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Dead to Sin, Alive to God
Alive to sin, dead to God.
Sin is something that, unfortunately, we all court. As soon as we are old enough to understand and reason the law, as Paul says, “[We were] once alive apart from the law, but when the commandment came, sin came alive, and I died.” (Romans 7:9) At that moment, when exactly it is, nobody can truly say but the individual, at the understanding of what God asks of us, we recognize our deficiency in the law of God, and, with understanding, we must respond to the gospel, or we are separated (dead) to the grace which God offers.
Hebrews 9:27-28 tells us that, “it is appointed for man to die once, and after that comes the judgment, so Christ, having been offered once to bear the sins of many, will appear a second time, not to deal with sin but to save those who are eagerly waiting for Him.” Everyone dies and that is an inescapable fact. It is an uncomfortable topic to speak of one’s own parting from this world, but one which must be faced regardless of any circumstance.
We should even be thinking about being dead daily. Choosing to be dead and never allowing life to flourish again to which we are dead. I am not referring to our physical life, but dead to sin. We should take sin and be completely removed from it as much as we possibly can. Many in the first century were misunderstanding what was meant when the Apostles told them this concept and Paul had to clarify in the Roman letter. It seems they were thinking that, because of the power of Christ’s blood, they could just be saved and not be disciplined in their spiritual life. (Sounds like a popular doctrine, still, today!)
“What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? By no means! How can we who died to sin still live in it? Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried therefore with Him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.” (Romans 6:1-4)
Paul is telling us that we must choose the spiritual death in which we should walk. Are we dead to sin, or are we dead to Christ? Jesus illustrates this in in Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 7:13-14 when He said:
“Enter by the narrow gate. For the gate is wide and the way is easy that leads to destruction, and those who enter by it are many. For the gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life, and those who find it are few.”
Jesus illustrates the duality of the life we can lead. There are two paths. If you are on one, you cannot be on the other. The pathway of sin leads to destruction. The strait path leads to eternal life. Which death do we choose?
Lance Byers
10/5/2024
- Dead_to_Sin_Alive_to_God_10-5-24.pdf (50.43 kB)
