Lesson 48: Union with Christ (Romans 6)
Adam’s willful disobedience to God caused him to yield to the reign of sin. We, through our natural human birth, are united to Adam. We are born sinful and in our natural state we allow sin to reign every minute of our lives. There is no way we can avoid willful disobedience to God. The cost of sin is physical and spiritual death, eternal separation from God. This is our destiny in our natural state.
Through the work of the Holy Spirit in our lives and our faith we have union with Christ. We are united with Him in His death and resurrection.
Christ submitted for our sake to the reign of sin, though He lived a life of perfect righteousness. He took on our burden of sin, and as a result, He suffered sin’s penalty, which was physical death and spiritual death, separation from God. But because He lived a life of righteousness, He was able to break the link between sin and death, which we could never do because of our sinful nature.
Now, in our union with Christ, His righteousness is imputed to us, and the link between our sinfulness and separation from God is broken. When we receive Christ through faith, we submit to sin’s reign in the new sense that our sinful nature dies and we no longer need to be enslaved by it. So we are considered perfect in God’s sight through union with Christ and now it is our calling to try to live a righteous life.
Our resurrection is a present reality for us. Through our union with Christ we died to our sinful past and are raised to a life of righteousness. When we die physically, we will again submit to sin’s reign in the sense that our sinful body will die. But we will be raised again with a perfect, sinless body to be with God for eternity, which has always been God’s plan for us.