Dead to Sin

Have you ever struggled with a problem or a sin for a long time...years?

We all have, but this may be because we have believed a set of lies and as a result have come to believe it is something that will always be, or perhaps we are enjoying our sin too much to do anything about it. In the quest to understand one’s personal relationship with sin, it was this discovery that led to a major change in thinking and ultimately in action.

What does this mean for me?

What should one be expecting? By studying this phenomenon, one can begin to understand it in a different light “something amazing can happen.”

Dead to sin, what does it mean?

When this idea is discussed by Paul it has a different meaning than most of us would think. Death is a requirement for being able to live life. When God stated that the day you sin you will surely die, it was the truth. The penalty for sin is death. There is no means of escape from this reality.

In order to avoid the ultimate death, we must die. The problem is that once you die, it is too late to avoid the ultimate death (spiritual – eternal separation from God). God, being clever as He is, came up with a brilliant solution. Through Jesus Christ by faith, one can now die. When one accepts Christ’s death on his behalf, then God states that the individual no longer must die because he has already died to sin. We are dead to sin. 

This means that one now has the right of passage from the ultimate death to the ultimate life. Death by faith, i.e. in Christ’s death gives us the right to now be transported from the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of light. Death is the means by which this takes place.

What dead to sin does not mean is that the evil desires one has do not automatically die, or that God removes these evil desires this side of one’s physical death.

The implication is this. Because I am living in a different kingdom, I am now expected to live a different way...change the way that I live. This is my responsibility and not God’s. I can no longer live according to my old sinful desires or ways. So what if I have these sinful desires, I am responsible to say “no” to them every time. There is good reason as to why Paul wrote to the different churches explaining to these new Christians that who are now dead to sin should no longer live to evil desires of the flesh. Paul made it very clear as to what he meant as he would actually give lists of what to stop and what to do. It was a putting off and a putting on.

If these new believers were truly dead to sin, then why would Paul have to tell them to stop their sinful behavior? Paul is explaining in Romans and Galatians the positional and legal aspect that we now have in Christ. In Christ by faith we died to sin. Sin was the master, that element of bondage, of which one could never be freed of, as long as one lives. This death is necessary in order to live again.

The Lie:

How is this phrase, “dead to sin” often understood by most believers? All too often the individual waits for God to perform some sort of magical work by changing one’s evil desires or take them Away.

The thinking goes something like this. ‘Since I am “dead to sin”, I should no longer have these evil desires. Since I still have these evil desires there must be something wrong with me, or could it mean that God is not doing His job. I begin to think it must be only a matter of time until they go away. In the meantime I will “mange” them as best as I feel I can until God takes them away.

This means however, that God now has some responsibility for one’s sinful state. This way of

thinking means ultimately that one is not accepting 100% responsibility for sins. (As soon as God removes the evil desires, then no longer will there be a struggle with these sins.)