What It Means to Be Dead to Sin

Well, for a time of study in the word today, let me invite you to turn in your Bibles to Romans chapter 6. Romans chapter 6. This is actually a special Sunday for me. This is the first sermon that I, the first Sunday that I'm preaching with bifocals.

I've been doing this all week. And what's interesting is like the 1st 4 rows you're blurry, so you're safe and I can see the rest of you clear. So if you want to hide from me, you wanna, you wanna sit on the first few rows, so maybe that'll make those rows more appealing. anyway, Romans chapter 6.

And we are coming back to our study of Romans 5 through 8. we, we started through Romans 5, spent several weeks in that chapter, and then at the very end of November we started into Romans 6, and then we took a break to deal with the house to house series that we concluded last Sunday. And so, today we're coming back to our series, through Romans 567 and 8 or however long, long the Lord will lead us to stay here. And what we're doing is taking a journey into the heart of the gospel.

If you want to be a living, breathing, functioning, thriving believer, fully functional in the gospel, these are chapters that you want to sink your teeth into, become a student of and even memorize so that you're learning. these thoughts and not just memorizing some floating truth that's going to, God loves me or I'm free from sin, but that you're memorizing the whole flow of thought throughout Romans 5 through 8 where there's a whole constellation of truth that you've memorized and you're able to rehearse these things and preach these things to yourself in moments where you might be in a place of despair or might be tempted to sin or even if you find yourself in a place of pride or self-confidence.

But we come this morning back to Romans 6. My intention is to, do a little bit of review just so we can get our feet wet again and, and, begin wading in this pond and, and then there will be some new material also.

If you want to give a title to the message, it would be what it means to be dead to sin. What it means to be dead. to sin. Paul tells us in these verses that we are dead to sin, and we're going to try to unpack what that means and even what it does not mean.

It's interesting. I don't know if you guys read this. This morning I read online that I guess yesterday there was some Tea Party meeting with the Republican Party. Someone stood up and said the words you're dead.

Did you guys read that? And they arrested him. that's just the hostile climate that we're in right now, but I felt weird reading that cuz it's like my message this morning is you're dead. And I hope, I hope I won't get arrested for that.

It's actually good news to be able to say that. to you. It's not a threat in any way. That's Paul's point.

He's trying to drive home the point that as believers in Jesus, we are dead to sin. In fact, one writer says verses 1 through 14, he says, the fact of having died to sin is the fundamental premise of the apostles' thought. That's the point. He keeps driving home again and again throughout the first half of chapter 5.

Look at this verse 2, we died. Verse 3, we're baptized into his death. Verse 4, we've been buried with Him through baptism into death. Verse 5, we have become united, with Him in the likeness of his death.

Verse 6, our old self was crucified. Verse 7, he who has died is justified from sin. Verse 8, we have died, and after all that, verse 11, Paul says, consider yourselves dead. That's what the primary point that he's trying to make, and this is tremendously good news.

And this fundamental fact helps us to answer the question, what shall I say then? Shall I, given the fact that I'm a born again child of God, fully justified before God, shall I continue any longer in sin? The fact that we are dead to sin helps us in answering that very practical, question. The way we're going to frame things, this morning is I want to share with you 5 thoughts, 5 thoughts, regarding what Paul means when he tells us that we have died to sin.

We really want to get this, right. there's actually two dangers that, that we need to avoid when dealing with a chapter like this, that is so glorious and even a verse like chapter 6, verse 2, where we're told that we have died to sin. One of the dangers is the danger of taking Paul to mean less than what he is saying. It's very easy for us, and I've been guilty of this, to read the text of the Bible, and we see these amazing affirmations, and we're like, oh, that's not true in my experience.

So I know this can't really mean whatever, because my experience doesn't fit with that. And we need to be careful about that. Because a lot of what is said in the Bible is beyond our present experience. And maybe we're the ones who need to change rather than dumbing down the text of the Bible.

And if you dumb this down, to mean less than what Paul is meaning to say, and telling us that we're dead to sin, you can end up living a settled for quasi-Christian life that falls far short of what God intends. But there's another danger that I want us to make sure that we avoid, in dealing with this affirmation that we are dead to sin, and that is the danger of taking Paul to mean more. than what he is saying here if we Misunderstand Paul, and take him to be meaning more than what he's saying, then we could easily find ourselves in a place of disillusionment, when our experience isn't, doesn't seem to fit with what is being affirmed here.

or not just disillusionment, but that disillusionment can maybe lead us to a place of condemnation and despair.

We might start realizing I must not even be a believer because the Bible says this, and here's how I interpret this, and if, if that doesn't match my experience, then I'm probably not even saved. or it could cause someone to begin to doubt the word of God, or I've seen this happen. It could lead people to be less than fully honest with themselves and their own experience, and we'll try to get into some of that as we go. So we want to make sure that with this chapter, this affirmation that we're dead to sin, and anything else that's taught in Scripture, that we're getting it right.

We're understanding what's being said. Not falling short and not really believing all of what's said, but we're also not going beyond and taking scripture to be saying more than what it's saying. So the 1st 3 thoughts I want to share with you are by way of review, and they're positive in terms of what Paul is saying. The last two thoughts I want to share with you are what Paul is not saying.

In affirming that we are dead to sin. All right, so here we go. Thought number one. And this will help us to just step back into all of this.

When Paul in verse 2 tells us that we died to sin, what does he mean in telling us that we're dead to sin? Number 1, he means that God has legally rendered us dead to sin and to its claims upon our life. And telling us that we're dead to sin, Paul is telling us that God has legally rendered us dead to sin. and to its claims upon our lives.

As I stated back in November, when Paul says what he says in verse 2 that we died to sin, I don't think Paul thinks at this point, he's saying anything different than what he's been saying all through Romans 5 about our justification. I think Paul would say, what I'm saying here in verse 2, that we died to sin is simply another way of talking about the justification that I've been unfolding throughout Romans 5. And I would, I would know this because of what Paul says in verse 7, we're literally in the Greek text, he says, he who has died is literally justified from sin.

And so it's very clear, it may not be an exact equivalence, but in the mind of Paul, he would say to be dead to sin, at least in part, is roughly equivalent of what I'm talking about when I say that we are justified in Christ.

And for Paul to begin to use this language in Romans 6 begins to enlighten us to another way of looking at our justification. Normally, when we speak about our justification, we would say that in justifying us, God legally reckoned us forgiven of all of our sins, right? And that's legit. That's totally biblically accurate.

We also would frequently say that in justifying us, those of us that have believed in Jesus, God legally reckoned us righteous with the very righteousness of Jesus, and that's legit. That's affirmed in Scripture. But another way of saying that, that unpacks what it means to be justified further is this, that in justifying us, God legally reckoned us to have already died in Christ, and to have already served the sentence. We were in Christ, when Christ died, we died.

And now legally, the record books of heaven, as it were, shows that we already died, not just that Christ died for us, but his death was imputed to us. So the heavenly record shows that we've already died, the sentence has already been served. Does that make sense? like, look how he unpacks this further in Romans 6.

He says, we died to sin. Verse 3, do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus have been baptized into his death? When we believed in Jesus, and saw our bankruptcy, our inability to save ourselves, we put our trust in Jesus to be our Lord and Savior. in that moment, God baptized us into Christ.

We were placed in Christ, which, by the way, is a great place to be. And being in Christ, So what that means, Paul says, is that when Christ died on the cross, we were in him when he died. And when he was buried, look at verse 4, we've been buried with Him through baptism and to death. We have become being united with Christ, we become united with him in the likeness of his death.

His death was not just for us, but his death was imputed to us. So it could be said legally that we died in Him. And we're buried in Him, thus placed beyond the jurisdiction and the claims of sin upon our lives. Listen to how Charles Spurgeon says this.

He says, follow the thought and note well that by faith you regard yourself as dead with Him, crucified with Him. You have not really grasped what faith means unless you have grasped this with Him, with Christ. You suffered the wrath of God, for he suffered in your stead. You are now in Him crucified with him, dead with Him, buried with Him, risen with Him, and gone into glory with him, because he represents you and your faith has accepted the representation.

You see what he's saying there? We were placed in Christ. So when he died, we died in Him. God now legally reckons us to have already died, to have already borne the punishment of our sins, because we were in Christ when he died, dying as our representative.

And now that the record books of heaven show technically that we've already died, there's no claim that sin has upon us. When sin shows up to demand our death, the record shows we already died. And so when Paul says we died to sin, the first thought we need to understand is to tie it together with our justification and understand that it's a legal affirmation. That we have died in Christ, and buried in Him, and thus located beyond the jurisdiction, the claim, and the power of sin.

A second thought, that takes us a little deeper just by way of getting our feet wet back into Romans 6 in terms of what it means to have died to sin. What does Paul mean when he says that in verse 2? Well, we know from what he says later in chapter 6 that he means that our old sinful identity was crucified with Christ. Look what he says in verse 6.

Knowing this, that our old self or our old identity was crucified with him. the idea that, we ought to have in mind is imagine being at the foot of the cross and where Christ is dying, and as you look, initially you look and you see, oh, it looks like Christ is dying there. But if you keep looking more closely, you'll notice that something else is happening. Because when Christ essentially was placed upon the cross, what, what happened was all of our sin clothes were placed upon Him.

He had to wear our sin clothes, all of our sinful attitudes and, and sinful thoughts, sinful deeds, sinful words that we've spoken, all of the good deeds that we did not. Do all of our sins of omission, all of our sin junk and sin stuff was placed upon Him, and then the name tag bearing our name that we were wearing was taken off of us and put onto Him. And He who knew no sin became. in a representative way, there was a becoming on the cross.

And he was crucified. And as we look closely, we observe, not only did Jesus die, not only was he crucified, but all of the sin stuff that was placed upon him, that represents my old identity, that's getting crucified, also. We need to see that it was not just him, but it was us who was crucified there in Him, our old identity was crucified with him. Some people quibble over, what was crucified with Christ, was it our old man, old nature.

Some people tend to almost talk like, there's an old nature, there's some aspect of our being that's an old nature and that specific part of our being somehow mystically got crucified on the cross. I don't know that we even need to go there. I, like I, like I said back in November, I love what John Stott says, when he says what was crucified with Christ was not a part of us called our old nature, but the whole of us as we were in our pre-conversion state. All of that sin that was placed upon Jesus that represented our entire identity outside of Christ.

It was placed upon him and our name tag, as it were, were placed upon Him. And the whole essence of who we were outside of Christ was crucified there with Him. That has very practical ramifications and that leads us to the third thought. When Paul says that we died to sin, he means that we are now freed from our former enslavement to sin.

God's not just playing a word game here. There's something real happened and it has a profound practical, impact upon the way we live our lives. Look at verse 6. Knowing this, that our old self was crucified with him in order that So our, our, our, our old identity gets crucified with Christ in order that here's why God had this happen in order that our body of sin might be done away with.

God wanted to do something with what Paul refers to as our body of sin so that we would no longer be slaves to sin. That means that because our old identity was crucified with Christ, when sin comes to us from the outside, and tries to seduce us and to gain mastery over us, we can look at that sin and say, you're not my master anymore. I am not your slave, and I don't have to do what you're telling me to do, and then walk in freedom. But Paul goes even deeper than that by making reference to our body of sin.

By not just speaking of sin that arises from without and comes at us, but even sin that arises from within. And he refers to our bodies as a body of sin, our physical beings as a body of sin, and in saying that, he's not saying our bodies are a bad thing. What he's saying is that our physical bodies are thoroughly contaminated by sin. These bodies of ours have committed multitudes of sins, right?

Throughout our lives of all shapes and, and varieties, and those sins that we have committed, it's all now in the memory of the physicality of who we are and, and the memory of the members of our, our body, not only the Conscious memory of those things, but, but even just the craving for those things is just have attached themselves to the physical essence of who we are. That's a part of what we would refer to as indwelling sin that a believer has to, to deal with. we know in scripture, right, that though we are saved and redeemed, we're not fully redeemed yet, right?

Like the bodies that we have, are our bodies fully redeemed yet?

yours don't look like it is, and mine doesn't either. these bodies are dying. They're decaying. They're on their way out, hence the need for bifocals and, and other things, and so we have dying bodies, and Paul says in Romans 8, we're waiting for the redemption of our body.

We're waiting for the completion of our redemption, which includes the redemption of our body. Right now our bodies. Dying on their way out, but there will be a day coming when this body may die. But then God will glorify this body and raise it, and we will live forever without the presence of sin.

There will be no sin memory in the physicality of who we are throughout all of eternity. Won't that be a glorious day? John MacArthur says that's probably the number one thing he looks forward to about being in heaven the most is just having a physical being that has no propensity to sin. no sin memory at all, and we all have sin memory in the physicality of who we are, right?

One sister in our church a number of years ago was battling with With, an addiction, bondage to, to smoking, and some people in the church came around her to help her. We're going to pray for you, every day, and, and she just wanted to be free of this, because, following Paul's example of not letting anything have mastery over her. But as she began to walk in freedom from that, months went by and she had not, smoked a cigarette, but when she'd get in her vehicle, Her arm would just instantly go to the glove compartment where the cigarettes used to be.

She just noticed that, just that muscle memory as it were, get in the car, go for the cigarettes.

It was, it was embedded that sin, that bondage was embedded in the physicality of who she was. You have someone that may be addicted and And bound to, to drunkenness, for example, and they get saved. Well, that's, that particular sin is still just interlaced with their physicality, right? And their body doesn't just say, oh, you're saved.

OK, well, let's walk in freedom now. a lot of times our bodies and the sin that has attached itself to our physical beings is resistant and rebellious to a walk of holiness. I just want to encourage you this morning that if you're a born again child of God, and yet there are sinful desires that are inside of you, attached to the physicality of who you are, the presence of those desires does not make you an evil person. And that's not who you are.

When you feel those desires, you need to be able, Paul says that, that being crucified or old identity being crucified with Christ, it doesn't obliterate our body of sin. Look what he says, it's rendered powerless, and write down the reference Hebrews 2:14. where he talks about the devil being rendered powerless, and he uses this same verb. And obviously, we know the devil's still alive, right?

He's still around, he's still kicking, and he's still causing trouble, and trying to exert his power over us. But the writer of Hebrews uses this verb to say, though he's around, though he's alive, his power has been broken in the lives of believers, and he only has power that we choose to give to him. We are no longer his slaves, and his subjects anymore. So even though these sinful desires, the principle of sin operating in the physicality of who we are, may still be there, when those risings of sin occur from within, we can look at those things and say, this is not who I am.

I long for my redemption, the redemption of my body. But in the meantime, this is not who I am. My old identity that used to cave into these desires was crucified with him. You need to believe this and be able to look in the face of any and all sins and say you are not my master.

I am not your slave, and I will walk in freedom because of what Christ has done. So there's actually an interesting, combination of emotions that we experience as believers, we see this even in Romans 5 through 8. In Romans 5, Paul's like, we're justified. We exult, we exult, we exult, right?

So he seems pretty happy, but then in Romans 8, he says, we groan within ourselves, waiting eagerly for the redemption of our body. We exult and we groan, waiting for the completion of that deliverance of our bodies from Dying and decay and from the presence of sin completely. A balanced Christian will not just be a Christian who exalts, he will be a Christian who groans. someone who only exalts and never groans is missing something.

Someone who only groans, and there are Christians who only groan and never rejoice and exult are missing something. Paul rejoiced and groaned. And we see this balance beautifully portrayed here, but our old identity was crucified with Christ in order that something very real and helpful could take place, and that is our body of sin might be rendered powerless so that we would no longer be slaves to sin, for he who has died is freed from sin. Well, I want to give you a forethought, and this takes us into negative terrain in terms of what Paul does not.

mean when he says that we have died to sin. When Paul says that we have died to sin in chapter 6, verse 2. I do, I believe that he is not meaning that true Christians are incapable. Of sin.

Paul is not trying to say you are dead to sin. You are so dead to sin that you're not even capable of sinning, and there actually are people that believe that Paul's affirmation here does mean that true believers, or at least truly sanctified believers, not only do not sin but are incapable of sin. John Stott in his commentary on Romans talks about some teaching that he fell under early in his walk with the Lord. And look at how he describes it.

He says, Soon after my conversion, I was taught the following reconstruction. When we die, our five senses will cease to operate. We will no longer be able to touch, taste, see, smell, or hear. We will lose all ability to feel or to respond to external stimuli.

Just so the argument goes, to die to sin means to become insensitive to it. Having died to sin, we are as unresponsive to temptation as a corpse is to physical stimuli. You ever heard that? And the line of thought goes that if, if, if you see a corpse by the side of the road, you can talk to that corpse, you can shake it, it's not going to respond at all.

You can wave a delicious steak in front of the nose of that corpse and not only will it not respond, but it's not even capable of even thinking about responding. It's utterly. Unresponsive, insensitive to external stimuli, and there are people who take this metaphor of death so far that they reason from it to say that a true believer is as dead to sin as a corpse is to physical stimuli. So a truly sanctified believer not only doesn't sin, but he's not even capable.

of sin. Well, this is a problem and this can create tremendous disillusionment. You can imagine in the lives of, of genuine believers, but nonetheless, there are people out there who, who believe this. Ray Steadman, talked about, I, I read a few weeks ago an encounter that he had with a Christian who believed in this.

He was taking Paul to mean more than what Paul is saying in Romans 6:2, and I, I was just intrigued by the exchange. So I'd like to read it to you. Is that OK? OK, He says here, some years ago I was living in the city of Pasadena and one day went to get a haircut.

I soon found out that the barber was a Christian. As we began to discuss some things, he started to tell me about his Christianity. He told me that 17 years before, he had been sanctified, as he put it, and he was no longer able to sin. For 17 years he had lived without sin, and he made it very clear that he had, done no sin at all.

How would you respond? To a believer who spoke that way. How would you respond to a believer who spoke that way who's cutting your hair? At the time.

well, Ray Steadman decided to engage this, person, and he says this, he says, so I began to discuss this with him, and I brought in certain other passages, and we got into an argument. And the longer we went, the hotter he got, all the while he was cutting my hair. He worked himself into such a lather that I finally said to him, Look, if you can get so upset, so angry when you have no sin in you, what would you be like if you were a sinner like the rest of us? That's actually a brilliant question, but a terrible question to ask someone who's cutting your hair.

in fact, Ray Steadman, here's his last line of this story. It was 2 weeks before I dared to appear in public after that haircut. So be wise how you engage people on This topic, and I don't even know that I want to defend Ray Steadman on this. I don't, I don't know that he handled it in all the proper, ways, either, but at least illustrates the fact that there are people out there that they, they go too far.

They take statements like this to be more than what the Lord intends, and you got to be careful with that. You, well, we're dead to sin, and what is death? I'll study death and whatever death means, that's exactly what it means to be dead to sin. So you have a corpse, unresponsive, so I must, there must be just I must be totally insensitive to sin and temptation may come and if I'm a true believer, I won't even feel the slightest response inside of me.

No battle, corpses don't battle to not respond to physical stimuli. That's actually dangerous. And we have statements in scripture that, that are similar. Jesus says you must become like a little child.

Oh, OK, I'll study little children, and whatever I see in them, I will become exactly like that. Well, we all know Jesus meant something by that. He's not saying become like a little child in every way, but become like a little child and being dependent and humble upon your Heavenly Father. But Jesus would say there's other things you'll observe in little children that You probably don't want to imitate, and that's not my point.

But you see how someone could take, become like a little child and forget everything else and just reason from that to take Jesus to mean more than what he's saying. That's what some people do with statements like this in Romans 6:2. I hardly need to belabor this, with you guys, but let, let me just give you a few references that would, I think easily lay aside this notion. Are Christians capable of sin?

We would have to say from the teaching of the New Testament, yes, they are capable of sinning. we have this confession from James. he says, we all stumble in many ways. He's saying we, including himself, he's a leader in the church, and he says, I include myself, we stumble in many ways, and he's not just content to say we stumble.

He says, we all stumble. So every single believer should be able to join James in confessing the fact that even as believers, we stumble. And he doesn't just say we all stumble, but he says we all stumble in many ways. There's a whole variety of ways that we as Christians find ourselves stumbling.

Now, in saying this, I've heard people explain this verse in a way that's depressing. Like, yeah, even though you're a Christian, and even though technically you're free from sin, you're going to be continuously stumbling in many ways, and that's going to characterize your life. We don't need to go there. But James is acknowledging, if you're a believer, and you're really honest with yourself, you'll acknowledge the fact that we stumble.

I include myself in this, we, we stumble, we stumble in many ways. So clearly believers, do stumble and sin. In First John 2:1, John is speaking to believers. He says, if anyone sins, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ, the righteous.

In fact, let me have you real quick go to First John. It's right near the end of the Bible. First John Jude, Revelation. But look at First John 1:8.

John says, if we, and he includes himself as an apostle, as a Christian in this, if we are saying that we are having no sin, We are deceiving ourselves and the truth is not in us. One of the indications that the truth is really in a person is that they acknowledge that they are having sinned. They're having to deal with sin from without and from within. And John gives this comforting assurance.

In verse 1 of chapter 2, I'm writing these things so that you may not sin, and if anyone does sin, I want you to know that we have an advocate with the Father Jesus Christ, the righteous. He doesn't say if anyone sins, then you need to realize that you're not a true believer. No, if you sin, I want you to know you have an advocate. Take comfort in that.

Run to that advocate and rejoice in Him. In Galatians 2, we have an example of an actual apostle, the apostle Peter, who clearly sinned. No one would disagree with this. Paul talks about how he rebuked Peter to his face because Peter had given way to the fear of man and was behaving wrongly as he was pulling away from fellowship with Gentile believers when some, Jews came down from Jerusalem and Paul says, I opposed him to his face because he, Peter, stood condemned.

He was fearing the party of the circumcision, so there's a fear of man. That's a sin. Paul uses the word hypocrisy twice in verse 13, speaking of Peter's sin and the sin of those that were following his example, and he says that Peter and those following him were not walking straightforward about the truth of the gospel. There's no other way to look at this and this is sin.

Peter stood condemned. He was fearing, he was behaving as a hypocrite and was not walking straight with regard to the gospel, and Paul had to confront him and rebuke him for that. So, there's so many other things we could look at to affirm this, but that's why my fourth thought is that in saying that we're dead to sin, Paul is not intending to say that. That we as believers are incapable of sin.

There's a 5th and final thought that I want to look at this morning in terms of what Paul is intending to say when he says that we are dead to sin, and that is this When Paul says we're dead to sin, he does not mean that sin has died in us. He is not meaning to say that sin has died in us, and you have to be careful, or in one way or another you might end up actually trying to say that when that's not what Paul is trying to say here. One commentator says this, this text does not say that sin dies in the believer.

Sin continues in force in its attempt to dominate the life and conduct of the believer.

Notice verse 2 may it never be, How shall we who died to sin? We are Ones who have died, and we died to sin, nowhere does Paul affirm that sin has died to us. When we believe in Jesus, sin doesn't just die, roll over and die or say, Well, I guess I lost you and you're free to go. The sin do that in our lives?

No, sin remains very much alive. It's not our master anymore, but it remains very much alive. And we'll seek to assert its mastery. over us.

there are a number of Christians that would, that believe that when the person believes in Jesus, that sin essentially, and they'll say it in different ways, but they'll, they, they assert that sin dies in the believer, that there is no ongoing presence of sin in the life or the being of a believer. let me just give you a few passages to ponder regarding this. I'm gonna use Romans 7. I'm reluctant to, but we'll at least start here, because I know there's debate over in the second half of Romans 7, as Paul describing himself as a believer or as a nonbeliever.

And we'll share this tentatively, but when we get to Romans 7, we'll get this all studied out and try to provide some direction on it. But when at this point when I read the second half of Romans 7, I see Paul describing himself. He uses the present tense and look at how he describes himself. He's someone who hates sin.

Does that sound like a nonbeliever? He's someone who does not want to sin, verse 20. He's someone who actually wants to do good, verse 21. And he's someone verse 22 who joyfully agrees with the law of God.

In his inner man, and he's someone in verse 25 who with my mind I serve the law of God in the sense of obeying the law of God. Just some of the language that Paul uses here, one in my mind is hard pressed to take his language here and say this is Paul describing himself before he was saved. But nonetheless, though here is someone Paul, who hates sin, doesn't want to sin, wants to do good, joyfully agrees with the law of God, and his inner man, desires to serve that, yet look at the other acknowledgments he makes, verse 17, sin dwells in me.

Verse 20, sin dwells in me.

Verse 21, I find in the principle that evil is present in me, the one who wants to do good. Verse 22, I joyfully concur with the law of God and the inner man, but I see a different law in the members of my body waging war against the law of my mind. Paul's like, I, I want to do good. I want to do right.

I hate sin. And yet there's this principle, there's this rebel element that I find inside of me that wants the opposite of that. Now you may say, well, all right, but that's Romans 7, We're going to disallow that because, I think that Paul is describing himself as a nonbeliever. OK, some other passages maybe to think about would be like 1 Corinthians 9:27, where Paul says, I am buffeting like a boxer, my body and bringing it into subjection.

Charles Rre says that in this particular verse, Paul is viewing his body or something affiliated with his body as an opponent. In other words, there's something in Paul inside of him that's affiliated with the physical essence of who he is that Paul sees as an opponent to his desire to be holy, and so he uses very strong language, probably stronger language than most of us would be comfortable using. and living out his Christian life, one of the things that Paul found himself doing is I buff it like a boxer, my body and bring it into subjection.

The very least we could affirm from that is that there was something in Paul affiliated with his unredeemed body, which persistently opposed holiness of life.

And Paul indicates here that he had to battle against this rebel part of himself. Paul is being honest. There's a rebel part of me. In my as yet unredeemed body, that's part of why I groan, longing for the redemption, the deliverance.

Of my body into a glorified state. In Galatians 5, Paul is talking to believers and listen to what he says, walk by the Spirit, and you will not carry out the desire of the flesh. Man, is, there's the flesh and spirit. As long as you're walking by the Spirit, you will never at the same time carry out the desire of the flesh.

He says in verse 17 to Christians, I want you to understand this, believers, for the flesh sets its desire against the spirit and the spirit against the flesh, for these are in opposition to one another, so that you may not do the things that you please. What he's saying is, in your life as a believer, there is a conflict that you're going to be able to observe and be a participant in the Spirit is warring against the flesh, and the flesh is warring against the Spirit to such a degree that you believers, Paul says, may not do the things that you please.

You say, well, what does that mean? You may not do the things that you please.

I think what Paul is saying here is this, that this side of glory, you will always be conflicted. You'll always be conflicted. the flesh and spirit are warring against one another. If you say, I'm going to fulfill the desires of the spirit, your flesh will be unhappy and go kicking and screaming, right?

But if you say, no, I'm gonna, I'm going to go with the flesh on this one, then the spirit, Ephesians 4:30 will be grieved, and you will feel something of that grief. This sight of glory. it's almost like he's saying your entire being. will never be 100% happy with any choice you make, whether it be right or wrong, because there's a conflict that rages in the life of the believer.

Also, if it is true that the Bible teaches that sin dies in the believer. As an indwelling principle that's operating. If that is killed, we would be hard pressed to understand Paul's language in Romans 8 and Colossians 3. In Romans 8:13, Paul says, if through the Spirit, you are mortifying the deeds of the body, you shall live.

That word mortify means to kill. So Paul is saying the Christian life, one of the ways of characterizing that there's other ways, but one of the things that a believer does as he walks in life is he mortifies the sinful deeds of the body. Colossians 3:5, Paul literally says, put to death, and this is the word, to kill, to render dead, to rob of life, put to death. Therefore, what is earthly in you?

What are those earthly things in us? Sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry. Paul is saying, listen, you got to be honest with yourself. There, there is something in you that is of the earth.

And it can be described as sexual immorality or the desire for that, impurity or the desire for that passion, which speaks of sensual desires that are sinful, evil desire that speaks of desires that are evil. That came after much study, and covetousness, which speaks of strong desires for things that are not rightfully yours. So here's believers who have these sensual desires, evil desires, cravings for things that are not rightfully theirs, including cravings for immorality and impurity.

And Paul says, as a believer, put to death those things in you.

Now you may say, well, hey, in my new American Standard. It says, let me find it here. Talk amongst yourselves. Colossians 3:5, it says, therefore consider the members of your earthly body as dead.

You say, well, it says in the New American Standard consider, meaning it is dead and you just need to reckon it dead. Honestly, I don't have a clue why the New American Standard translators put the word consider in there. Search out any other translation you can get a hold of. This is the only translation that puts the word consider in there.

It's not in the Greek text. It's just the word for kill, all right, to render dead. And so whatever translation you have probably says mortify, put to death, or even some of them say kill, meaning there's something alive in you that is of the earth that is sinful, and you need to be putting that to death, mortifying that. You say, well, how do I put to death those things?

I would love to kill those things. Give me a sword that in one fell swoop, I can kill that and be done with it. No, I think the way that we put those things to death and mortify them. is simply by walking in the spirit, not by obsessing on them.

I'm going to study sexual immorality and, and, and I'm going to be obsessing on it every day and just fighting against this specific sin, and I'll try to mortify it. That's not how you mortify it. You mortify it by walking away from it, and walking in the spirit and staring at Jesus and living and breathing the atmosphere of the gospel and walking in the freedom that God has given to you. If you do that, you will find that these things in you are becoming increasingly mortified, but what often happens is we might feed those things, we give in to those things inside of us and say, Well, I guess this is who I am, and we give in to those things, and as we give into them, we're feeding those things.

We're doing the opposite of mortifying them. We're strengthening them. They're becoming more and more powerful until they take over. But instead turn away from them.

And walk in the spirit, walk in righteousness, and you will have a progressively mortifying effect upon these. evils that are in you. Guys, I'm, I'm just sharing this with you because if you are a believer and you've got sinful desires in you, just please don't, don't be frustrated and discouraged by that. I have people come up to me and they've got, they've got sinful desires and they're just so ashamed even of the desires that they have, the impurity that somehow has affiliated.

itself in the memory of the physicality of who they are, and they hate those things. And it's so easy when the risings of sin emerge from within for them to just say, I guess that's who I am. And, and they give into those things. But guys, you got to be able to look at those things, even sin when it rises from within, and say, this is not who I am, and you're not my master, Jesus is, and walk in freedom.

And it's a learned thing over time, and we all stumble in many ways, but God wants you to walk the path of freedom. Man, I know what some of you are thinking when I say that sin is dead. that it would be misunderstanding, Paul, to say that sin is dead in us. Some of you are thinking of Galatians 5:24, right?

Where Paul says, and those who belong to Christ have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. And you say, well, this is the heiress tense which denotes past tense and so those that belong to Jesus at some past point, probably a conversion, a crucifixion occurred and the flesh got crucified, it's passions and desires got crucified and when something's crucified, it's dead, and if it's dead, it's gone. We don't have to deal with it anymore and so for a believer, there's no ongoing presence of flesh, sinful desires that they have to deal with from within.

Well, a couple things real quick.

When you see a passage like this, read your Bible carefully and realize, and many writers will tell you this, don't equate this crucifixion with Romans 6:6 or Galatians 2:20. In those other two passages, we were crucified and it's passive in this. We are the ones who do the crucifying. In Galatians 5, those who belong to Christ are the ones that are doing the crucifying.

The subject is us. And we do the crucifying of the flesh with its passions and desires. You say, OK, that's helpful, but, nonetheless, this is heirist and so it denotes past, so it's something that's already happened. So how can you say we still have a flesh that's operating with passions and desires when it says clearly here that those who belong to Christ have already crucified that and if it's crucified, it's dead.

Well, let me say a word about the heist tense. We have to be careful when we look at something like this to not impose our English-speaking mindset upon this. The heist tense is simply the most general of the tenses that we find in the Greek language. The heist tense was used often to just express something that was self-evidently true, and it had no connection to past, present, or future.

it was used to denote something that simply happens, period. It happens without any connection to past, present, or future, something that is happening or even something that should happening without regard to tense in the English understanding of the word tense. Look at some examples of this use of the. First Peter 1:24.

The grass withers, the flower falls off. Both of those verbs are heirist. Now, as Peter trying to say, I want you to know that at some point in the past, grass withered. And a flower fell off.

No, he's just saying it happens, and he uses the heires. We all know this is self-evidently true. Grass withers, and flowers fall off, past, present, future, it happens. John 15:8, and this my Father is glorified, heir is tense.

And he's not saying my father was glorified in this my Father is glorified that you bear much fruit and so proved to be my disciples. And he just says it happens. He's glorified and he uses the heiress, even though clearly this would involve not only past but also present and even future as they bore fruit. Philippians 2:28, Paul's writing to the Philippians a letter and he says, I'm sending him Epaphroditus, that's Eris.

he hasn't even really sent him yet, but he's gonna send him with the letter and he says, I'm sending him. It's happening, and he uses the Eris. And then lastly, Matthew 3:17, where God looks at his son and says, this is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased, and that verb, am well pleased is heiress. And God is clearly not saying this is my beloved Son, in whom I was well pleased.

No. I'm well pleased it's happened. I'm well pleased, and there's no notion of a strict tense orientation here. And so just understand that the heist is often used to just express something that's self-evidently true, and we don't want to get locked into, oh, it's erist, so it must be past, tense.

In fact, let me suggest a translation of this. based on what I'm saying, Paul, and look at the context, Galatians 5:22, the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control against such there is no law. And by the way, let me tell you one other fruit of the Spirit, as it were, in the lives of believers, those who belong to Christ, here's something self-evidently true. It's axiomatic of those who belong to Jesus, they crucify the flesh.

Not, saying they have crucified, although there probably is a past element there that's involved, but it's not limited to that. People who belong to Jesus crucify the flesh. With his passions and desires. Paul's language there is beautifully consistent with what we saw him saying in Romans 8:13.

If through the Spirit you mortify the deeds of the body, you'll live. Colossians 3:5, put to death, therefore, what is earthly in you, sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry. So I wanted to take time with this this morning to not only review so we're back up to speed on what Paul is meaning when he affirms that we're dead to sin. But I felt like it's appropriate to caution ourselves about what Paul does not mean.

because of the dangers that can befall us if we're not careful. When I was about 19, I got under teaching where I took Paul to mean more than what he's saying here, and it brought, after 3 months of a spiritual high like I had never known before, I found myself in a tremendous place of condemnation, defeat, and despair. And I'm trying to protect you guys from getting to that place, and an important part of preventing yourself from getting to that place is to understand what Paul is saying here and also understanding what he's not saying and keeping your thoughts and your beliefs tethered strictly to the text of the Bible and letting it just speak for itself.

Let me ask you to bow your heads this morning.

we're real late on the time, so we're going to skip the closer, and I apologize for that. But we'll take up our offering while Carlos is doing the announcements. And I'm going to pray in just a moment, but, Let's just recommit ourselves to Having hearts that are wide open to God and to His word, and just letting the fullness of the gospel come into our understanding and begin to bleed into our practice. Let's pray and ask God for that.

And I also want to let we're going to take up an offering in just a moment. Just give as the Lord leads you to give. Let's pray together. Lord, if there's any here today that have never just wrapped their hearts around the truth of your grace, we ask that you would just touch their hearts, even where they're seated, that they would see their bankruptcy and see your fullness, the fullness of your heart, your generosity towards them through Christ, and that they would receive this forgiveness and salvation.

For those of us that are believers, Lord, all of us fall short and really believing the fullness of this as we should take us deeper, open our hearts, open our eyes wider than ever. That we might become deeper believers of these things. And at the same time be careful in our interpretation of scripture to To believe what you say, no less than what you say and no more than what you say. We thank you also for the opportunity to give of these offerings to you, Lord, receive.

This offering As a manifestation of our love and gratitude to you, and we ask that you would do much with every penny that's given for the spread of the glory. The fame of Jesus Christ and this message of the gospel that we hold so dear. At the same time, we give ourselves to you in the name of Jesus. And all God's people said,