March 31, 2022 IN THE LIKENESS OF HIS DEATH
Romans 6:5-7, 11-13 “For if we have become united with Him in the likeness of His death, certainly we shall be also in the likeness of His resurrection, knowing this, that our old self was crucified with Him, that our body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin; for He who has died is freed from sin.” “Even so consider yourselves to be dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus. Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body that you should obey its lusts, and do not go on presenting the members of your body to sin as instruments of unrighteousness; but present yourselves to God as those alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness to God.”
It seems that many believers fail to embrace or accept this passage, and others like it, as true, and try to explain it away; the common response is “Yes, I have been born again, but I continue to sin-my old sin nature is still at work in me.” I personally think that missing the truth of what this and other passages teach is the greatest error in the church today. Everything about the Christian life hinges on the truth that our old man was crucified with Christ and that we have been freed from sin. Yes, believers can and do sin, BUT they do so by CHOICE, not by being forced to sin by the old sin nature; we cannot excuse our sins by claiming that it’s just a part of our old nature at work in us. I think the problem hinges around the fact that we do not like the idea of becoming united with Christ in the likeness of His death; we simply do not like dying to ourselves and our ways; we are convinced that we can have it both ways-His way and our way. The good news of the gospel is that Jesus came so that our sins could be forgiven AND that we could be freed from the power of sin. The essential factor is how we ‘consider’ ourselves; the scriptures tell us to consider ourselves dead to sin, but alive to God. We no longer have to let sin reign and have its way in our mortal body. Throughout the New Testament we find many scriptures telling us that we are no longer bound to sin-that we have been set free from the power of sin. The go to scripture for those who believe we are bound to the old sin nature is Romans 7:19 where Paul says “For the good that I wish, I do not do, but I practice the very evil that I do not wish.” However, if you take this verse in context, you find that Paul was describing living life according to the flesh-not according to the Spirit. Romans 7 is not Paul’s testimony. Note that in verse 24 Paul ask who will set him free from the life lived according to the flesh; in the next verse he answers the question-“Thanks be to God.” Then to make it absolutely clear, in 8:2 Paul says “For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and death.” This is an important subject that we must come to understand, and it would take pages for us to even ‘scratch the surface.’ I encourage us to study the scriptures to learn what it means to die to self and to live in the likeness of Christs’ resurrection-to live in newness. (It is a matter of us choosing to walk by the Spirit, and not by the flesh.)
Romans 6:1-2, 7 “What shall we say them? Are we to continue in sin that grace might increase? May it never be! How shall we who died to sin still live in it?” “for he who has died is freed from sin.”
Blessings,
Buddy
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