1C. This particular question appears four times in Paul's letter to the Romans. And each and every time it appears Paul introduces a false inference, an erroneous conclusion, if you will, that people make when they do not fully understand what he has written.

2C. What Paul has just written is a presentation of God’s plan of justifying sinners. And what he has most recently said, in Romans 5.20, is that the magnitude of sin that must be dealt with is always overwhelmed by the magnitude of God’s grace. So, with this question, Paul acknowledges that there are some who will misunderstand what he has just said.

"Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound?"

1C. Here is how people will generally misunderstand what Paul has said about sin and salvation, and especially what he has said about the abundance of God's grace. They will think that it is possible to live after you trust Christ as you did before you trusted Christ, if what Paul says is true.

2C. What we have to remember is this: The grace of God, rightly understood, never encourages sin. Remember, God is a holy God. He is a righteous God. He would never do anything that would encourage sin or promote sin.

3C. So, what Paul is putting forth is not a legitimate or genuine proposition, but one that was typically put forth either by his enemies or by those who simply did not properly understand him.

4C. Nowadays people would word things this way: You mean to tell me that all I need to do to get my sins forgiven is receive Jesus? As simple as that? Hey bud, won't that just encourage folks to commit sin so God's grace will take care of the problem afterwards?

"God forbid."

1C. This is the way Paul typically answers a question for which the answer is "Absolutely, positively, no way." It is a powerful denial of a false assertion.

2C. And so effective is this way of answering "No" that Paul uses the phrase ten other times in Romans.

"How shall we, that are dead to sin,..."

1C. Can people, after they are saved, live lives of unregenerate sinfulness, just like they did before their conversion?

2C. Paul begins answering that question by pointing out the reality that "we," believers, are "dead to sin."

3C. My friends, when asking yourselves whether or not our imaginary Helen can do after Christ what she did before Christ, remember this: She has died to sin. Having been born into the realm of Adam, when she trusted Christ as her personal Savior, she died with Christ when she trusted Him. And when she died, she died to that old Adamic realm where sin ruled and reigned over people.

4C. That may not be the way Christians "feel" sometimes, but that's spiritual reality, nevertheless.

1C. In light of the fact that you and I, and Helen, have died to sin, the question we must ask ourselves is this: How shall we live any longer therein? If you are dead to sin, how can you live in sin any longer?

2C. Folks, this is a rhetorical question that Paul asks. The answer is not specifically given because it is so patently obvious that given the answer is completely unnecessary.

3C. How can Helen, who is dead to sin since she has trusted Christ, live after Christ as she did before Christ? She can’t. Neither can you. Neither can I.

1C. When Paul writes "Know ye not" at the beginning of a question like this he is admitting that the readers, Roman Christians, most of whom he has never met before and therefore did not win to Christ or personally teach, already know something about what he is saying, though they may not understand the full implications.

2C. Paul, then, is more fully explaining things that he expects them to already know something about. And why would they know something about the significance of baptism? Because they, being Christians, have been baptized.

3C. You see, folks, there simply is no record in God’s Word of a believer not being baptized. This is because, while baptism does not save anyone, but is a step of obedience taken by people after they have been saved, it is a profoundly important public statement for the believer to make.

4C. Paul explains to his readers, then, who have been baptized, that being baptized for Jesus’ sake is more than just a step of obedience. It is actually a public way of showing that you have stepped out of the domain of Adam and into the domain of Christ, out of the realm where sin rules and into the realm where grace super-abounds.

5C. Now understand, baptism does not accomplish this shift, if you will, but it demonstrates in a way nothing else can that this shift has occurred in your life. When Jesus Christ died He died for you. You died to sin. That’s what your baptism means.

1C. The first part of verse 4 shows us a past parallel. "Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death."

2C. Now for the second part of the verse, the present practice.

"that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life."

1C. Here we have the first half of our famous first class conditional statement. If such and such is true, which it is, then such and such is true.

2C. Please understand that the phrase "we have been planted together" does not refer to baptism. Though I don’t have time to go into the reasons why, I’ll be delighted to show you before Church tonight that "we have been planted together" refers to the salvation event.

3C. To be planted together actually means that each and every genuine believer is connected to Christ’s death, which we already know from verse 3. The truth of this we already know.

"we shall be also in the likeness of his resurrection."

1C. If we have been connected with Christ’s death, which genuine believers have been, then we will also be connected with Christ’s resurrection in the future.

2C. Did you and others who trusted Christ really die to sin? Yes. Then know this: You will be resurrected as He was.