2d - The Two Worlds [Romans 6]

Romans 6:5-14

Old Creation	New Creation
5 For if we have become united with him in the likeness of his death,	we will certainly also be united in the likeness of his resurrection.
6 We know that our old man was crucified with him	so that the body of sin would no longer dominate us, so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin.
7 (For someone who has died	has been freed from sin.)
8 Now if we died with Christ,	we believe that we will also live with him.
he is never going to die again; death no longer has mastery over him.	9 We know that since Christ has been raised from the dead,
10 For the death he died, he died to sin once for all,	but the life he lives, he lives to God.
11 So you too consider yourselves dead to sin,	but alive to God in Christ Jesus.
12 Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its desires, 13 and do not present the members of your body to sin as instruments to be used for unrighteousness,	but present yourselves to God as those who are alive from the dead and the members of your body to God as instruments to be used for righteousness.
14 For sin will have no mastery over you, because you are not under law	but under grace.

Most of our problems as Christians are related to not understanding the two worlds we live in
We are born into the physical world
- The old creation
- Descendents of Adam
- antagonistic towards God
- unable to defeat sin in our lives
- under the condemnation of the law
But Jesus was also born into this world
- He triumphed over temptation
- He kept all the law perfectly
- He took on himself the condemnation his people deserved by dying for them
- God raised him up, the first of a new race of beings
Jesus resurrection was not just him coming back to life
- This was a bigger event than even the creation of the world
- Jesus’s new body was the first evidence of an entire new creation
  - One day we will all have bodies like his
  - There will be a whole new universe without sin
Jesus saved us by uniting us with him
- in his death
  - so that our sin was punished on the cross
- and then in his resurrection
  - so that we are part of the new creation
  - which at present is just like a seed in our hearts
Romans 6:5-8
So now we are part of the new creation
- we don’t have new creation bodies
- but as Christians we have a new heart—invisible, but part of the New Creation

First Adam	Second Adam (Christ)
living being	life giving spirit
natural	spiritual
of the earth, dust	Lord from heaven
those who are of dust are like him	those who are from heaven are like him
bore his image	shall bear his image
flesh and blood
cannot inherit	kingdom inherit kingdom
corruption	incorruption
mortal	immortality

Old creation	New Creation
Born from Adam	Born again from Jesus
Kingdom of Satan	Kingdom of God
antagonistic towards God	sons and daughters of God
unable to defeat sin in our lives	free from the power of sin
under the condemnation of the law	not under law but under grace
shorthand name: the world of “the flesh”	shorthand name: the world of “the Spirit”

Our problem as Christians is that we are living in both worlds at the same time.
Two issues come out of this:
1. freedom from sin
2. not under law but under grace

Were slaves to sin —now freedom to serve God Romans 6:8-13

Jewish conception of the age to come