Classic Christianity – Count Yourselves Alive to God – Part 1 – 9-22-26
Asking the Socratic questions, and getting answers directly from the Holy Spirit is key to understanding the Scriptures themselves today. If we simply sit by, as though we are bumps on a log, and never asking God for understanding, that is not what God wants from us. He wants us to ask Him questions. Think about it folks, the Apostles were constantly asking Jesus questions, and He was more than happy to give answers to their questions. Asking questions shows you are paying attention and trying to think through the details. Asking questions about ALL things and of how all these things tie together is important for our understanding of how the Goel Kinsman-Redeemer, Jesus Himself took care of not only the Sin issue for the whole Adamic line, and He will also take care of the cursed Earth issue at the end of the little season period of time.
God never intended for His image-bearers to sit passively as “bumps on a log” or mute spectators in His kingdom. True spiritual awakening begins the microsecond we step onto the limestone floor of inquiry and actively ask the Father for understanding through the Holy Spirit.
1. The Pattern Set by Christ and the Apostles
The Invitation of TRUTH: The Creator explicitly invites us: “Come now, and let us reason together,” says TRUTH (Isaiah 1:18). Asking questions in childlike dependency is not doubt; it is the active, relational mechanism by which the Holy Spirit renews our minds.
The Socratic Posture of Jesus: Walking under voluntary Kenosis as a True Man, Jesus Himself applied this exact, question-driven method of learning. As a twelve-year-old boy in the temple, He sat listening and asking questions of the scholars, receiving instruction directly from the Father, precept upon precept as the Holy Spirit illuminated the Old Testament scrolls.
Asking Questions Shows Attention: Throughout His earthly ministry, the Apostles were constantly asking Him questions—seeking clarity on parables, timelines, and kingdom legalities. Jesus never rebuked them for inquiring; He welcomed their questions, using them to open the Scriptures and shepherd their understanding.
Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. Revelation 21:1,2
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Pray to God:
Do you really want to know the WHOLE Truth of what is going on today?
Lord Jesus, teach me the truth of the world today and give me the wisdom to know the truth and identify the lies of the devil. Thank you God.”
~ In this message Bob George teaches through Romans 6 (with reference to Romans 5 and 7), emphasizing that sin is anything not of faith and that, under the law, sin reigns as master with death as its unavoidable consequence. He explains that all people are born “in Adam” spiritually dead and under the death penalty of the law, and corrects the common teaching that Christians move in and out of fellowship through continually confessing sins; instead, Scripture presents people as either in fellowship (saved) or out of fellowship (lost). Bob stresses that through spiritual baptism believers are united with Christ in His death, burial, and resurrection, dying to the law that condemned them and being raised to new life in Him. Because Christ’s sacrifice was complete—“It is finished”—believers are to count themselves dead to the sin principle and alive to God, living by faith in God’s grace rather than in fear, guilt, or a constant preoccupation with sin.
“And so we have to understand that if you’re under the law, that you are under the consequence of sin called death, and death can only be corrected by what? Life. Can a corpse produce life in and of itself? Can a corpse can a corpse produce anything? All a corpse can do is receive. And so, what you’re dealing here with is this: Then, what shall we say if the law was added so that the trespass might increase, but where sin increased, grace increased all the more, so that just as sin reigned in death. Now, how does sin reign in death? What does that mean? Sin reigns in death because what? The wages of sin is what? Death. So death controls you. If you’re under the law, you’re a goner. Do we understand? You can come up with all kinds of stuff if you want to. Well, I went to confession, or I got all my sins confessed. But the issue is, what if you forgot one? You are under total bondage. If you think you have anything to do with keeping yourself forgiven, you’re always going to be under the bondage, and I may have forgotten one. What if this happened? What if I didn’t think of it? What if God didn’t recognize my sincerity and my confession? And all of those things keep you reigning in death, because you know the Scripture says that the consequence of sin is death, and so if I have sin, and I’m a I’m a goner. Is that right or wrong? And so death is your problem, and there’s the fear: Am I going to die without God? There’s the fear. Now, people that don’t believe in God, quite frankly, if they really don’t believe in God, of course, I don’t think there is such a thing. But if they don’t, that fear is not as great as a person who does. To be real honest, because they say it’s all over and ain’t God anyway. But to a person who knows there’s a God, he has got to be living in the fear then of what’s going to happen to me when I die. Where am I going to go? Am I going to go in the presence of God, or am I going to go to hell, or am I just going to lay in a grave? What’s going to happen to me when I die? And that, my friends, is reigning in death. You are reigning in the fear of death all of your life if you’re under the law, because under the law the wages of sin is what? Death. It’s not out of fellowship. It’s not getting to paddling. It’s not going to the woodshed. It’s death, and we reign in death until we come to life in Christ Jesus.” ~ Bob George
Bible Study Booklets
Announcer 0:13
Welcome to Classic Christianity Radio with Bob George Bob’s clear, timeless teachings on the complete forgiveness and unconditional love of Jesus Christ will transform your life as you learn about God’s amazing grace. Let’s join Bob as he teaches us from God’s Word.
Bob George 0:28
Let’s turn now to the Book of Romans, and we’ve come to the point of hitting into Chapter Six. And as I’ve mentioned to you before, Chapter six and chapter seven of the book of Romans is a parenthesis that basically answers questions that people would obviously have after what was just communicated in first five chapters, and then going into chapter eight, and he stops there to answer those questions before going into chapter eight. If you were looking at the flow of thought, you would have at the end of chapter five the law was added so that the trespass might increase, but where sin increased, grace increased all the more, so that just as sin reigned in death, so also grace may reign through righteousness to bring eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. And then you’d go right over to chapter eight. Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, because the law of the Spirit of life has set me free from the law of sin and death. But again, Paul didn’t do it that way. He paused in order to answer these questions. So that’s what we’re going to do.
I want to say that before we get into this study, that this is not an easy passages of Scripture. It would be easy if, when we came to Christ, we never sinned. Then these would be easier. But the fact is, we know better than that, don’t we? Does anyone out there never sinned in your own experience? I don’t think so. I don’t need hands for that. But if we did, why we would have every hand in the room, would we not? But the issue is that it’s a little difficult, and we’re going to take some time in order to try to explain the meaning of this these passages. First of all, let us keep in mind what is the definition from God’s standpoint of sin. That which is not of what faith is sin, and so you and I, when we were born again, have the privilege now of doing what we had no ability to do prior to our salvation, and that is to walk by what, by faith instead of by sight. So we want to keep in mind that the wages, or excuse me, that the definition of sin is that which is not of faith. Remember, Jesus said the world’s sin singular is what unbelief in Him, in other words, not placing your faith in Him. We also need to go to the end of chapter, or excuse me, to verse. Let me see where that is. 13 in the end of this passage, in chapter six, verse 13, where it says that do not offer parts of your body to sin as instruments of wickedness, but rather to offer yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life, and offer the parts of your body to Him as instruments of righteousness. Verse 14: For sin shall not be your master, because you are not under law but under grace.
Now I say that because it’s better off to understand what he’s saying now as you as you start reading these passages instead of starting to interpret them and then come there and find what the interpretation is. What he’s saying: sin shall not be your master. Why? Because you’re not under law, but under grace, which means what? Sin is your master when you’re what? Under the law. Are we all together? Guys, think these things through because it’ll change your life if you grab a hold of the meaning of these things. Doesn’t do you any good to just read words. You got you. You must ask God to give you the ability to understand the meaning of something, and so when he says sin shall not be your master because you’re not under the law, means that when you’re under the law, sin is your master. In other words, sin reigns in your life, and it talks about that in the scriptures about how sin will reign in your life in verse 14 of chapter 5. Nevertheless, death reigned from the time of Adam to the time of Moses, and even over those who did not break the command. Why they didn’t have it, and it says where there is no law, sin is not taken into account.
So I’m kind of jumping around here, but I. Want us to grab a hold of some of these truths before we get into actually getting into the passages themselves. So we’ve got some things that we’re going to foundational that we’re going to grab a hold of. Number one, God’s definition of sin is that which is not a faith. Number two is that if you’re under the law, sin is your master. You have no ability to live any other way than controlled by your flesh when you’re under the law. Now, why? Again, what is the wages of sin under the law? Let me ask you. Okay, let’s do it again. What is the wages of sin under the law? Death. We all together? Now that means that under the law you were born under the law, weren’t you? And we just read in here last week is how in Adam we all died. We all are born in Adam. You are not born a child of God. You know you hear that. Oh, we’re all God’s children. No, we’re not. We are Adam’s children. We’re born into this world in Adam, dead as a hammer. In Adam, dead spiritually. And what is death but the absence of life. So the life of God does not live in you when you’re born. We may be cute little babies, and we are, and we may go goo and gaga, which we do, and we may just be slobbered all over by our parents. But the fact is that you’re born dead spiritually. No one comes out of his mother’s womb saying, “Praise Jesus. We’re born dead, and in that condition of spiritual death, if you remain dead spiritually and die, you’re going to be dead eternally. Are we together? That, my friends, is a problem, is it? And so God, in order to keep His creation from living in a total eternal condition of spiritual death, came up with a solution through His Son to give us eternal life, and as long as you are under the law, you are under the death penalty of the law. You cannot separate the law from the consequence. The wages of sin under the law is what? Death.
Now, in our Christian world, we have tried to discourage that. I can remember times in my teaching when I just merely echoed what I had learned until I found out it wasn’t right. That sin was being in and out of fellowship, and we taught how every time you sin, you don’t lose your salvation, but you’re out of fellowship, and how you get back in fellowship is First John one nine, and you spiritual breathe, you exhale and confess your sin and get it forgiven, and then inhale, appropriate the power of the Holy Spirit, and never made any sense to me, but we did it until I was hyperventilating, and I realized there’s no truth to this. Number one, there’s no passage in the scriptures besides that that could that even hint of that. So it must be being that we’re misinterpreting it, which we were, and that passage is a passage not to believers to keep in fellowship, because there’s no place in the Bible talking about being in and out of fellowship. You are either in the fellowship, saved or out of the fellowship lost, in the Bible. That’s all. That’s all it talks about. You have come into fellowship at salvation, or you’re out of fellowship lost. There’s no bouncing in and out of fellowship as I thought I was doing for a lot of years. There’s not there. It’s plain not in the Scripture. It’s in a lot of teaching, but it’s not in the Scripture. You’re either in the fellowship saved, out of the fellowship lost. I call up two fellows in the same ship fellowship lost or saved. I used to teach, however, used to teach. It had great illustrations. Hate to give them up. Great illustrations on this concept. The problem of it is, it’s wrong. It’s not truthful. It’s not biblical. It’s not there. So I had to go back to the people that I’d been teaching and say, “I got good news and bad news for you. The bad news is been teaching you wrong. The good news is I think I know what’s true, and we started learning that day about the grace of God and the fullness of the grace of God, but in order to do so, I had to first of all admit what I was teaching was wrong, which sometimes becomes very difficult for people in a leadership role to do. But the fact is, if you’ve been teaching people wrong, you better teach them it’s wrong because if it’s wrong, it’s wrong, and it’s not if God.
And so we have to understand that if you’re under the law, that you are under the consequence of sin called death, and death can only be corrected by what? Life. Can a corpse produce life in and of itself? Can a corpse can a corpse produce anything? All a corpse can do is receive. And so, what you’re dealing here with is this: Then, what shall we say if the law was added so that the trespass might increase, but where sin increased, grace increased all the more, so that just as sin reigned in death. Now, how does sin reign in death? What does that mean? Sin reigns in death because what? The wages of sin is what? Death. So death controls you. If you’re under the law, you’re a goner. Do we understand? You can come up with all kinds of stuff if you want to. Well, I went to confession, or I got all my sins confessed. But the issue is, what if you forgot one? You are under total bondage. If you think you have anything to do with keeping yourself forgiven, you’re always going to be under the bondage, and I may have forgotten one. What if this happened? What if I didn’t think of it? What if God didn’t recognize my sincerity and my confession? And all of those things keep you reigning in death, because you know the Scripture says that the consequence of sin is death, and so if I have sin, and I’m a I’m a goner. Is that right or wrong? And so death is your problem, and there’s the fear: Am I going to die without God? There’s the fear. Now, people that don’t believe in God, quite frankly, if they really don’t believe in God, of course, I don’t think there is such a thing. But if they don’t, that fear is not as great as a person who does. To be real honest, because they say it’s all over and ain’t God anyway. But to a person who knows there’s a God, he has got to be living in the fear then of what’s going to happen to me when I die. Where am I going to go? Am I going to go in the presence of God, or am I going to go to hell, or am I just going to lay in a grave? What’s going to happen to me when I die? And that, my friends, is reigning in death. You are reigning in the fear of death all of your life if you’re under the law, because under the law the wages of sin is what? Death. It’s not out of fellowship. It’s not getting to paddling. It’s not going to the woodshed. It’s death, and we reign in death until we come to life in Christ Jesus.
So, the question asks: Well, if this is the case that just as sin reigned in death, so that grace also might reign through righteousness to bring eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord, well, what shall we say then? If if where sin abounds, why grace abounds even more. Maybe we ought to give God a break and and let Him exercise more grace. Just kind of see if we can out sin the grace of God. Some people try that, but He answers that question. What shall we say then? Shall we go on just sinning, just living it up, so that grace may increase? Now, again, guys, what is God’s definition of sin? What’s His definition of sin? We just covered it. That which is not what? Of a faith. So, shall we go on living in our unbelief, so that grace may increase? By no means, we have died to sin. How can we live in it any longer? Now, how many of you believe that passage is true? How many believe that passage is true? We died to sin. How can we live in it anymore? Don’t have many hands. You know why? You didn’t just zoom them up because you were saying Christ. I’m not dead to sin. Am I right or wrong? Did any of you say that? Did any of you say that in your head? Nobody. Well, maybe you’re all okay. Died to sin. How can you live it anymore? Now, what do you mean there? You died to sin. What does it say up here? Sin’s not your master because you’re not under the law. You can’t die to sin till you die to the law.
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Bob George 15:00
The law is what keeps demanding your flesh to behave. That’s all this is talking about. This whole passage is talking about being free from the law that kills and grab a hold of the new life that is available to you in Christ Jesus. Are we together? These are not easy passages, guys. We died to sin. How do you die to sin? You die to the law. What did we just read up here? Where there is no law, sin is not what? Taken into account. You believe that? No. So until you die to the law, sin is taken into account, and if you’re under the law, my friends, which you are when you’re born, you are under the death penalty. The wages of sin is death, and you’re under it until you choose life. Now, guys, I’m sorry that we can’t make this any more. I wish I had a way of just picking people up and shaking them, because you know some people sit and listen. There’s what else is new? Do you realize that you’re dead? And do you realize that death is permanent? And do you realize that if you die, die-in other words, you die dead; that you’re going to remain dead to God for the rest throughout all eternity? And you know who you’re going to live with? satan. satan. You know where you’re going to live? Place called hell. Not exactly a real attractive location. So we’re talking about extremely serious things, whether you believe it or not, it’s not the issue. The issue is this: is what God said, and if you don’t believe it, you’ll find out that it’s true someday. And so I ask you to listen. Don’t sit there and yawn with this one.
Sin. How can we live it any longer? Don’t you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ. Now, are they talking about water baptism there? Spiritual baptism. At the very moment that you were born again, the Spirit of God came to indwell you. That’s Christ in you. It then says that the Spirit of God then baptizes or places you into the body of Christ. That’s you in Him, Christ in you, you in Him. Are we together on that? Don’t you know that all of us who were baptized or united into Christ were baptized or united into his death, we were therefore buried with him through baptism into death, in order that just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life. You too can be raised from the dead. Now, if we have been united with Him, which is what it means to be baptized into Christ, to be united with Him, we’ve identified ourselves with Him in His death, burial, and resurrection. If we have been united with Him like this in His death, we will certainly also be united with Him in His resurrection, so in other words, just as Christ entered into our death with us, He was raised from the dead so that we can enter into His resurrection with Him. I’ve been united with Him. He died, I died. He was raised, I’m going to be raised. For we all know that our old self was crucified with him, so that the body of sin may be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin, because anyone who has died has been freed from sin. Why have you been freed from sin? When you die, because when you die, you’ve died to to what killed you. Paul said it’s through the what? Law that I died to the law. So he’s talking about that we should no longer be slaves to sin because anyone who has died has been freed from sin. When you die, you’re free from the law, aren’t you? Now, folks, that is what the picture of baptism, water baptism is. That you and I are born into this world united to the law. We’re under the law. We’re born into this world under the law, and you’re under the consequence of the law that the wages of sin is what? Death. When you and I come to Christ, it’s through the law that I died. That’s what it means to be placed into the water. With what? What are you placed in the water with? With the law. The law. I’m here. I take it into the grave. And then I am raised again in the newness of life to be married to another, Christ Jesus. Where do I leave the law? Where do I leave it? In the grave. That the water represents the grave. I’m alive. I died. I leave what killed me in the in the in the grave, and I am raised to walk in the newness of life. Therefore, I am dead to this, and I’m alive to this. Are we together? So I’m dead to the law, and therefore, it sin does not have any mastery over me.
Now, in verse eight, if we died with Christ, we believe that we’ll also live with him, for we know that since Christ was raised from the dead, he cannot die again. Death no longer has mastery over him. The death that he died, he died to sin. How many times? Once and for how many? For all, but because but the life that he lives, he lives to God. How many times did Jesus die on a cross? Once. How many sins did he take away on that day? All of them. Why in the world did he cry out, “It is finished? Because it is finished. Now, when something is finished, is there anything you can do to add to it? Did you have anything to do with what he did at the cross? That was all him sent by God. You and I had nothing. Had we been there, we had nothing to do with what he did at the cross. There, he volitionally became sin, so that in him we could become the righteousness of God. We had nothing to do with any of that, did we? It’s all Jesus, and it’s none of us. And so, when he cried out, “It’s finished, he meant, “It’s finished, and we are to be dead to what killed us, the law, and come alive to Christ. Well, now if that’s true, then why do we keep up with going to confession booths to get your sin forgiven? The HEBREWS kept up until 70 A.D. until Titus came in and destroyed the temple. That was the end of the sacrificial system, but that was 30 till 70; 40 years that they kept up with the sacrificial system. After Jesus said it’s finished, we as Gentiles come along and form our form our confession booths, and then the Protestants we think we’re so much better, so we just first John one nine ourselves to death and keep short accounts with God. And you got people who make a living teaching people to keep short accounts with God. You got to keep your sins forgiven. One pastor here in Dallas just recently said that the only unpardonable sin is the one you haven’t confessed. Biggest church of its denomination in America, the biggest, the only unforgivable sin is the one you haven’t confessed. So, in other words, your relationship with God is based on your memory and your ability to keep your sins forgiven. For you to keep your sins forgiven after Jesus cried out, “It’s finished, and we call that holiness. Do you call it holiness? I’ll tell you what it is. It’s unbelief. And it says that without faith, it’s impossible to what? Please God. And why is to teach? Oh, you’re so pleasing to God. You got all your sins confessed. Oh, you’re pleasing. I know I’m pleasing because I know I got all mine. Amy, she probably hadn’t got around hers yet, but I got mine all done. You become judgmental. You’re preoccupied with sin. That’s all you think about is sin, sin, sin, and you don’t have time to get on with life, life, life. He said to die to this. He said to die to it, and we keep it alive, and we think we’re pleasing God. I’m just so pleasing to God; it’s unbelievable, man. I got all my sins confessed. Really, it seems to me that what would be pleasing to God is when you acknowledge what God did through His Son Jesus Christ, who had to suffer and die so that you and I could go, just like the song said. Do what? Go what? Free. How free are you when your relationship with God is based upon your remembering all your sins? Just how free do you think you are? That’s talk, but there’s no reality to that kind of freedom, is there?
And so he’s saying to us, that’s why these passages are so vitally important, guys. The death he died, he died to sin one time. And if there was any further forgiveness to be executed on your behalf by God, what would he have to do if, without the shedding of blood, there’s no forgiveness? What would he have to do to have? Come die again. Would he not? Are we together? I mean, there’s divine logic to all this. Is he going to come and die again? When he comes back, maybe he’ll deal with sin again. When he comes back, what’s it say? When Jesus Christ comes back, he isn’t dealing with sin. He isn’t dealing with that. He’s dealing with what? New life. He’s already dealt with sin. He did it once. He did it for all, and he wants you and me to walk by faith in that. Now, what does faith say? We say, “What do you do when you sin? Well, what do you do when you sin? Some people say, “Enjoy it. Look, the only thing in the world that you can say when you know that you’ve intentionally blown it is to say, “Lord Jesus, thank you. If you’re going to walk by faith, you’re going to say, “Thank you. If you want to walk by presumption, you’re going to ask him to do what, in fact, in Christ he’s already done, which I did for years and taught people how to do that by the 1000s. I hope I’ve gotten back to all of them now, but I’m not sure. In the same way, in the King James, it says “reckon. It’s a good old Texas term. “Reckon, I reckon so, but it doesn’t mean that. It says, “Count yourself dead to sin. Why are you dead to sin? Are you dead to sinning, or dead to sin? You are dead to the sin principle. You are totally dead to the fact that the wages of sin is what? Die to that, guys. The wages of sin is death. You’re not under that anymore. Why? Because the law, the Spirit of life, sets you free from the law of sin and death. You’re free from it. That’s what it means. You’ve been set free. You have been set free from something that would have kept you in a state of death throughout eternity. Do we have an appreciation now for what Jesus did for us, just over and above what we think? Therefore, because we can count ourselves dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus, our focus should be on the fact we’re alive in Jesus. We don’t have a preoccupation with sin; it’s been dealt with. And you say, “Well, that’s isn’t that just kind of glossing over? Well, you know what Titus says. It’s the grace of God that teaches us to say what? No to unrighteousness, and to live self-controlled, upright lives in this present generation, while we wait for the glorious appearing of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ.
Announcer
Thank you so much for tuning in to Classic Christianity with Bob George. We hope you’ve enjoyed today’s program. We truly hope that today’s message has inspired you to walk a life of faith in the Lord. Find more information online at BobGeorge.net. There you’ll also find available CDs, DVDs, and Bible studies available for purchase. It’s through your help, that we are able to spread the good word of Jesus Christ. Until next time, walk in faith, be good to one another, and praise the Lord. Amen.