He died, He died unto sin once', shows that he had in view death to its

guilt.  As Calvin says:

'The very form of the expression, as applied to Christ, shows that He

did not, like us, die to sin for the purpose of ceasing to commit it'.

The Lord was never under the power of sin.

He took the guilt of sin

that belonged to us, and for that He died:

'He that is dead (has died) is freed from sin' (Rom. 6:7).

The word translated 'is freed' is dedikaiotai, the perfect tense of the

verb dikaioo, 'to justify'.  It is most important that this word noted in the

margin should be reinstated: 'Justified from sin'.  Romans 3:20-30 is the

classic passage on Justification, and there dikaioo is used five times.

Chapter 5:9 sums up the matter by saying: 'Being now justified by His blood'.

In 6:2 the apostle declares that the believer 'died to sin'.  In 6:7 he

reveals the glorious result of that death -- 'he is justified'.

The full truth is that when He died, we died; when He was buried, we

were buried; and being dead and buried our hope both now during the life

which we live in the flesh (Gal. 2:20), and in the future glory in the life

to come, is entirely dependent upon Him.  If that risen life is also ours,

then even now we may 'walk in newness of life' (Rom. 6:4).  If it is not,

being dead and buried, we can do nothing but wait amid a groaning creation

for the redemption of the body.  The walk in newness of life is our

experimental answer to His resurrection.

The first note in the chord of sanctification has now been struck.

Instead of 'living in sin' we who have died to sin may 'walk in newness of

life'.  This is more than 'a new life', for the abstract word kainoteti

conveys the idea of 'newness'.  There are two words in the Greek for 'new':

kainos (that gives us 'newness' in Rom. 6:4) and neos.  Both come together in

Colossians 3:10: 'And having put on the new man (neos) being renewed

'In other words, we have put on the new, young, rejuvenate man, fresh,

vigorous, prime, with all the glorious future stretching out in its

limitless possibilities by the grace of God, and have been renewed with

a life that standing beside the empty tomb looks back at a past, dead,

buried, excluded, finished.  Neos turns our faces toward Christ, the

last Adam, kainos looks back to the first Adam.  The one says "life has

begun", the other "that life has finished"'. (Vol. 15, p. 138, of The

Berean Expositor).

Sanctification demands newness of life -- if so, how then can anyone

think of 'continuing in sin' that grace may abound?  We may all take to

ourselves the words of the apostle, making them a prayer where we cannot

state them as an experience:

'I ... am dead to the law (as Rom. 6 "dead to sin") ... I am (have

been) crucified with Christ (as Rom. 6 "the old man was crucified with

Him"): nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the

life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of