To begin with I'd like to suggest that you read again my brief introductory message INTRODUCTION TO GRACE WITH A VIEW.

In that introduction I presented examples of conditions that fall short of what the ideal condition of the Christian life should be. Now were going to see God's answer to such below par conditions. No surprise. I'm talking about the grace of God.

All those conditions in the introduction, and others not mentioned, are rooted in Adam. To counter them we need conditions that are rooted in our Lord Jesus Christ. But before we can aptly deal with conditions we must realize positions.

Adam was the federal head of every member of the human race that would come after him. God accounted us in Adam. That was our position. When Adam sinned God not only accounted him as a sinner but also accounted us all as sinners.

From our position in Adam certain conditions issued. Though he was made in the image of God, after he sinned his seed was made in the image of Adam, the sinner. He passed on his fallen nature to his posterity. So by nature we take to sin like a duck takes to water.

Our Lord Jesus Christ is the federal Head of the people He redeemed. God accounts us in Christ. This is our position. When Christ died God accounted Him as our Sin-bearer and when we believed in the Lord Jesus as our Savior God accounted His own righteousness as ours. We call this imputed righteousness.

Righteousness means being right. In Christ we are right before God. Since this "right-ness" is God's own righteousness once He has imputed it to us we can never loose it. He will never shift His eyes from His own perfect unchangeable righteousness to our imperfect changeable righteousness and save or condemn us on the basis of any credit or discredit we deserve.

From our position in Christ certain conditions issue. Along with the imputation of righteousness we have received the implantation of a new nature and the indwelling Spirit of God. So we have the capability of living a righteous life. And this we do in one degree or another. We can no longer give ourselves over to a habitual practice of sin. Instead we will be putting on the new self that is created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness (Eph 4:24).

The spiritual maladies in my introductory message spring from our Adamic nature. "The more" of the victorious Christian life springs from our Divine nature. In my main passage this time we'll see "the more" as THE REIGN OF GRACE.

I've dug more out of this passage than I'm going to present to you here. I'm trying to be more basic than advanced for the sake of those who aren't as ready as others for the load I could be dumping if I didn't curb myself. If you have any questions about something I leave out, please email me.

To prepare you for this message I draw your attention to two clusters of major facts:

First cluster:

- the reign of sin in our mortal bodies (6:12)
- the reign of sin in death (5:21)
- the reign of death (5:17)
- the reign of righteousness in life (vs 17)
- the reign of grace through righteousness (vs 21)

The top line in the cluster will be the bottom line in our consideration of THE REIGN OF GRACE, namely, our application of what we consider in the potent passage of Scripture at hand.

The reign of sin in death and the reign of death itself have come to us from Adam. The reign of righteousness in life and the reign of grace through righteousness have come to us through Christ.

Second cluster:

- the grace of God and the grace of Christ (5:15)
- the abundance of grace or abounding grace (vs 17; vs 20; 6:1)
- the reign of grace (vs 21)
- the administration of God: "under grace" (6:14)

Under grace we are free from the penalty of sin. The reign of grace has delivered us from the reign of sin and its penalty of death. We used to be in Adam, subject to spiritual death, subject to physical death and ultimately eternal death. Now we are in Christ, delivered from spiritual death, will be delivered from physical death either by rapture or resurrection, and will definitely escape eternal death.

We used to be in Adam; now we are in Christ. These speak of positions before God. God either sees people in Adam or in Christ. Once He saw us in Adam, condemned; now He sees us in Christ, righteous.

Knowing our present position in Christ as opposed to our past position in Adam is of vital importance in applying the grace of God practically in our Christian life experience. Mark it well! The reign of grace in our condition issues from the reign of grace in our position!

The grace of God and Christ is available to us in abundance because it has been abundantly successful in rescuing us from sin and its consequences that stem from Adam. And the bonus is abundant resources of God's grace in Christ that are ours for triumphant Christian living.

"Sin came into the world by one man," Adam. When he sinned "all sinned." That's the meaning. By putting it as "all have sinned," the KJV makes it look like personal sinning that we have all done. But the correct rendering refers to the sin Adam committed being accounted as ours, not to sin we have actually committed ourselves.

Even though the law had not yet been given in the form and extent that Moses would receive and deliver it, at least some of its standards were enforced. "Sin is not accounted where there is no law," so there must have been some law of God then. For when Adam sinned he became subject to the penalty of death and passed that sentence on to all future generations. "Death reigned from Adam to Moses," as the much recurring term "and he died" in Gen chapter 5 so vividly exclaims.

Even though the law of Moses had not been given there was already a "law of sin and death" (Rom 8:4). And in Adam this was operative "even over those whose sinning was not like the transgression of Adam." From Adam to Moses death claimed sinners without regard to whether their sin resembled Adam's sin, but solely as if his sin were theirs.

Death reigned from Adam to Moses just as surely as from Moses on. In other words, whether before the administration of law or during it, or after it, every human sinner sinned in one man, Adam, when he sinned that first human sin.

Now Adam "was a type of the one who was to come." Startling statement! How so? The Lord Jesus Christ was sinless.

The answer is federal headship. Just as Adam represented everyone in the human race when he sinned, Jesus Christ represented every human He redeemed from sin when He died. Perhaps the only other typical thing we can say about them is that they were both men. Notice how the passage keeps on referring to each as one man. True, Jesus is also God, but by His incarnation He was fully man.

But in our Scripture passage the typology of headship quickly gives way to the great contrast between these two federal heads. From Adam we got "the trespass." From Christ we received the grace of God and the free gift by His grace. We have abundantly received "the free gift of righteousness."

Our past position: Because of Adam we were trespassers before God. Our present position: Because of Christ we are righteous before God. In Adam we were condemned; in Christ we are justified. Once God declared us condemned; now he declares us justified.

We call it imputation. When we first trusted Christ as our personal Savior God made us righteous by imputing His own righteousness to our account. From that time on He has declared us righteous. His declaration too is His imputation. He has once-and-for-all made us righteous in Christ and He will never cease to acknowledge us as righteous before Him.

And that's our position. The grace of God reigns through the righteousness of God in our position of justification before His. It's His free gift that assures us of our entrance into God's gift of eternal life (Rom 6:23).

What a spiritual eye-opener this section of our passage is! In it we see that under grace we not only have a righteous position before God but also provision for living in a righteous condition in this temporal life.

"One act of righteousness leads to justification." In his classic passage on the cross Isaiah penned the words of God that proclaim: "By his knowledge shall the righteous one, my servant, make many to be accounted righteous, and he shall bear their iniquities" (Isa 53:11).

In his classic passage on the humility and obedience of Christ Paul penned: "And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross" (Phil 2:8). The result: "So by the one man's obedience the many will be made righteous."

But along with our justification came our provision for sanctification to a righteous life. Notice this: "so one act of righteousness leads to justification and life for all men." Again, "the abundance of grace and the free gift of righteousness reign" not only in justification before God, but "in life through the one man Jesus Christ."

God's grace has abounded to us so that it also might reign through righteousness leading to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. But also so that on our way to eternal life "we too might walk in newness of life" in our present life.

Walking in newness of life means that we no longer let sin reign in our mortal bodies (Rom 6:13). Obviously, the reign of sin is more than a matter of position. It includes condition.

When we were in Adam sin reigned over us by holding us in a position of condemnation before God. But it also reigned over us by controlling our thinking and behavior. As to our position, because of Adam's disobedience we we're dead in trespasses and sins; as to our condition, by our own disobedience we walked according to our position. We thought and lived according to our natural self where the law of sin held sway over us (Eph 2:1-3; Rom 7:18).

Now that we are in Christ grace reigns over us in righteousness by holding us in a position of justification. But it also reigns over us by controlling our thinking and behavior. As to our position, because of Christ's obedience in becoming our Sin-bearer we have received God's righteousness and eternal life. As to our condition, by our own obedience, enabled through regeneration and the indwelling Holy Spirit, we live a life of righteousness.

While this is so, however, the reign of sin can overtake us again in our thoughts and behavior. Paul makes this obvious when he admonishes us: "Let not sin reign in your mortal bodies" (vs 13).

The question: "Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound?" And Paul's emphatic answer: "By no means! How can we who died to sin still live in it?"

Two matters stand out. The matter of our position: we died. And the matter of our condition: how we live.

As far as God is concerned when His Son Jesus Christ died on the cross so did we. We were baptized into His death. That's an actual historical fact. We illustrate that fact by baptism in water, but that ordinance isn't the baptism spoken of here.

As the cross drew near Jesus anticipated it as a distressful baptism. He united the future suffering of His disciples with His own, calling theirs the same baptism that He would be baptized with (Lk 12:50; Mk 10:36-39).

Now through Paul we discover that we were part of Christ's baptism. He was baptized into death and we were baptized into His death.

When we were baptized into Christ by the Spirit of God the baptism that we took part in at the cross became activated in the account of our justification. It's now our position, with benefits to activate in our condition.

Notice "in order that" and "just as" in Rom 6:4. They show us our position of being buried with Christ in His death and raised with Him from the dead. And they tell us why. The why points to our condition: that we might walk in newness of live by the glory of the Father that performed the resurrection of Christ.

We've been reading that when Christ died and rose from the death God deems that we did too. Now we read that our death and resurrection we're "like his," that is, like Christ's.

Just as God imputed His righteousness to us He imputed Christ's death and resurrection to us. We were not physically crucified and raised from the dead with Him, but God, placing us in Christ, accounts it so.

Looking at it from the spiritual standpoint we can say, "When Christ died I died; when Christ was resurrected I was resurrected. That's a spiritual fact. Looking at it from the physical standpoint we can say, "Like Christ, I died; like Christ, I was resurrected." Both are literal historical facts, because they are both attached to the literal historical event of the death, burial and resurrection of Christ.

"For" that begins vs 5 indicates that Paul is going to carry on with his subject from vs 4. Indeed, he has just introduced the subject of our walking in newness of life by the glory of the Father that raised Christ from the dead. Now he's going to explain to us our position in the death and resurrection of Christ and lead us to our application of it in our practical condition.

It's important for us to notice the context here when we read: "we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his." If we isolate this verse from its setting we might project our thinking to the future resurrection of the body. After all, isn't that what the future tense of "we shall certainly be" seem to imply?

But not according its context here. Taking these words in context two biblical scholars help us to see their proper meaning.

Kenneth. S. Wuest says that "the future aspect" of these words should not be taken as "predictive future," having to do with "the glorification of our bodies," but as "a logical future," because Paul is writing in the context of our sanctification.

W. E. Vine says that these words express "the inevitable consequence." In other words, if we have died with Christ the necessary consequence must be that we live with Him. And, as we're about to see further, that living is more than our position in Christ; it's also our condition in Him, walking in newness of life.

The point Paul made in vs 5 he makes again in vs 8. In between these two verses he tells us that "our old self was crucified with Christ." With this he casts more light on our position in Christ's death.

This is a cause of a change in our condition. As in vs 4 , his words "in order that" in vs 6 serve as a vital link of language to specify the vital link between:

-basis: our identification with Christ in His death and resurrection with Christ
-behavior: our walk in newness of life.

As in vs 4 we see "in order that" and "just as" in vs 6 we see "in order that " and "so that," to lead us from our position to our condition. Cause and effect.

-cause: our old self was crucified with Christ; as to our condition
-effect: the body of sin brought to nothing and we are no longer enslaved by sin

What is "the body of sin?" It's our body being used by sin. It is sin using the members of our bodies as instruments for unrighteousness (vs 12). "Enslaved to sin" refers to sin reigning in our mortal bodies (vs 13).

The reign of grace has conquered the reign of sin as far as our standing before God is concerned. From that position in Christ the reign of grace over sin is possible in our mortal bodies. By grace the body of sin can be "brought to nothing."

Being made righteous in Christ by grace we can live righteously by grace. Our justification and sanctification stem from the same source, the death and resurrection of Christ. "For one who has died has been set free from sin," (vs 7) includes not only our freedom from the penalty of sin, but also our freedom from the power of sin.

Earlier we saw this in terms of: "as sin reigned in death, grace also might reign through righteousness leading to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord" (5:21).

Highlight "through Jesus Christ our Lord." He was "raised from the dead and will never die again" and "death no longer has dominion over him" (6:9). And since we died with Him death no longer has dominion over us. As far as justification is concerned, our position in Christ is secured by the reign grace through of righteousness leading to eternal life.

Earlier we read: "those who receive the abundance of grace and the free gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man Jesus Christ" (5:17). Besides having eternal life and the reign of grace through righteousness as security that insures that we'll enter into it, we have the abundance of the gift of righteousness so that we might reign in life.

Highlight "through the one man Jesus Christ." Jesus Christ "died to sin, once for all." And being baptized into His death, so did we. "But the life he lives he lives to God." And so do we. We rose from the dead with Him to walk in newness of life; to reign in life by the abundance of grace; to reign in righteousness in our conduct.

Thus for our personal appropriation and practice:

-we must consider ourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus (vs 11)
-we must not let sin reign in our mortal bodies, to make us obey their passions (vs 12)
-we must not present our members to sin as instruments for unrighteousness (vs 13)
-we must present ourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life, and our members to God as instruments for righteousness (vs 13)

Another fact of necessary consequence: "For sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law but under grace" (vs 14). The reign of grace does what the law could never do. It motivates and enables us to live righteously in newness of resurrection life (Phil 3:10).

Once sin and death reigned over us, but no more. Now grace reigns over sin and death. And grace reigns over us. We are not under law but under grace.

Sin is transgression of God's holy law and once we had become lawbreakers God's holy law held us to its penalty.

But God the Lawgiver (Jam 4:12) is also the God of all grace (1 Pet 5:10) and He came to our rescue. So now, PTL, on our behalf His grace reigns through righteousness leading to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.

We are justified, made righteous and declared so by God Himself. What a forward look we have! Just think. Eternal life! This is not just everlasting life but life in endless personal knowledge of God the Father and His Son Jesus Christ! (Jn 17:3)

Under law sin and death had their way with us. But by grace we have been set from that law. For eternal life? Yes. There is no more condemnation for us who are in Christ Jesus. But also "in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit" (Rom 8:1-4).

When we look backward to the death burial and resurrection of Christ and see the basis for our sanctification. We were with Him on the cross, and rose with Him to be alive to God, thus walking in newness of life.

Walking in newness of life means walking according to the Spirit. So we look inward to examine ourselves and attend to the righteous requirement of the law being fulfilled in us. As members of the kingdom of God our living, among other things, is righteousness in the holy Spirit (14:17).

Considering ourselves to be dead to sin and alive to God we refuse to yield the members of our bodies to sin as instruments of unrighteousness but yield them to God as instruments of righteousness, thus applying our identification with Christ in His death and resurrection.

By applying such identification with Christ we put into practice the destruction of the body of sin. When we think of Christ being alive to God we look upward where He is enthroned as Jesus Christ the righteous (1 Jn 2:1). He is more than righteous in His position; He is righteous in His condition. He Himself is in essence absolutely righteous.

Realizing this we turn our look inward again, for Christ is in us. And this means that the Spirit is in us because of righteousness, and our mortal bodies have life in them because of the indwelling Spirit of Christ (Rom 8:10-13). That, my brother or sister in Christ, is how the righteous requirement of the law gets fulfilled in us. That's grace reigning in righteousness in us while were on our way to entering into eternal life.