Good morning! Boker Tov! Are you chasing your tail? I feel like I am. We had a very blessed Thanksgiving, on both sides of our family. There were about 50 at my husband’s gathering and 29 at mine. On my side, the entire family was present, all of my mother’s descendants. The age range was over 90 years. Whoa! Right? It was awesome.
But, you know, this time of year is hectic for many. First, there’s the greater than usual amount of dark hours each day. As my older son grouses, “I go to work in the dark; I come home in the dark.” For some people, that’s a heavy load. There’s this thing called Seasonal Affective Disorder, and people who have it benefit from taking proactive steps to get more light in their lives. There are special light fixtures that you can buy and which you can sit under or sit with, to bring into your body additional light waves, and this helps to offset the winter doldrums that come from S.A.D. I think this is one reason people put up holiday light decorations so early these days and leave them up, in some cases, well into January.
And then, in most of the USA, there’s the cold weather, which a lot of people find taxing. And then, there’s media everywhere telling you to “have a holly jolly” or to be “merry”, right? That can be a heavy burden, particularly if one is dealing with loss or hurt or anger over circumstances beyond one’s control. The other night, I was studying Chanukah with a group of Messianic women. We are fortunate enough to have a rabbi who teaches us, out of the goodness of his heart. When we wrapped up, I commented that I am so glad that Father Yahweh gave us the festival of Chanukah, with its emphasis on light, to occur during the darkest days of the year. What a loving and good God He is! I have more to say about Chanukah later in the broadcast, at the end.
So, anyway, it’s an interesting part of the yearly calendar. Because in the midst of this “merriment”, things still happen. This week, I’ve had to process the news that two of my dear friends are divorcing, deal with the death of another friend, and then, when I was preparing this teaching yesterday, a friend’s daughter was in a moderately severe traffic accident on the nearby interstate. Honestly, all this threw my lesson prep into a tailspin, and so, if you believe me to be struggling today, well, you are probably right on the bull’s eye.
At any rate, we are in Romans 6 today. Grab your copy of the Scriptures and turn there, and we’ll get started.
There are 3 themes we will explore in this chapter:
1. Should we practice sin with abandon, because the grace of Yeshua HaMashiach covers them all?
2. Should we practice baptism by immersion ("dunkin' ", in the Baptist church)?
3. Should we enslave ourselves to righteous living? Do we have that choice?
Let’s begin by reading verses 1 through 2. {All Brit Chadasha - - New Testament - - scriptures are from TAW.}
What shall we say then? Will we continue in sin that grace may increase? 2. May it never be! For if we are those who have died to sin, how can we live in it again?
Here again, we see an adamant imperative at the beginning of verse two, very similar to the one expressed so strongly in chapter 3, verse 4. “Perish the thought!” would be a good paraphrase. Now, on the face of it, some of you are thinking, “This sounds ridiculous! Who would believe or teach that?!” Well, in the early part of the 20th century, there was a Russian monk named Gregory Rasputin. He lived and believed that because the one who sins the most requires the most forgiveness from God, a sinner who continues to sin without restraint receives more of God’s grace than an “ordinary” sinner. He lived his life this way and taught this to be the way to salvation. What heresy! He was eventually assassinated, after he had been accused of rape, of exerting undue influence over the Tsar and even of having an affair with the Tsarina, the Tsar’s wife.
I want to emphatically make the point here that we are all dead people. First of all, it is declared elsewhere in Scripture (in Ephesians 2:1) that those whose hearts have not been born again, regenerated by the Ruach HaKodesh, Holy Spirit, are “dead in trespasses and sins”. Spiritually dead, excluded from fellowship with Father Yahweh. However, once a person becomes re-born in Messiah Yeshua, he or she must once again reckon oneself dead in another way. Alive spiritually, yet dead to those things of this world that interrupt our fellowship with our God, the Divine, Majestic Mystery. It’s a matter of which kind of “dead” you want to be. You are either dead IN sin, or you are dead TO sin. One leads to eternal death, and the other to eternal life with our God in the Olam Haba, the world to come.
These first two verses are clear about a completely unacceptable position, that being that the newly reborn believer in Yeshua does not have permission to “practice sin”, or “continue in sin”, especially doing so with the purpose of allowing the grace of God to “increase”. To be trampled on might be a better way of putting it. Hebrews 10:29 TAW says this:
“how much more, do you think, will he receive capital punishment, the one who has trodden upon the Son of Elohim and has accounted the blood of his covenant by which he is Set-apart, as the blood of all men and has treated the Spirit of grace in an insulting manner?
In a footnote there, by AGR, he postulates that doing what is described in Hebrews 10:29 might be the “blaspheming against the Ruach Hakodesh” as mentioned by the Mashiach Yeshua Himself in Matthew 12:32. Very serious business.
In other words, it is never right to commit sin so that a good outcome will result. That is called rationalization - - coming up with an intellectual defense of our sin, simply because we want to DO ... what we want to DO, for our own selfish reasons.
Bottom line, if you have not “died to sin”, you had better examine your heart to see if you have truly been converted and are truly a disciple of Yeshua’s Way. Does this mean we will never sin, as we walk out our salvation with awe and reverence? No, certainly it cannot mean that. It does mean, however, that we should never lose our sense of wonder, amazement and gratitude that our sins have been forgiven and that we should reverence our exalted spiritual position in the heavenly realm, that we are in Yeshua, and that our position is secured with Him forever. Our lifestyle, our practice, our “walking out our faith” should reflect that consistently.
Unfortunately, there are times when, although positionally, legally, we are dead to sin, that is freed from it, we still lapse into it. What we need to be careful to avoid is “wallowing” in sin, being comfortable there, dwelling there. This reminds me of a story from many centuries ago, a story I saw recently on the Enduring Word website, enduringword.com.
In the fourteenth century two brothers fought for the right to rule over a dukedom in what is now Belgium. The elder brother’s name was Raynald, but he was commonly called “Crassus,” a Latin nickname meaning “fat,” for he was horribly obese. After a heated battle, Raynald’s younger brother Edward led a successful revolt against him and assumed the title of Duke over his lands. But instead of killing Raynald, Edward devised a curious imprisonment. He had a room in the castle built around “Crassus,” a room with only one door. The door was not locked, the windows were not barred, and Edward promised Raynald that he could regain his land and his title any time that he wanted to. All he would have to do is leave the room. The obstacle to freedom was not in the doors or the windows, but with Raynald himself. Being grossly overweight, he could not fit through the door, even though it was of near-normal size. All Raynald needed to do was diet down to a smaller size, then walk out a free man, with all he had before his fall. However, his younger brother kept sending him an assortment of tasty foods, and Raynald’s desire to be free never won out over his desire to eat. Some would accuse Duke Edward of being cruel to his older brother, but he would simply reply, “My brother is not a prisoner. He may leave when he so wills.” But Raynald stayed in that room for ten years, until Edward himself was killed in battle.
Paul then uses the visual example of baptism to further make his point that he made emphatically in verses 1 and 2. Let’s read together verses 3 through 10:
Or do you not know that we who are immersed in Yeshua the Mashiyach are immersed in his death? 4 For we are buried with him in immersion to death; that as Yeshua the Mashiyach rose from the dead into the glory of his Father, so we also will walk in a new Life. 5 For if we have been planted together with him into the likeness of his death, so will we be also in his resurrection. 6 For we know that our old man is put on the stake with him; that the body of sin might be destroyed and we be no more servants to sin: 7 For he who is dead is set fee from sin. 8 If then we are dead with Mashiyach, let us beliee that we will live with Mashiyach. 9 For we know that Mashiyach rose from the dead and will not die again; death has no authority over him. 10 For in dying, he died for sin once; and in living, he lives to Elohim.
We talked about baptism by immersion recently on Mishkan Katan; yet, here we are again. Baptism was very similar to entering a Jewish mikveh, a ritual bath. Where free-flowing water, living water that is, was not readily available, architects and builders constructed these little miniature swimming pools that had free-flowing water running through them. These mikvehs were acceptable for the purification rites mandated by Moshe in the Torah. But, also acceptable was a free-flowing natural stream, such as the River Jordan, into which Yeshua was immersed. How do we know He was completely immersed? Because Paul tells us so right here in Romans 6! This is why immersion is the only acceptable baptism, the only one that fully depicts what the Lord did on our behalf. It is the only fully descriptive, fully pictorial symbol - - an outward sign of an inward change. As these verses say, when Yeshua was immersed, it symbolized and foretold His death for our sins. When He was raised up out of the water, this symbolized His resurrection. Similarly, when we are baptized our old ways are pictured as dead and we are “raised to walk in newness of life”, as is often said when a new believer has been brought up from under the water. Just as death had no hold over our Mashiach, so also should sin have no control over us.
I remember my own baptism, at nine years of age. It was an early August day, hot! My little church had had a revival a few days before, and I had made my profession of faith in Jesus Christ at the end of one of the services. I had decided to follow Jesus. We were baptized in a large, deep creek called Moss's Mill. At one time, in the late 1800s, a grist mill was powered by the waters swiftly flowing there. However, by the time of my baptism, it had rotted and been washed away. Reverend W. A. Trotman Sr. baptized me. He has long-since gone on to glory. But, as he put me under the water, he said, “Buried in the likeness of His death” and as he raised me up out from below the surface he said, “Raised to walk in newness of life!” And, everyone said, “Amen!” (We did not clap in those days, even outside, at a baptismal creek.)
Things went great until I was walking out of the water to encounter my younger brother. I was euphoric! Ever the imp, he smarted off with some asinine remark that brought my spirit crashing down to the ground, and I responded with a biting, cutting retaliation of my own. Ahhhh, my "flesh" raised its ugly head!
Next verses: 11-14
So also you should count your souls as being dead to sin and alive to Elohim through our Master Yeshua the Mashiyach. 12. Therefore do not allow sin to rule in your dead body so that you obey its lusts. 13 And also do not present your members as instruments of wickedness towards sin but give up your souls to Elohim as men who, from the dead, have Life; and let your members be instruments for the uprightness of Elohim. 14 Then sin will not have authority over you; for you are not under Torah but under grace.
Seems like nobody can get to us like our family members! They always know how to push our buttons, as my brother did when I came up dripping like a half-drowned squirrel from the waters of Moss’ Mill. I immediately felt awful about my verbal reaction and anger toward my brother. No, after my baptism I did not magically get transformed into a sinless being. Oh, positionally, God sees me as sinless, because He looks at me through the scrim of Jesus's blood. But, in my life walk here on earth, I still battle with sin, daily. Don’t you?! All true believers do! We are tempted to just give in to temptation and live as our old, fleshly nature dictates. Wouldn't that be easy to do? Paul makes it plain, however, that this is not God's plan for the believer.
I want us to pause before proceeding, to take a closer look at verses 12 and 14, in particular. Let’s do verse 14 first. It has been used by many Christian theologians over the years to “throw out the baby with the bath water” or, errrrr, throw out the Torah. I’m paraphrasing now from the Romans Chapter 6 note #57 on page 402-403 of TAW. AGR references an ancient document of the Essenes called by a couple of names “The Sectarian Manifesto” or just as 4QMMT (4th cave at Qumran, Ma’aseh HaTorah). In studying this document and comparing its contents to Paul’s theology as given in parts of Romans and Galatians, it is clear that for Paul the issue was not that the Torah was irrelevant to the life of the disciple of Yeshua, but of access to forgiveness after sinning against Torah. The community which produced the document had a long list of community rules and infractions, many with quite harsh consequences. Paul’s point was that the forgiveness Yeshua offered was sufficient to cover these sins although, since sins have earthly consequences, some egregious sins did require expulsion from the fellowship. Unfortunately, as the centuries rolled on, Paul’s theology concerning how to deal with penalties for violations of Torah was twisted into a false idea that he hated Torah and wanted it gone from faith practice. “Western Christianity has often and incorrectly taught that Paul sought to abolish Torah observance and thought it obsolete and irrelevant. The fact is Paul strongly advocated for Torah observance among both groups” - - Jewish followers and Gentile followers of Yeshua, not for the purpose of justification, but for the process of sanctification, both of which I taught on here at Mishkan Katan last week.
Verse 12 implies that our will must come into play in order to deny sin the lordship over our dead bodies. Hence the battle. Some translations speak of sin “reigning”, being king, over our mortal bodies, as we are being formed more and more into the image of our Messiah. I saw a graphic while preparing this lesson. It had a picture of a young man wildly rejoicing in his salvation. The label “justification” was attached to that picture. Adjacent to that was a picture of the same man, older, armored up, and showing battle scars. The caption for that picture was “sanctification”. If we do not exert our will to push back against these sinful traps, we will end up obeying the lusts of our flesh. And, it is a spiritual battle, for sure.
Verses 15 through 18 likewise speak to this. Let’s look at them.
What then? Will we sin because we are not under Torah but under grace? May it never be! 16 Do you not know that to whomever you give up your souls, you must obey him to serve him because you are his servants, whom you obey; whether it be to sin, or in the obedience of uprightness? 17 But thanks be to Elohim, that you were once the servants of sin but have now from the heart obeyed in the likeness of the doctrine to which you are devoted. 18 And when you were freed from sin, you are made subject to uprightness.
Notice that this obedience must come from the heart. That is, it must flow from the heart, out of a love for the master, out of a love for the one you so lovingly and willingly serve.
I'll share with you a personal example. One of my areas of continual temptation is in what I choose to eat. In the past six months, I’ve received a breakthrough from this addiction I’m about to share with you, and have lost a great deal of weight. If you watch my earlier teachings on my YouTube channel, you can easily see that. Regardless, I still get tempted, even though the addiction is broken. It used to be, for many, many years that from the moment I woke up to the moment I would lie down to sleep at night, I fought a sugar addiction. These eating habits led to me becoming about 35 pounds overweight for my height.) Now, most of the time I did really well, making good choices. My "witching hours", however, came after dinner, in the 3-4 hours before I went to bed. When I was fresh and rested, in the mornings for example, I easily made great food choices. I would eat a lot of fruits and vegetables and occasionally eat some meat. I avoided dairy usually, because I have a dairy intolerance.
Oh, but sugar....sugar would call my name. And, after dinner, when I was tired and emotionally exhausted from the battles of the day, it would be “on like donkey kong", as Si Robertson likes to say. The sugar battle reached a fever pitch. Honestly, I usually lost it. For years, much like Raynald, I was in bondage, feeling very defeated about my addiction. Sadly, it is possible for true believers, redeemed ones, to yield their bodily appetites to the service of sin; accordingly, they live a life of defeat, discouragement, and imprisonment.
Now, my own years of imprisonment may not sound like a "big thing" to you. But, every believer's "sin pothole" is different. We are all tempted by many things. Whatever our area of strong temptation, we must fight it with all that is in us. Basically, when I choose that sugary treat (or treats), even today, post-addiction, I am making a questionable choice, not a “kingdom-building choice” and hastening my own physical death because, let’s be honest, refined sugar has no nutritional benefit. If I hasten my own death that equates to fewer days here to serve Him. And, for me, it is sin.
As it says in verse 16 - - to whom have you given up your soul? Whose servant are you? We are servants to the one to whom we have entrusted our souls. Or at least, we should be.
Let’s move on to verse 19 through 23 now.
19 I speak as among men because of the wickedness of your flesh. As you gave up your members to the enslavement of defilement and wickedness, so also now give up your members to the servitude of uprightness and Set-apartness. 20 For when you were the slaves of sin, you were taken away from uprightness. 21 And what kind of harvest did you have before in which you are today ashamed? For the result of this is death. 22 And now, that you have been freed from sin and are servants to Elohim, your fruits are Set-apart and the harvest is eternal life. 23 For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of Elohim is eternal lief, through our Master Yeshua the Mashiyach.
There is currently a popular movie out, based on the wildly successful Broadway musical of the same name, called “Wicked”. I have not seen it yet, as it has gotten mixed reviews. Is it hard for you to think of your flesh as wicked? That smarts, doesn’t it? I was thinking about this yesterday, as I was beginning to craft this teaching. In today’s society, we spend an inordinate amount of time and money on our “tent”. That’s what I call my body. That’s one of the reasons for the choice of name for this broadcast, “Mishkan Katan”, which in Hebrew means “little tabernacle”. The Mishkan was the tent of meeting that the Hebrews used as their center of worship, before the first temple was built by King Solomon. It was a temporary structure which housed the glory of God and moved from place to place. Sounds sort of like the body of a redeemed soul, to me. Anyway, we are fixated on our bodies... how they feel, how they serve us, what condition they are in and most especially, how they LOOK to others. SO much money is spent on preventing the body from looking its chronological age, because our modern society is incredibly driven by visual stimuli. Is this “wicked” behavior? Well, it can be ... if it takes the person’s focus off what is most important for the kingdom of God. How much better off would we be to focus on the eternal soul’s beauty and development, being molded ever more into the image of Mashiach - - than on how many wayward hairs we have or what color they are, etc.
And, this fixation with the body is just one example of how our flesh can be deemed “wicked”. How we operate in that fleshly “tent” is even worse. We as humans use it to carry out untold numbers of wicked acts throughout the world. I’m not just speaking of the Roman emperors or the Assyrians or some other barbaric person from history. It is still going on today! Regardless of what your humanities professor at your secular school taught you, mankind is not evolving to some higher plane! Mankind is NOT “getting better”. Just think of any innovation Father Yahweh has allowed us to make, and you will be able to point out how it has been used or is being used to perpetrate both evil and good. Not just “good”, but both. The enemy of souls manages to find a way to lure us by our own lusts for power, money, sex, whatever, to use any God-given tool for nefarious purposes. Wicked.
Here we touch on the third theme of this chapter, which asks the question, “Should we enslave ourselves to righteous living?” Would it be an enslavement at all, or would it instead be a liberation, an emancipation? AGR has a footnote about verses 20-23, if you will cast your eyes onto those verses again. This is the Romans 6 footnote #59 on page 403 of TAW, and I quote:
“To be emancipated from righteousness means that you have switched allegiances from Father YAH to sinful men and are under their laws, not His. What a sinner perceives as his or her personal freedom then is nothing more than a working out of their free will to become destroyed in the “harvest of death” (6:21). But, if we get back to Master YHWH and follow His Son Yeshua, then we are emancipated from sin and condemnation - - again Paul’s focus in on who gives the penalty for breaking Torah not that Torah is invalid - - and this leads to eternal life. (6:22-23).”
Yeshua took the penalty for breaking Torah when He died on the execution stake, the “cross”, for us. As we are one of two kinds of “dead”, we are likewise one of two kinds of “emancipated”. We should loathe the false, deceptive emancipation that actually enslaves us to sinful people and their ways. This type of “emancipation” corrupts and destroys the soul. True emancipation leads to eternal life, which starts in the here-and-now. The last verse of the chapter, verse 23, is often used to lead a person to become justified, to lead him or her to that initial step of salvation. However, the emancipation begins now, and we should grasp it with all our hearts, by the power of the Ruach HaKodesh, to bring life and light to our lives in the present!
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