No Longer A Slave to Sin

➡ Paul, the voiceover for a ministry called Your Daily Bread, discusses the concept of sanctification in Christianity. He explains that sanctification, which means being set apart from sin, is an essential part of salvation. He emphasizes that being sanctified is not about achieving perfection, but about changing direction away from sin. Paul concludes by stating that there’s no such thing as an unsanctified Christian, meaning all true believers have been transformed and separated from sin.
➡ The text discusses the concept of sin and righteousness, using Adam and Christ as examples. It explains how Adam’s sin affected all humanity, while Christ’s sacrifice benefits those who believe. The text also addresses the idea that more sin leads to more grace, arguing that true believers, once justified, will not sin more but less. It concludes by emphasizing that believers are no longer slaves to sin, but walk in newness of life.

Hello, my name is Paul and I am the voiceover for a ministry provided to you by Jim Pugh at God Is Government called Your Daily Bread, taken from Christ’s teaching of the Lord’s Prayer in Matthew 6.11. This is a daily devotion ministry focused not only on uplifting Scripture, but Scripture that will grow your spiritual connection with Christ. We hope that you receive these devotions to uplift you, encourage you, but most importantly, advance your knowledge base of the Holy Scriptures. Today’s focused discussion will be on no longer being a slave to sin. Paul writes this section, Sanctification is so much an essential part of salvation that you can actually use sanctification as a synonym.

Can I help you with that? Turn to Acts 20, because I want this to be something you understand so that you cannot only know it, but that you can tell others. It’s so important. You can actually use the word sanctified to refer to salvation. I can say to you, I thank God that I’m sanctified. Now, some of you are going to say, oh, that’s a pretty bold statement to make. I mean, I don’t know. I think we kind of would be a little hesitant to say that, wouldn’t we? You don’t introduce yourself to someone.

You might say, you know, it’s nice to meet you. I’m a Christian. You might say, well, I’ve been born again, or I’ve been redeemed. It’d be a little, you’d feel a little awkward saying, you know, I’m happy to meet you. I’m sanctified because we have this idea of sanctification as sort of a state of near perfection, but it really is a, it’s a term broad enough, as I’ve told you before. I’ve said it before. All the terms of salvation, while they have a narrow technical definition, can also be used to speak of the whole of salvation.

You can say you’re redeemed. Redemption is one component of salvation that can be very clearly defined, but it can also be used to speak of the total reality. You can say you’re justified. You can say you’re converted and you can use it in that general way. The same is true with the word sanctification. It is so much an integral part of the work of salvation that it can stand for the whole as well. Look at verse 32 of Acts 20. I commend you, says Paul to these Ephesian elders, I commend you to God and to the word of his grace, which is able to build you up and to give you the inheritance among all those who are sanctified.

He is referring to believers as those who are sanctified. The word of God does its work. It builds, it edifies, it gives hope of the coming inheritance to all the sanctified. We can call ourselves the sanctified. We are the sanctified. We are the ones who God in his grace has set apart from sin to righteousness. This is not just a forensic thing, it is a real transformation. Look at Acts 26 and verse 18. Acts 26 and verse 18. Paul here is giving his testimony and the Lord speaks to him back in verse 15.

He says, who are you, Lord? This is a rehearsal of his Damascus Road experience. And Jesus says, I’m Jesus whom you’re persecuting. Arise, stand on your feet, verse 16. For this purpose I’ve appeared to you to appoint you a minister and a witness and so forth. And down in verse 18 he says, this is what I’m going to use you to do. I’m going to send you to open their eyes, that is the Gentiles, so that they may turn from darkness to light and from the dominion of Satan to God in order that they may receive forgiveness of sins and an inheritance among those who have been sanctified by faith in me.

How do you get sanctified? By faith. How do you get saved? By faith. Sanctification here is a substitute word for salvation. We are the sanctified. We have been sanctified. The word means to separate. We have been separated from sin. We have been separated, it says here, from darkness to light. We have been separated from the dominion of Satan to God. We have been taken out of the kingdom of darkness, which certainly is a picture of sin. Taken out of the dominion of Satan, certainly the dominion of evil. We have been delivered to the light and delivered to God.

And we then have been past tense, sanctified by faith in me. Me, Jesus speaking. You put your faith in him, you’re redeemed, you’re regenerated, you’re justified, you’re converted, you’re adopted, you’re sanctified. So, there is a sense in which sanctification must be understood as a synonym for salvation. And that is exactly how it was used in 1 Corinthians chapter 1. I take you back to that. To the Church of God at Corinth. To those who have been sanctified in Christ Jesus. Again, verse 30. Christ Jesus who became to us righteousness and sanctification and redemption. 1 Corinthians chapter 6 verse 11.

This is such an important text. He says in verse 9. Unrighteous people don’t inherit the kingdom of God. That’s pretty important to know, isn’t it? Unrighteous people don’t inherit the kingdom of God. Don’t be deceived. Fornicators, idolaters, adulterers, effeminate, homosexuals, thieves, covetous, drunkards, revilers, swindlers. None of them are going to inherit the kingdom of God. Such were some of you, but you were, what? Washed. You were sanctified. You were justified, past tense. You were washed. You were sanctified. You were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the spirit of our God.

And it all happened simultaneously. In Hebrews chapter 2 verse 11, or verse 10 we would start there, talking about Christ who tasted death for everyone in verse 9. And then in verse 10 it was fitting for him for whom are all things and through whom are all things in bringing many sons to glory to perfect the author of their salvation through sufferings. For both he who sanctifies and those who are sanctified are all from one father, for which reason he’s not ashamed to call them brethren. What a great statement. Jesus dies in order to perfect himself as the author of our salvation so that he could sanctify us.

And all of us who are sanctified are all from one father and all called brethren. Anyone who has come to God as father and come to Jesus as brother in salvation is said to be sanctified. Hebrews chapter 10 verse 14, and here in this particular chapter we are looking at the wonderful sacrifice of Christ in all its power compared to the impotent sacrifices of the Old Testament. Impossible for them to take away sins, verse 4 says. But in chapter 10 verse 14, speaking of Christ, for by one offering he has perfected, perfect here is really a synonym for salvation, for by one offering he has perfected for all time those who are sanctified.

And here again sanctified is an apt way to describe salvation. We are the sanctified. First Peter 1 too, according to the foreknowledge of God the Father by the sanctifying work of the Spirit, that’s how we were brought into the blessing of salvation. How can we miss this when it is so clear? There’s no such thing, listen to me, as an unsanctified Christian. That is to say we’ve all been transformed, we’ve all been separated from sin. That’s why John in 1st John says, whoever is born of God does not continue in a pattern of sin.

He cannot, he cannot, there’s no such thing as being justified and not being sanctified. Don’t think for a minute that because you prayed a prayer somewhere, or somebody you know and love prayed a prayer somewhere and acknowledged Jesus as Saviour, that they can live their life any way they want and that how they live their life doesn’t matter. If that prayer meant anything, and if there was a real salvation, then it’s going to show up in the fact that they’re going to be set apart from sin, not in terms of perfection but in terms of direction.

Now this is what is really behind Romans 6. Look back at Romans 6 and let me just, I’m just going to make a comment on the first verse, but look at the question that comes up in verse 1. Now you have to get a little bit of a background. I’ve got to give you a bit of a running start. Chapter 3 and 4. Justification. Chapter 3 and 4. The believer is made fully righteous because the righteousness of God is credited to that believer through faith. Now chapter 5 then raises the question, simple question, okay? You say then that the sinner becomes righteous by what another has done.

That’s right. The righteousness of Christ is credited to the sinner. The question then comes up at the end of chapter 4. How can what one person does affect me? Now the Jews couldn’t swallow that. They believed that they were in charge of their own eternal destiny and that it was all up to them, and it depended on their morality and their lawkeeping and their ritual and their ceremony and their observance and their obedience, and the concept that what somebody else did could be credited to their account, or that somehow somebody else could be punished for their sin was absolutely beyond imagination.

They didn’t get the idea that their sins could be imputed to someone, and someone’s righteousness could be credited to them. So chapter 5 then deals with that, how guilt by one man can be imputed to others. Illustration. Adam, as in one man, Adam, all died. What Adam did catapulted the whole human race into sin and guilt. How could righteousness by one man affect others? Christ. Adam’s sin affected everybody. Christ’s sacrifice affects all who believe. So chapters 3 and 4 talks about justification. Chapter 5 answers the question of imputation, how guilt or righteousness can be imputed to someone because of the sin or the obedience of another, Adam and Christ being the illustration.

That settles the issue of justification. Chapter 5 ends, the law came in that the transgression might increase, but where sin increased, grace abounded all the more, as sin reigned in death, even so grace might reign through righteousness to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. That’s the sum up of the glory of justification, and that poses the question chapter 6, what shall we say then? Are we to sin, continue in sin that grace might increase? It’s almost a scornful question that Paul poses here. The text prior to this has said, the righteousness of Christ is credited to your account, just as the sin of Adam was credited to your account as well.

He finishes up by praising the grace of God that imputes the righteousness of Christ to the believing sinner. And he even goes so far as to say, wherever there was sin on the increase, verse 20, grace abounds, and he knows how people are going to think. The critic is going to say, that’s a great theory. That’s really great. The more sin, the more grace. I get it, then we should continue in sin that grace might increase. Before we can even stop to be thankful for justification, Paul jumps in and says, if justification imputes the righteousness of Christ to us, if justification changes our position before God, if justification fixes our standing before God perfectly, then, and if justification allows God to put his grace on display in the face of our sin, then what difference does it make if we sin? If sin puts God’s grace on display, then let’s sin all the more.

Now, this would have come from the Jewish mind, the Jewish thinking. He probably encountered this a lot of times when he was in the synagogues preaching to the Jews. They believed salvation was their work and their work alone and every individual’s work and his work alone. And the idea of grace abounding from someone else’s righteousness to you. The idea of grace at all covering sin and increased sin meant increased grace smacked of antinomianism to them. It smacked of lawlessness. It would have been an outrage. So they would have posed this ridiculous question.

Well, why not just sin more? Paul has to answer that and his answer is basically this. It’s a moot question because if you’ve been justified, you won’t sin more. You will sin less because no one is justified who is not also sanctified. True holiness, he points out in the verses I read, comes from God with the grace of conversion. There is no antinomianism here. There is no lawlessness here. The idea that we continue in sin that grace may abound is an absurdity. And so he says in verse 2, No, no, no, no.

May genoito, the strongest negative possible. No way, not at all, impossible, can’t happen. It’s an outraged indignation. I suppose my grandmother would say, oh, perish the thought. Ever heard that one? Perish the thought. It’s a denial with an abhorrence. No means it can’t happen. It reminds us of Hebrews 1214, holiness without which no man will see the Lord. There is no such thing as seeing the Lord apart from sanctification. There is no salvation apart from sanctification. A Christian cannot willfully remain in, abide in, live in, carry the same desire for sin.

It is not only not permissible, it is not possible. And so that’s how he begins. Now what he’s going to do in the chapter, you’re going to have to wait for this, is tell us all the reasons why this is such a ridiculous question. First of all, he says you died to sin. This is a severe alteration in your relationship. You died to it. That is to say, you moved out of that realm. Later on he will say, you are now walking, verse 4, in newness of life. Then he will say, you once were a slave to sin.

You no longer are a slave to sin. You are freed from sin. You are dead to sin. Sin is no longer your master, its power having been broken. Thank you for joining us in this exploration of no longer being a slave to sin. Until next time, remember to keep the faith, stay strong and continue to shine your light in the world. To hear these daily devotions of your daily bread, please log on to goddessgovernment.com. Goodbye, and may your faith always lead the way. [tr:trw].