The Key to Christian Living by Douglas Moo
Any Christian genuinely seeking to please God struggles with sin. We all recognize that we are not where God wants us; that our thoughts and actions are still far too worldly; that we are far short of the holiness that God insists should characterize His people.
No wonder, then, that a virtual “cottage industry” offering “the key to the Christian life” has sprung up in Christian circles. One cannot peruse a Christian publisher’s catalog or scan a list of local church seminar offerings without finding some writer or speaker claiming to have the solution to our struggle with sin. Some, perhaps most, of these books and seminars can genuinely help us grow in Christ. But almost all of them promise more than they can deliver — for there is no simple “key” to the successful Christian life, and success will not come easily but only after years of hard, dedicated spiritual discipline.
Paul gives us a glimpse of what the struggle against sin is like in Romans 6:1–14. For five chapters he has proclaimed the Good News that sinners can be put right with God by believing on Christ and His work. But the more Paul emphasizes that we are justified by faith alone, the more we wonder whether there is any point in even trying to live a consistent Christian life. If God has already accepted us, why should we worry about sin? Paul’s basic answer is that the true Christian will never seriously ask this question. To be justified by faith means that we also are brought into a relationship with Christ — and that relationship cannot help but change the very way we look at sin.
But we are particularly interested in the way Paul elaborates his answer. We can best understand Paul’s response by unpacking its essential logic, a logic that proceeds in three steps:
We have died with Christ (Romans 6:3).
Christ died to sin (Romans 6:10).
Therefore, we have died to sin (Romans 6:2).
Following Romans 5, with its teaching about the sinner’s identification with Adam in sin and death, and the believer’s identification with Christ in righteousness and life, it is no wonder that Paul continues in Romans 6 to emphasize our real involvement with Christ in redemptive events. As Christ died to take away the penalty our sins had earned, so He also died to cancel the power of sin over us. Through faith, expressed in baptism, we identify with Christ and enjoy the power over sin that He Himself won (v. 10). Of course, Christ was never under sin’s power in such a way that He was forced to sin. But as a fully incarnate man, He was exposed to its power. Therefore, His death won release from sin’s power over Him. And it also wins release from sin’s power for every Christian united with Him by faith.
And so Paul can claim that we have “died to sin.” What does this mean?
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A good reminder from Justin Taylor:
Tim Challies writes:
“God, that comforts those that are cast down.” – 2 Cor. 7:6
“If you have been truly born again you have a new and holy nature, and you are no longer moved towards sinful objects as you were before. The things that you once loved you now hate, and therefore you will not run after them. You can hardly understand it but so it is, that your thoughts and tastes are radically changed. You long for that very holiness which once it was irksome to hear of; and you loathe those vain pursuits which were once your delights. The man who puts his trust in the Lord sees the pleasures of sin in a new light. For he sees the evil which follows them by noting the agonies which they brought upon our Lord when He bore our sins in His own body on the tree. Without faith a man says to himself, ‘This sin is a very pleasant thing, why should I not enjoy it? Surely I may eat this fruit, which looks so charming and is so much to be desired.’ The flesh sees honey in the drink, but faith at once perceives that there is poison in the cup. Faith spies the snake in the grass and gives warning of it. Faith remembers death, judgment, the great reward, the just punishment and that dread word, eternity.” – C.H. Spurgeon
“He who grows in grace remembers that he is but dust, and he therefore does not expect his fellow Christians to be anything more. He overlooks ten thousand of their faults, because he knows his God overlooks twenty thousand in his own case. He does not expect perfection in the creature, and, therefore, he is not disappointed when he does not find it. When our virtues become more mature, we shall not be more tolerant of evil; but we shall be more tolerant of infirmity, more hopeful for the people of God, and certainly less arrogant in our criticisms.” – C.H. Spurgeon
I wonder if you can relate to any of this. One of the first things God the Holy Spirit did for me after I had come to faith in Christ was to give me a deep settled assurance of salvation. Romans 8:16 tells us that “The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God…” This inner witness brought me the sure knowledge that despite my many flaws and failures, the wonders of this great salvation become clear – God had saved me, I was His, and Christ did indeed love me and had given me eternal life. Heaven sent joy and peace flooded my soul. I knew I could say, “I am my Beloved’s and He is mine.”