Q.-What is the difference between “dead to sin” (Romans 6), “dead to law” (Romans 7.), and “crucified to the world” (Galatians 6)?
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A.-It is not only blessedly true that the Lord Jesus “was delivered up for our offenses,” and that He “died for our sins,” but there is the further truth (so little understood by believers in general) that in Christ's death I too have died, outwardly confessed in my baptism (Romans 6:44Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death: that like 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),), 8; Colossians 2:11-1311In whom also ye are circumcised with the circumcision made without hands, in putting off the body of the sins of the flesh by the circumcision of Christ: 12Buried with him in baptism, wherein also ye are risen with him through the faith of the operation of God, who hath raised him from the dead. 13And you, being dead in your sins and the uncircumcision of your flesh, hath he quickened together with him, having forgiven you all trespasses; (Colossians 2:11‑13)), and so passed out of the condition where “sin reigned in death,” into another where “sin shall not have dominion over” me; nor am I any longer “under law but under grace,” which now reigns (instead of sin) “through righteousness unto life eternal through Jesus Christ our Lord” (Romans 5:20, 21; 6:1420Moreover the law entered, that the offence might abound. But where sin abounded, grace did much more abound: 21That as sin hath reigned unto death, even so might grace reign through righteousness unto eternal life by Jesus Christ our Lord. (Romans 5:20‑21)
14For sin shall not have dominion over you: for ye are not under the law, but under grace. (Romans 6:14)).
As has often been remarked, the earlier chapters (1-4:11) of Romans deal with our guilt, the “sins” we have committed, of which there is no remission without shedding of blood. But from v. 12, we have the involvement of universal sinnership, “through” the disobedience of the one man “-Adam (ver 19). We were “by nature children of wrath, but now no longer in Adam we are in Christ Jesus; and to such there is no condemnation. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has freed us from the law of sin and of death (8:1, 2), so that now we walk and serve in newness of life and of spirit.
That evil principle, or “law of sin and death” which is in us—here and elsewhere called “sin” —is the root from which is produced that evil crop ("sins” ), and to which the Christian has died. It is not dead— “if we say that we have no sin we deceive ourselves” —nor is it forgiven. But it has been judged and condemned in Christ's death (8:3), and I am called no longer to own its authority or reign, but to reckon myself “to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God, in Christ Jesus,” in the power of a new and risen life.
So, too, with the law. It is not abrogated, but is in force “for lawless and disobedient,” &c., but its jurisdiction is gone for men that are dead, and the Christian has been “made dead to the law by the body of Christ” (7:3, 4). “But now we are clear from the law, having [or, seeing we have] died in [respect of] that in which we were held” (ver. 6). “I through law have died to law, that I may live to God. I am crucified with Christ, yet I live, no longer I, but Christ liveth in me; but that which I now live in flesh, I live in the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me” (Galatians 2:19, 2019For I through the law am dead to the law, that I might live unto God. 20I am crucified with Christ: 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 God, who loved me, and gave himself for me. (Galatians 2:19‑20)).
“Crucified to me, and I to the world.” It is crucified-no longer sought after by the Christian; its charms are gone. It crucified the Lord of glory. How can it any more be an object for me? “If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him.” And I—I am crucified to it. No longer of “its own,” the child of God is despised and hated by the world, and should he content to be so for the Master's sake are we content to be thought nothing of, and to be thus a spectacle to it?
May we seek grace to be truly the followers of the “despised and rejected” One of earth, but the “exalted” of the Father, “received up in glory.” He will be wondered at in them that believe in the coming day of glory for this earth, when the now reproached sons of God shall be manifested in the same glory with Christ.