Chapter 6                    

Romans: -1- -2- -3- -4- -5- -6- -7- -8- -9- -10- -11- -12- -13- -14- -15- -16- 
  6:1 What then shall we say? Shall we continue in sin and disconnection from God, that grace might abound? 2 It does not happen! We who died to all disconnection from God, how could we still be living inside of it? 3 Or are you ignorant that • those who have been immersed into Christ Jesus have already been immersed into His death? 4 Therefore, we were buried together with Him through immersion into death, so that, just as Christ was raised out from the dead through the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk inside of newness of life.

• 5 For as we now share the same genetic origin, just like Jesus’ death, so also, we will share the same genetic origin with His resurrection. • 6 We know that our old self was crucified together with Him, sharing the same cross together, so that the body of sin and separation from God might be separated from us, since we are enslaved to sin and falling short no longer. • 7 Indeed, the one who has already died [with Christ] is declared justly innocent, far away from falling short. • 8 More than that, if we died together with Christ, we believe and are fully confident that we will also share His living, together with Him. 9 For we know that Christ, having been raised out from the dead, dies no more; death no longer has authority or rule over him. 10 Because Jesus died, He died to all disconnection from God once for all, now placed upon all. Because He lives, He lives utterly connected to God. • 11 In exactly the same way, you also consider, reckon, speak yourselves to be truly dead to any and all sin or falling short of God, and reckon and speak yourselves as living connected utterly to God inside of Christ Jesus.

• 12 For this reason, do not allow any thought of falling short of God to rule in your dying body, that you would listen to or give weight to its desires. 13 Neither present your members as tools of injustice [against others] but place yourselves as connected utterly to God, as fully living, having already departed from the dead. And place your members as tools of just approval, connected utterly to God. 14 For sin and falling short of God will not rule you, for you are not under the authority of law, but under the authority of grace, of God with you.

15 What then? Shall we disconnect from God because we are not under the authority of law, but under the authority of grace? It does not happen! 16 Are you not aware that to whom you place yourselves as slaves into hearing what is spoken, slaves you are to whom you give heed, whether falling short into death or hearing His voice declaring you to be justly innocent? • 17 Give thanks to God that, although you once were slaves of falling short, yet now you have given answer out from your heart to what you have heard, that is, to the form of teaching into which you were placed. 18 More than that, having been made free far away from falling short, you have become slaves to just approval. 19 I speak of you as humans because of the weakness of your flesh, for as you once placed your members as slaves of impurity and lawlessness into lawlessness, so now place your members as slaves of just approval resulting in utter devotion to God.

20 For when you were slaves of falling short, you were free from just approval, that is, caring about God never entered your mind. 21 What fruit or benefit did you have, then, in the things of which you are now ashamed? Indeed, the final completion of those things is death. • 22 Now, however, you are made free far away from all disconnection from God, and even more than that, because you are slaves connected utterly to and together with God, you possess your fruit into living as devotion to God and your present completion is age-unfolding life. • 23 Indeed, the payment for, and end result of, falling short is death; but the grace of God Himself, God with you, is age-unfolding life inside of Christ Jesus our Lord.
 		  
 
Gospel Comments Notes
• Ruling Verses 5, 6, & 7: The outward ritual of immersion into water shows us how the old is gone, that we live ONLY in Resurrection Life now. The Cross is our union with Christ. The Blood is our Way into the Knowledge of God-with-us, and Confidence is how we walk every moment in the present Life of Jesus, even in the dying of our bodies.

• Covenant: In Gethsemane, Jesus agreed to receive us into Himself, that He might carry us all the way through death and into Life (see Hebrews 2:13). The word “in” or “inside of” found between us and Jesus is LITERAL. We are literally and substantially inside of Jesus through every step of the Atonement. We are IN His death; we are IN His burial; we are IN His resurrection. God is REAL, and every Word of His Covenant with us is absolutely real.

• Ruling Verses 5, 6, & 7: Jesus died because He was carrying us through death into Life shared with God. We share the same genetic origin of such giving. In the same way, we share the same genetic origin of that Resurrection Life with God that carries others. Through this walk of the Atonement, which God says we share completely with Jesus, every particle of that in us which once opposed God is gone forever. We were, literally and substantially, inside of Jesus as He died. We are, literally and substantially, inside of Jesus as He is now risen out from the dead, never to die again. This is the Way by which God brings us into Himself.

• Covenant: The Cross is absolute, larger than all creation and finished in all. The very meaning of the Cross separates us absolutely from all that has opposed God. The Blood is absolute, having rendered all wicked action obsolete. We have already entered God through the Blood. The Resurrection Life of Jesus is absolute and all, the only place we live.

• Speak Christ: Romans 6:11 COMMANDS us to speak Christ, to shout at the top of our lungs, “I have zero connection to sin and death. Sin is gone from me, death is gone from me forever. I have all connection with God inside of Jesus; it is God in Whom I dwell.” We speak the only thing True.

• Definition: We must define “tools of injustice” to understand God’s meaning. Just as the two trees signify two definitions of God and of grace, so there are two definitions of sin. 1: God knows evil, and He left you evil by nature. Everything you do is sin; it’s just what you are. 2: God knows only Life through Jesus sustaining all. Sin happens only out from refusing Jesus; it is an action of contempt in hurting others (injustice) in order to punish God (unthankfulness).

• The Form for God through Jesus: Paul is speaking of the parts of our human make-up in the same thinking as 1 Corinthians 12, that we are the form of Jesus in all heaven-earth. Out from God’s great giving of Himself to us (Grace), we give ourselves back to God in return (Devotion). Having “members as tools of just approval” means that out from God-with-us, all that we give to one another is pure and devoted.

• Ruling Verse 10: The Tree of Life is John 14:20. “Know that I am inside of the Father and you inside of Me and I inside of you.” It is inside of Jesus that we live this Life shared with our Father, age-unfolding Life.

• Kingdom: Our every next step with God is a step of Devotion, God to us and we to God. This Devotion is the fruit of our union with Christ, and this Life we now live with the Father is the completion of the Covenant.