with Christ, we died to that which we once were. Is that your experience? Have you died to what you formerly were? We died to what we were in Adam. In Adam we were dead in trespasses and sins, and we're now dead to being dead in trespasses and sins and alive in Christ.

We were buried with Christ by baptism into His death and like as He was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father even so every one of us who are in Christ by faith should walk in a new way in obedience to God as we tread in the footsteps of our Lord. We who trust Christ were raised from spiritual death to spiritual life to walk as Christ walked. And again, our new lives in Christ should and over time will, We're guaranteed it, we're assured it will more and more reflect the spiritual transformation that we've undergone in our union with Christ. Again, not perfectly, but progressively. Regrettably, we still sin, as I said before, but we do not live and sin like we did when we were in Adam.

That life is gone. That's the old man. That life is gone. A new life in Christ has begun. And then in verse 5, Paul uses an analogy to help us understand it all more clearly.

He says, for if, here's that word again, if we have been planted together in the likeness of his death, we shall be also in the likeness of his resurrection. That is, if the one thing's true, the other's also true. If the one is true, the other will also be true. If we've been planted together in the likeness of His death, that's the analogy, we will also be in the likeness of His resurrection. If it is true of us that we are in union with Christ, in this analogy, planted together with Christ in the likeness of his death, then it's also true that we are raised with Christ in the likeness of his resurrection.

It's another way of saying we've been raised from the dead again, raised from spiritual death to spiritual life. No longer under the condemning power of sin, and no longer under the enslaving power of sin, no longer under the condemnation of sin, there is therefore now no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus and union with Him, right? And also no longer under the dominion of sin. Sin shall not have dominion over you, which Paul is coming to very shortly. On account of our union with Christ and His death and resurrection, believers are freed from not only the power of sin to condemn us, we are, but not only that, but also its power to dominate us, to dictate to us, to say, you're gonna do this and you don't have any choice.

We're no longer the slaves of sin. Why? Knowing this, verse 6, that our old man that is our old self, the unregenerate man is crucified with Christ. That the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin. A note in my Reformation Heritage Study Bible says our old man or old self being crucified with Christ, quote, ends the body's role, sorry, physical body, the body's role as an inescapable tool of sin.

Did you catch that? Our old man being crucified with Christ, it ends the body's role. It ends your body's role, your physical body's role as an inescapable tool of sin by destroying the reign of sin in the body. The reign of it is destroyed. This doesn't mean that sin will cease to be in us, but that it will cease to reign in us and over us like a cruel taskmaster.

You've been delivered just as surely as you've been saved from your sins by the death of Christ. It's as surely as His bearing our sins on the cross paid the penalty for our sins, he's delivered us also from the power of sin to enslave us. Just as surely a sin will never condemn us, we're also in a situation where sin will never completely dominate us. We're not going to go back, if we're truly saved, into a life of sin that we lived before we were regenerate and live in that till the day we die. It's not gonna happen.

God's not gonna let it happen. Our old man, our old self, our old fallen nature was crucified with Christ and with it the reign of sin. And thus, our moral inability to do anything but sin. That's where we were in the unregenerate state. There was moral inability to do anything but sin.

Everything we did was sin. All we could do was sin. But our old man, our old nature, our fallen nature was crucified with Christ and with it the reign of sin. This doesn't mean that sin ceases to entice us. This doesn't mean that sin ceases to drag us from time to time, even in the white robes of the righteousness of Christ into mud puddles.

But it does mean that we are not powerless to resist. We're no longer powerless to resist. We're no longer slaves. We're no longer bound to serve sin. Union with Christ as we close in His death and resurrection means that a new life has begun and along with it a radical break with sin.

Being in union with Christ and planted together with Him in the likeness of His death and resurrection, we are now in reality dead to sin. We have died to sin as to its condemning and enslaving power and alive to God as participants in the risen life of Christ. By virtue of our union with Jesus Christ in His death and resurrection, we're no longer under compulsion to serve sin in our mortal bodies or use our members as instruments of sin. The reign of sin has been terminated. The reign of sin has been terminated.

You glad? Happy about that? I'm happy about that. Your sin debt is completely paid in full and sin is no longer the master over you that can dictate to you you've got a sin. You're in my clutches and I won't let you go and you're going to continue to do exactly as I say, no more.

The reign of sin was defeated by Christ at the cross. Not only did he pay our sin debt and end sin's power to condemn us. He also ended sin's power to dominate us and reign over us. Calvin comments here, as long as we are children of Adam and nothing more than men, we're in bondage to sin, and we can do nothing else but sin. But being engrafted into Christ, we are delivered from this miserable thraldom.

Thraldom is a mental enslavement to sin, or a mental enslavement, and the thraldom of sin is a mental servitude to sin. That's the way the children of Adam are. That's the way we were when we were children of Adam and not engrafted into Christ. But having been engrafted into Christ, we're free from our bondage in sin. Calvin goes on to qualify that statement, not that we immediately cease entirely to sin, no, but that we become at last victorious in the conquest.

There's a day coming. We are going to shed these mortal bodies. We're going to see Christ as He is. We're going to be raised up with new bodies, and we'll no longer be able to sin. That's a wonderful, wonderful time that is coming.

Until then, there's a battle that goes on. Apostle Paul is going to be talking more and more about it. The verse 7, As we close, last verse is, for he that is dead is freed from sin. He that is dead is freed from sin, freed from sin's slavery, freed from sin's dominion, freed from the tyranny of sin. The old Wesley Hymn says, he breaks the power of reigning sin and sets the prisoners free.

That's descriptive of you and me, if we're believers today. Christ has delivered us from the power of sin to condemn us, praise God. And Christ has freed us from the power of sin to enslave us. And we who believe should thank and praise Him every day of our lives on earth as we will for all eternity in heaven. Let's pray.

Father, we thank you for the truth of your Word. We thank you for the truth of the gospel. We thank you, Lord, that we have been freed, we have been delivered from both the penalty of sin and sin's power to condemn us, and that we have been freed from sins power to dominate us and control us and to require us to do its bidding. We thank you God that all of this was done, all of this was done by Christ's one act of obedience on the cross and dying for our sins and taking our sins upon his sinless self and bearing the punishment that was due us dying in our place. We thank you, God.

And we thank you, Lord, that he did not remain in the dead but was raised from the dead, and that you've raised your people from spiritual death to spiritual life of God, given us eyes to see and ears to hear. Raise this up, call us by name, even as Lazarus, come forth and have brought us into your kingdom, out of the darkness of this world, into the glorious light of the kingdom of your Son, our Lord Jesus. We thank you God for the wonderful work that you've done for your people. And we'll thank you for it, God, for all eternity. In Jesus' name, Amen.