Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 2197
“Therefore we are buried with Him through baptism into death: that just as Christ was raised up from the dead by the Glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life.” Romans 6:4.
I have preached before upon the whole verse, so that this morning I shall take the liberty to dwell chiefly upon the latter part of it—“Just as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life.”
The idea that the Grace of God should lead us to licentiousness is utterly loathsome to every Christian. We cannot endure it. The notion that the Doctrines of Grace give license to sin comes from the devil—and we deny it with a detestation more deep than words can express! “How shall we, that are dead to sin, live any longer therein?”
On our first entrance upon a Christian profession, we are met by the ordinance of Baptism which teaches the necessity of purification. Baptism is, in its very form, a washing, and its teaching requires cleansing of the most thorough kind. It is a burial, in which the man is viewed as dead with Christ to sin, and is regarded as rising again as a new man. Baptism sets forth, as in a picture, the union of the Believer with the Lord Jesus in His baptism of suffering and in His death, burial and Resurrection. By submitting to that sacred ordinance, we declare that we believe ourselves to be dead with Him because of His endurance of the death penalty—and dead to the world and to the dominion of sin by His Spirit. At the same time, we also profess our faith in our Lord’s Resurrection and that we, ourselves, are raised up in union with Him and have come forth through faith into newness of life. It is a very impressive and vivid symbol, but it is without meaning unless we rise to purity of life.
The basis of this confession lies in the union of every Believer with Christ Jesus. We are dead with Him because we are one with Him. We are risen with Him because we are one with Him. Every Believer is, in the purpose of Divine Grace, identified with Jesus. He was given to the Lord Jesus from before the foundation of the world and placed under His Covenant Headship. The Lord Jesus suffered for the Believer as his Substitute and virtually each saved one died in Christ, who represented Him. The Believer rose in Christ by virtue of the eternal union which exists between the saint and his Savior. Therefore the Believer continues to live, for the Lord has said, “Because I live, you shall live also.” Our destiny is identified with that of our Covenant Head. His life is the model of our experience—He makes us to be conformed to His image, now, and we shall be like He when we shall see Him as He is. O my Hearer, if you are not in Christ, you have nothing! Out of Christ you are in the wilderness—with Him you are in a paradise! In Christ, Believers possess all the treasures of wisdom, knowledge, Grace, power and love. All things are yours, if you are Christ’s. From our union to Christ follows our sanctification—we cannot follow after sin, for Christ does not follow after it. He died unto sin, once, and we are henceforth dead to it. He is risen by the Glory of the Father and we are risen with Him into righteousness, acceptance andjoy!
I. Follow me in the text, taking as your first thought the fact that THE RESURRECTION OF OUR LORD WAS ATTENDED WITH GLORY—He was “raised up from the dead by the Glory of the Father.” Christ’s Resurrection is linked with the fullness of eternal Glory.
In itself it was a great marvel. Our Lord was assuredly dead—the Roman guards at the Cross took care that no condemned person escaped the death penalty. In our Lord’s case, His heart was pierced with a spear to make sure that no life remained in Him. Joseph begged for His body and, by the loving hands of those who were sure that He was dead, He was
wrapped in spices and fine linen—and laid in the rocky tomb. There lay our Lord, in the grave, with a stone rolled at the cave’s mouth and a seal set upon it by those in authority, whose envy made them take double precautions. As when a prince lies slumbering in his pavilion he is watched by a guard, so was our Lord’s sepulcher watched by a guard of Roman soldiers, so that no man might steal His body. There He lay in the heart of the earth for a portion of three days and nights. He was really dead and in the grave. He wore all the marks of decease—a napkin was bound about His head, and the linen clothes rapped His limbs. On the morning of the third day it was truly said, “The Lord has risen, indeed,” for He actually, literally and in very fact awoke to life, unbound the napkin and laid it by itself, leisurely folded His grave clothes and, when the angel had rolled away the stone from the mouth of the sepulcher, the First-Begotten from the dead came forth in a material body to live among His disciples for forty days!