A LOOK AT ROMANS 6 – How are We to Live?

In Romans 6 the question is asked: How are we to live, now that we have died to sin? 

In accepting the sacrifice of Messiah for our sin, we accept his death as if it were our own. We died to sin through his death, we were separated from the world through his burial, and we were raised with him…to LIFE! Our new (or renewed) life doesn’t begin in heaven…it begins right here on earth! 

Continuing in Romans 6, we read that our response to this new life, to this second chance…is to ACT! We can never be reconciled to God, be declared righteous, on our own merit. Never. But once we are redeemed through His Salvation (His Yeshua) we most surely are to leave behind our old life and live this new life in obedience to Him. It is to be a life marked by right living in God’s ways. We are NOT to let sin (our will, desire, and understanding) rule in our life, as we are no longer owned by sin. If we do not live in God’s ways in our new life, we mock the sacrifice of Christ, and that is a serious thing. 

So how, in a practical way, do we act now? How are we to resist temptation to turn to what seems good? How do we respond to stress or difficulties which tempt us to turn to our own ways of providing solutions?

In James 4:7, we learn to first, draw near to God and second, resist the devil. And you know what? He will flee from you.

To draw near to God means to read and study the gift He has provided you…the gift of the Scripture (Old Testament) in which He has revealed His ways, as well as the gospels and letters (New Testament) which amplify and confirm the right ways of God; and, with your whole heart, to act in humility and joyful obedience on what you learn. As you draw near to God and resist the devil, you will find it gets easier over time, as your demonstrated trust in God matures. 

In Romans 6: 14 we read that a believer is ‘not under law, but under grace’. Some (including some churches) say this means that we are no longer to obey the ‘Law’ of the Old Testament, which is where the Law (instruction) of God is found. But nothing could be further from the truth, and as you continue to read and study the Scripture you will find this too. Nowhere does God say we are ever to consider His Law wrong, minimized, fulfilled, replaced or done away with. 

Yeshua (Jesus) clearly confirms this in Matthew 5: 17-19. You can read much about the perfection of God’s Law (His instruction, His ways) in Psalm 119. And God doesn't change!
In obeying God’s ways in our new life, we see and become aware of the wonderful peace we have with Him through the sacrifice of Yeshua, who is our salvation, our righteousness. God said in Genesis 2:17 that if Adam and Eve disobeyed His Law, if they chose another way other than His, they would die. In God’s ways there is life. Apart from Him there is death. The curse of disobeying (turning away from) God’s ways (His Law) is death. The curse of the Law is death. Any way other than His leads to death. 

But if we have received new life, we are to turn to His ways. And His ways never change. When Adam and Eve and you and I, turned away from Life, we came under the curse of the Law (death). Since we have been given the grace of new life in Christ, through trust, we are NO LONGER UNDER THE CURSE OF THE LAW! Isn’t that amazing? We are now under grace! We are a new creation in Messiah! But we must continue in grace. 

Romans 6:15-23 explains this beautifully. You were a slave to sin…which led to death. You were under the curse of the Law, which meant you were set apart eternally from God, you were sold out to sin and its consequence of death. You have now been put under grace. If you present yourself to God as His obedient slave (that is your choice) then you will be a slave not of sin, but of rightness! And there is nothing on heaven or earth that can take that righteousness away from you! As you were formerly a slave of darkness, death and evil, present yourself today to be a slave of rightness, of light and of life. 

What did that former life of sin get you? What was the fruit, the result of sin in your life? 

The life that comes from righteousness and obedience to God, is able to face any kind of trouble, any kind of temptation with the peace that is beyond understanding, in the power of His Spirit working alongside us. The result of life lived by God’s Law is peace, patience, kindness, gentleness, goodness, faithfulness (trust in God), love, joy and self control (Galatians 5:13-25). There is NO death in this Law!

COVERINGS A Brief and Simple Look at This Biblical Concept

When Adam and Eve were created – they had no sin in them. They were a perfect part of God’s good creation. As part of this perfection, God gave them His command – His Law. Yes, there was Law in Eden before the fall!

As part of His created perfection, God gave Adam and Eve free will, the option to obey or not obey. As long as they chose to remain in obedience, they also quite naturally remained in the Life God created them to be in, and they would remain in the ‘covering’ of His blessing.

If Adam and Eve used their free will to follow another way, another ‘law’, then the Life which came from God would leave them, and they ‘would surely die’ (Genesis 2:17). God’s covering of blessing was on Adam and Eve in creation, in the perfect order. We see this from Genesis 2:25 where it specifically tells us ‘they were naked and not ashamed’. It is as if they were covered, for they both had no need of any other covering than this Life and blessing they were created in. Their eyes did not see anything out of order. In perfect creation, they were covered by Life!

Now we see a huge contrast in Genesis 3:7. Of her own free will, Eve chose to follow a voice that seemed good (Genesis 3: 4-6), instead of God’s perfect instruction. Adam listened to the deceived Eve, and followed suit. They immediately lost their covering of blessing and (Genesis 3:7) realized they were naked – and they were afraid and ashamed.

How often do we face this same situation? We know God’s way is right, and there is Life in obeying Him. Yet just like Adam and Eve, when we are presented with a voice that says something different, that modifies God’s good Law, maybe even tells us it doesn’t apply to us anymore, we face the temptation to turn to something that seems good, instead of what we KNOW is good. The Life we have in Yeshua is of far greater value than any worldly temptation, or any fine sounding philosophy that comes from the minds of men. We are still to choose.

Moses pleaded with the people of God in Deuteronomy 30:19, “Oh that you would choose LIFE!” In James 1:12 we read ‘Blessed is the one who endures (who stays strong when faced with) temptation, for at the final day, he will receive the crown of Life which the Lord has promised to those who love (obey) Him! In James 1:22 we read – 'Don’t just be hearers of these instructions and commands…DO them!' In James 4:7 we are counseled to, first, submit to God and second, resist the devil and the temptation and deceptions which come from his voice. Resist (and keep on resisting) and he will FLEE from YOU!

We each face temptations that distract us from truth, and fine sounding arguments that honour man instead of God. Obedience to God means we are to patiently and persistently stand on the promises we KNOW from the Scripture, live our lives humbly staying on the path of the clear commandments of God. Then we remain in HIS covering of blessing, of Life in Yeshua. This life that comes from obeying God, in Messiah, is eternal! HalleluYAH!!

A brief look at God's Covenants

Let’s take a look at the covenants of God. If we look back at the covenants God made, first with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, then with their natural born descendants, the Israelites (and the ones who joined in with them as they came out of Egypt – Exodus 12:38) and finally to the called out ones (called out from the world) who have been grafted in with Israel (Romans 11), we see that each new covenant didn’t replace the one before it…it built on it! This is something that is often misunderstood. It is one of the many instances where what the Bible says must have precedence over what any person, study, church or denomination interprets the Bible to say. Some say that the new covenant replaced the old, and that the ‘church’ replaced Israel. This is not what the BIble says. (As an aside, the word translated as ‘church’ in most Bibles, actually means ‘called out ones’ or ‘congregation’, and it is rather odd that it came to be called ‘church’ which has actually quite a different original meaning.) The Bible says God will never forget Israel. Never! It says that Israel was meant to live within God’s covenant conditions, so as to be a light to the rest of the world, which would then leave their gods and worship the one true God, along with Israel. This is the way it was meant to work. But the law, the instruction that shows us how we are to live, also reveals to us that we can’t do that on our own, that we are deceived by our sinful nature. Our sinful nature has to die, and we must be reborn in our will, in order to follow God’s laws. When we trust (believe) in Messiah Yeshua and His sacrifice enough to be willing to ‘die’ with Him in our sinful nature, when we hate it enough to be willing to see it put it to death and follow Him instead of following our own will, then God promises His Spirit will write the law on our hearts and enable us to be obedient…as long as we are daily willing to see that sinful nature put to death (Luke 9:23) and follow Him. He draws us to Him, we respond in obedience and trust, He does the work of rebirth, and our grateful response, enabled by the Spirit, is to live in holiness according to His will. This is the covenant. That we will be His people and He will be our God. Galatians 3 speaks of the law given at Mt Sinai, as a guardian. In the sense that when we were children, we needed someone to teach us how to live and to guard us, to keep us from harm, but when we are grown, we know the right way to live without someone teaching us. Assuming we’ve been taught right! I like to use the example of a hot stove, with bright red elements, as being very attractive to a child. The law (as guardian) keeps us away from the hot stove, and its potential to harm us severely. UNTIL we grow up, and the understanding that the hot elements will hurt us becomes an internal knowledge, and we no longer need that external guardian. In the end, the stove must still not be touched, right? You don’t grow up and then it is OK to touch the hot elements. That will still harm you. In the same way, the law of God is good and teaches us how to live, and we don't outgrow that need. Sin is still sin. Living without God's law is sin. Read Psalm 119 to learn how good the law is. If you marry, you make a covenant with your spouse. If you remarry, the covenant doesn't change does it? The new covenant God makes with us remains the same covenant, in its basic terms and conditions, as the one made with the Israelites (the natural born ones and those grafted in) as set apart from the world. But the new covenant is better, in that God has done a new thing in us, the partner. If you read Hebrews 8 carefully, you see this in verse 9, where God says this new covenant will not be like the one He made with the people of Israel and Judah, who did not remain faithful…and so broke the covenant, causing God to turn His back on them. But did He forsake them?? NO, not at all, though He did turn His back on them for a time. You see in the very next verse (vs 10) that He will make a new covenant with who? ISRAEL! But this time, He will not make the covenant that requires an external guardian, but He Himself (through His Spirit) will write His perfect laws on our minds, in our thoughts, in our very personality…SO we will be able to obey Him! That’s always been the point. There will be no more need for an external guardian, and it will be put aside (Hebrews 8:13). For each person, from the least to the greatest, will already know the instruction (Torah, sometimes translated ‘law’) of God; see verse 11, it will be written not on tablets of stone, but on the softness of a yielded heart. How amazing is that!? On the subject of remarriage, in the book of Hosea, God gives a picture of this remarriage. God commanded His prophet Hosea to marry Gomer. Gomer was and continued to act as a prostitute, and she persistently committed adultery against Hosea, breaking the marriage covenant. This is a picture of God’s people (all of us), who even though we had the law (the marriage covenant) continued to worship and serve things, imaginations, or interpretations instead of God. This is spiritual adultery. It wasn’t until Hosea turned his back on Gomer, leaving her to her lovers, that she realized what a bad state she was in. Then Hosea was instructed to buy her back from the servitude of sin she was in (from a pimp who owned her) and she was sent away to become clean (set apart from the world), with the promise that Hosea would take her back, and call her children (the children she bore to Hosea, but it is implied they were not all his) his own. So we see that God redeems His own from our bondage to sin, that He teaches us His ways (the same ways He taught the Israelites) so we know how to live before Him, and that one day He will return to make the new covenant official (the wedding supper of the Lamb – Rev 19:9). In the meantime, we are the ‘betrothed’ of the Lord, and need to keep ourselves apart from the dirt of the world…clean before God, as we wait for Him. This is very important, this keeping clean. We see this time and again in the Bible (1 Cor 5:11, Eph 5:5 are just two). I encourage you to always, always, trust the words of the Bible (in a good translation, of course…such as ESV or NASB or NKJV) in its context (the WHOLE Bible) over the words (doctrine) of ANY church or person or Bible study. Look for a place to worship that preaches and teaches God’s ways, and helps you understand what it means to be ‘in the world but not of it’ and what it means to be ‘clean’ before God. But even then, always trust what God tells you in His Word (which means you have to intently study it YOURSELF!) over what anyone else says. Yeshua (Jesus) says He did not come to bring peace (human unity) but a sword, that following Him would mean separation (Matthew 10:17-42). He was talking about separation from the religious system! Do not fear, but be aware. Let others live as they will, but YOU live as God teaches you in His Word!