He that is dead, is freed from Sin

(Offerings in Righteousness part 3):

‘Then the LORD will have men who will bring offerings in righteousness, and the offerings of Judah and Jerusalem will be acceptable to the LORD, as in days gone by, as in former years’ Malachi 3:3-4.

There is a numbness that has come upon many souls in recent times. It is a lukewarm and passive spirit that wraps itself around our hearts like a blanket. This is why so many can carry on living lower than God’s highest for their life and not grieve. The first step to personal revival is recognising one’s state. When someone begins to hate his sin and hunger for all God has for him, then he is close to deliverance. For God wants us to walk in the understanding of what it means to be ‘dead to sin’.

The bible clearly teaches that God’s will for us as believers is that we walk in righteousness and so be victorious over sin. Yet too often believers fight a continually losing battle with sin. The problem often is that we are fighting with the wrong weapon. Victory over sin can never be won by more fasting, more determined resolution, increased spiritual activities or by any other human efforts.

Romans 6:7 summarises our victory over sin in one phrase; ‘anyone who has died has been freed from sin’. Death frees a man from many things that he used to face. Imagine a slave whose master used to bully and oppress him. Then he suddenly dies. Now that he is dead there is nothing the tyrant of a master can do to that dead body to harass it. He is dead to him and all the power he used to exercise over him. Yes the master could kick that dead body in annoyance but he can no longer touch that man. He has escaped his master’s power because he is dead.

In the same way God’s provision for dealing with the tyranny of sin in our lives is to make us become dead to sin. Romans 6:3,6-7 says:

‘Or don’t you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death?…For we know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin— because anyone who has died has been freed from sin’

Do you get it? When we give our heart to Jesus for him  to be our Lord, we experience two baptisms – we are baptised into Christ and at the same time baptised into his death. By being baptised (totally immersed) into Christ we are immersed (fully enter) into his death. It is as if we are transported back to his cross to have our old self crucified with him. And by this operation we, and sin, go separate ways. We have died to sin, which means we are free from slavery to sin. We are like that slave who died and then is free from his former master. Sin can shout with its loud voice of temptation but it no longer has power over us. ‘…because anyone who has died has been freed from sin’. Do you get this glorious truth? Please let it sink in.

The power that sin has over the lives of believers is in deceiving us that it still has power over us. So victory over sin comes only by faith in the work that Christ has done on the cross over the power of sin in our lives. Along with Christ, my sinful nature has been crucified. And he has now clothed me with his righteousness.

It is in believing this that victory comes. That is why Romans 6:11 says ‘In the same way, count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus’. Victory comes by seeing yourself the way God sees you. So begin to look at yourself as dead indeed to sin and alive to God. When temptations come, you are free to refuse to yield to it. (By the way, temptations and sin are not the same thing. Temptations are suggestions to sin and are not sin, if we refuse to entertain them or yield to them). If you have given your heart totally to Christ then begin to see yourself as you really are – dead to sin and alive to God.