"Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him; knowing that Christ being raised from the dead, dies no more; death has no more dominion over Him. For in that He died, He died unto sin once; but in that He lives, He lives unto God." Romans 6v8-10.
The whole theme of these verses is that believers are united with Christ in an unbreakable union; this means that whatever happens to Him, also happens to us, always bearing in mind the essential difference that He is God and we are human. The use of the "shall" should not be construed to mean the shall of the future only, although it will involve this; rather is it the shall of logical certainty, so that it is a fact now.
So we are looking here at how the resurrection of Christ changed His relationship to death, and also to sin, the twin monsters of our life in Adam. Before we go into that we might well ask the question, in what way did Christ have any relationship to death and sin? The answer of course is He had none, but for our sake He entered a sphere to which He did not belong for our benefit and in so doing submitted Himself to the realm and rule of death and sin. The letter to the Hebrews in chapter 2 makes this clear, that this situation occurred only for a little while. For the little while He was on this earth He subjected Himself to the rule of death and also to the demands of the rule of sin. Now He is raised from the dead He is beyond death He is beyond the demands of sin, and the apostle is making the point that this was a once for all never to be repeated action on the part of divine beings. Paul says He will not go on dying because it is God who raised Him from the dead. In this section already we have read " He was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father " we saw that this meant the magnificent display of divine power on the part of God, but it also meant the magnificent display of the Father's pleasure, because in the resurrection of Christ God the Father was entirely satisfied with the work that He had done.
We cannot emphasise this aspect enough. In John 17v4 Jesus said to His Father " I have glorified Thee on the earth, I have finished the work thou gavest Me to do. " God the Father's answer after the crucifixion and the burial was to raise Him from the dead because He was entirely satisfied with what He had done. In the resurrection of Christ, God is making a statement to the world that He is eternally satisfied with the death of Christ as an offering for human sin. Therefore it will not be repeated, there is no need to repeat it, and so Paul both in connection with death and sin says "NO MORE " . In verse 10 Paul uses a word " once " which means once for all. this is a very strong word which is repeated many times in the letter to Hebrews. It means once for all, never to be repeated, because no need for it to be repeated. This is important because there are many religious groups who are teaching and practising that the sacrifice to God must be repeated time and again for it to be acceptable. The scripture is vey clear, once, once only, once for all time, once for ever.
A reference to the following scriptures will illustrate this perfectly:
- Hebrews 7v27
- Hebrews 9v12
- Hebrews 9v26
- Hebrews 9v28
We will quote one of them Hebrews 9v26 " now once for all in the completion of the age He appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself. "
No more in the realm of sin and death Jesus has gone to another world, the world from which He came and tomorrow we will look at His life described here as " living unto God. "
The hymn by Horatius Bonar captures the thought perfectly:
No blood, no altar now, the sacrifice is o'er
No flame, no smoke ascends on high,
The Lamb is slain no more.
But richer blood has flood from nobler veins,
To purge the soul from guilt
And cleanse the reddest stains.
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