TWO: Freedom from the Power of Sin

You’re trapped. You’ve tried everything to escape. Prayer, counsel, drugs, discipline, confession, sorrow, and repentance. But with every effort, every promise to do better, the clamp of sin’s hold on you grows tighter. You’re still a prisoner of sin. But what if your problem isn’t about trying harder? What if your problem is unbelief?

A Wilderness Story

Like a prickly rash, the realization that I knew nothing of what I was teaching crept over my soul. Who did I think I was coming to Pakistan to teach the Bible? I felt like a lifeguard who didn’t know how to swim. A fraud.

Sitting cross-legged on a woven grass mat in the sultry heat of west Pakistan, the Islamic call to prayer rang out from speakers at the nearby mosque. Young Pakistani women huddled around me in the brick classroom on our mission compound, the ceiling fan fluttering the pages of our Bibles. I tucked my headscarf behind my ears and launched into a lesson on freedom from the power of sin from Romans chapter six in my best Urdu language.

“Our old natures have been crucified with Christ. We’re dead to sin,” I said. We are? I’m not. What does this even mean? “Sin is no longer master over us. We’re free from sin,” I said. I’m not free from sin. I’m angry, impatient, and anxious. Impure thoughts plague me. These verses do not describe me; they taunt me. Stiff-shouldered, I squirmed in my seat. God, help me. Teach me what Romans six means. Send me a teacher.

Do you understand what Romans chapter six means? Do you long for your life to reflect its truth? To that end, read the text below and work through the study questions. I’ll meet you on the other side.

A Bible Study

Romans 6:1-14 (NASB)

1What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin so that grace may increase? 2May it never be! How shall we who died to sin still live in it? 3Or do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus have been baptized into His death? 4Therefore we have been buried with Him through baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life. 5For if we have become united with Him in the likeness of His death, certainly we shall also be in the likeness of His resurrection, 6knowing this, that our old self was crucified with Him, in order that our body of sin might be done away with, so that we would no longer be slaves to sin; 7for he who has died is freed from sin.

8Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him, 9knowing that Christ, having been raised from the dead, is never to die again; death no longer is master over Him. 10For the death that He died, He died to sin once for all; but the life that He lives, He lives to God. 11Even so consider yourselves to be dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus.

12Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its lusts, 13and do not go on presenting the members of your body to sin as instruments of unrighteousness; but present yourselves to God as those alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness to God. 14For sin shall not be master over you, for you are not under law but under grace.

1. The apostle Paul is addressing those who have been “baptized into Christ”. When is a person baptized into Christ? (Eph. 1:13)

2. Circle every occurrence of the word “know” or “knowing” in this passage. What are we to “know” in each instance?

a. Vs. 3

b. Vs. 6

c. Vs. 9

d. Vs. 9

3. What does the “old self” refer to in verse 6? Do you have one? See Eph. 4:21,22 and Col. 3:9.

4. Romans 6:6 says, “Our old self was crucified with Him”. What does this mean for my life today? See Gal. 2:20; Gal. 5:24; Gal. 6:14; Col. 3:5,9,10.

5. Write the following phrases in your own words:

a. “so we too might walk in newness of life,” (V. 4)

b. “so that we would no longer be slaves to sin (V. 6)

c. “Consider yourselves to be dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus.” (V. 11)

d. “but present yourselves to God as those alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness to God.” (V. 13)

6. One verse in this passage tells us how to activate the fact of our death and resurrection in Christ. What is it?

7. What does verse 14 mean? What do law and grace have to do with sin’s mastery over me?

8. What area of sin do you struggle with most? Can you view your struggle differently in light of this passage?

Escape From the Wilderness

Several months later, on home assignment in my native Canada, I entered a retreat venue filled with Christian women laughing, talking, and jostling for seats. They had gathered to hear Donna McLaughlin, a well-known Christian speaker and teacher. Tall, blonde, perfectly coiffed, in a royal blue dress, Donna took the stage and said, “Open your Bibles to Romans, chapter six.”

I sat up straight in my chair and gasped. You’ve got to be kidding, Lord.

In Donna’s expert hands, Romans chapter six opened up to me like a well-watered garden. When I believed in Christ for eternal life, God baptized me, thrust me into Christ like a white cotton ball into beet juice. I was stained with Christ, with his death, burial, and resurrection. His death to sin and his resurrection to new life became mine too. His victory over sin became my victory over sin.

But, those truths were written in my Bible when I took a course on Romans in Bible college. They were the same words I tried to teach in Pakistan. What clicked for me at the retreat? I understood that, as a believer in Christ, these words were true for me right now. I embraced the power of the promise on the pages of Scripture.

In 2005, I got my American citizenship because of my marriage to an American. This legal declaration opened up a plethora of rights and responsibilities to me. It changed the way I saw myself. I'm not working really hard to become an American. I am an American, and I live out that reality every day.

God saw me struggling in the torrid heat of Pakistan. He heard my prayers in the desert. He had been waiting for me to call out to Him. Waiting for me to be desperate enough, to be teachable. When I was ready, he sent me a teacher.

God sees you, my friend. He sees how hard you’re trying, how much you want to be holy. But it isn’t trying harder. It’s knowing that in some miraculous way, your sinful nature—that instigator of sinful behavior—died on the cross with Christ. Its power over you has been cancelled out. You are free to choose holiness.

“It was for freedom that Christ set us free.” (Gal. 5:1 NASB)