Small group verses for week 10/02/11 – 10/08/11

In the Likeness of His Death

It is to the death of Christ we owe our salvation. The better we understand the meaning of that death, the richer will be our experience of its power.

o    Romans 6:5, 10-11

Christ had a double work to accomplish in His death. The one part was to work out righteousness for us, the other to obtain life for us. When scripture speaks of the  first part of this work, it uses the expression “Christ died for our sin”

o    1 Corinthians 15:3

When scripture speaks of the second part of this work, it uses the expression “He died to sin”

o    Romans 6:10

 Through our first birth we become partakers in Adam’s death, but through the second birth we become partakers in the death of the second Adam. Every believer who accepts of Christ is partaker of the power of His death and is dead to sin. The Christian who does not understand this always imagines that sin is to strong for him, that sin still has power over him, and that he must sometimes obey it.

 The new life that is in me is the life of Christ from the dead, a life that has begotten through death, a life that is entirely dead to sin. The believer as a new creature in Christ Jesus can glory and say: “Like Christ I am dead to sin. Sin has no right or power over me whatsoever. I am freed from it, and therefore I do not need to sin.”

 If the believer still sins, it is because he does not use his privilege to live as one who is dead to sin. Through ignorance or unwatchfulness or unbelief, he forgets the meaning and power of this likeness of Christ’s death, and so he sins. But if he holds firmly what his participation with Christ signifies, he has the power to overcome sin.

 It is not said “Sin is dead” No, sin is not dead! Sin lives and works in the flesh. But the Christian himself is dead to sin and alive to God, and so sin cannot for a single moment, without his consent, have dominion over him. If he sins, it is because he allows it to reign and submits himself to obey it.

Endeavor to understand more deeply what it says to live/dead to sin.

o    Romans 6:2-3

If there be one thing you need more than and above all else, it is this; to know that exceeding greatness of God’s power that works in you. It was the power of eternity that Christ in His death wrestled with and conquered the powers of hell. You have part with Christ in His death, so you have part in all the powers by which He conquered. Yield yourself joyfully and believingly to be led more deeply into the conformity to Christ’s death. Then you cannot but become like Him!