Death Has Lost Its Grip On Me

5 For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his. 6 We know that our old self was crucified with him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing, so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin. 7 For one who has died has been set free from sin. 8 Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. 9 We know that Christ, being raised from the dead, will never die again; death no longer has dominion over him. 10 For the death he died he died to sin, once for all, but the life he lives he lives to God. 11 So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus. – Romans 6:5-11 ESV

For Paul, the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus were more than historical events; they were the key to his salvation, sanctification, and ultimate glorification. As he stated in Chapter 1, “I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes” (Romans 1:16 ESV).

The gospel, God's abounding grace as revealed through the sacrificial death of His own Son, had not only justified Paul in God's eyes but also given him the power to say no to the old sin nature that waged war against the Spirit of God within him. Paul knew that, for believers, “our old sinful selves were crucified with Christ so that sin might lose its power in our lives” (Romans 6:6 NLT).

Paul stresses that, in placing our faith in Christ's substitutionary death on our behalf,  we are united with Him “in a death like his.” And, if that is true, then we are also “united with Him in a resurrection like his” (Romans 6:5 ESV). From God's perspective, we died alongside Christ. Not only that, we were raised with Christ, to “walk in newness of life” (Romans 6:5 ESV). His death put an end to sin's vice-like grip over us. No longer do we live as slaves to sin, unable to resist its influence in our lives. Because we died with Christ, sin's claim on our lives has been broken. We have been ransomed out of slavery and freed to live in the newness of who we are as children of God.

Paul brings up the logical conclusion that anyone who dies is immediately freed from the power of sin. Death eliminates their ability to sin because it brings an end to life. Dead people don't sin because they lack the power to do so. That is why he states, “We know that our old sinful selves were crucified with Christ so that sin might lose its power in our lives. We are no longer slaves to sin.” (Romans 6:6 NLT).

As Christ hung on the cross, He bore the penalty and spiritual weight of our sins. And He died a gruesome, painful death. When He was placed in a borrowed tomb, He was lifeless, limp, and powerless; death had been victorious over Him. But then, three days later, something remarkable happened. Through the power of the Holy Spirit, Jesus was brought back to life, but He was not just resuscitated; He was resurrected to new life with a new body. Yes, the nail prints in His hands and the wound in His side remained, and He was still recognizable to the disciples, but He was also different.

In His resurrected form, Jesus was no longer susceptible to pain and death. He had the capacity to move about freely, unencumbered by the physical constraints of the normal human body. He had conquered death and, in doing so, made it possible for those who believe in Him to also undergo a spiritual resurrection to new life. As Paul puts it, “so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin. For one who has died has been set free from sin” (Romans 6:6-7 ESV).

In his letter to the church in Colossae, Paul encouraged them to focus their attention on the reality of Jesus’ resurrection and its implications for their earthly existence.

Since you have been raised to new life with Christ, set your sights on the realities of heaven, where Christ sits in the place of honor at God’s right hand. Think about the things of heaven, not the things of earth. For you died to this life, and your real life is hidden with Christ in God. – Colossians 3:1-3 NLT

He went on to tell them, “put to death the sinful, earthly things lurking within you” (Colossians 3:5 NLT). This new life in Christ is not without its struggles. We still have our old, sinful natures lurking within us. We still have the capacity to sin. But Paul's point is that we are no longer enslaved to sin; we have a choice. The key is to remember the reality of our new life in Christ. Paul put it this way to the church in Galatia:

My old self has been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me. So I live in this earthly body by trusting in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. – Galatians 2:20 NLT

It is a matter of faith, not human effort. In my flesh, I lack the power to conquer my old sin nature. I can no more sanctify myself than I could have saved myself. Martin Luther described it this way: “Our spiritual life is a matter not of experience, but of faith. No one knows or experiences the fact that he lives spiritually or is justified, but he believes and hopes in this. We live unto God, that is, in our spiritual and new life to eternity” (Martin Luther, Commentary on Romans).

Paul's main point in this section seems to be that our new life, made possible by Christ's resurrection, is to be lived for God. We are to “think about the things of heaven, not the things of earth” (Colossians 3:2 NLT). As Paul stated, each believer is to “put to death the sinful, earthly things lurking within you.” He tells us to “put on your new nature, and be renewed as you learn to know your Creator and become like him” (Galatians 3:10 NLT).

Our new life in Christ requires constant vigilance, including putting off the old self and putting on the new. We are to pursue righteousness and flee from sin. We are to constantly consider ourselves dead to sin and alive to God. We belong to Him, and we exist for His glory.

We are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them. – Ephesians 2:10 NLT

In Christ alone! – who took on flesh,
Fullness of God in helpless babe.
This gift of love and righteousness,
Scorned by the ones He came to save:
Till on that cross as Jesus died,
The wrath of God was satisfied –
For every sin on Him was laid;
Here in the death of Christ I live.

There in the ground His body lay,
Light of the world by darkness slain:
Then bursting forth in glorious day
Up from the grave He rose again!
And as He stands in victory
Sin’s curse has lost its grip on me,
For I am His and He is mine –
Bought with the precious blood of Christ.

Stuart Townsend & Keith Getty Copyright © 2001 Thankyou Music

Father, Your Son’s death, burial, and resurrection accomplished it all. He did what none of us could do. He lived a sinless life and was able to serve as the unblemished sacrifice for the sins of mankind. He paid the debt we owed and satisfied Your just judgment against our rebellion against You. Before Jesus took on human flesh and died on behalf of sinful humanity, sin ruled and reigned. Men and women were doomed to live enslaved to sin and condemned to eternal separation from You. But You changed all that when You sent Your Son to conquer sin and death on the cross. Now, we are free to live in obedience to Your will and fully capable of exhibiting the fruit of righteousness through the power of the indwelling Holy Spirit. Sin has lost its grips on us. It no longer controls and condemns us because we have been set free by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone, and we are eternally grateful. Amen

English Standard Version (ESV) The Holy Bible, English Standard Version. ESV® Permanent Text Edition® (2016). Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.

New Living Translation (NLT) Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.22

The Promise & The Law.

Galatians 3:15-22

Why then was the law given? It was given alongside the promise to show people their sins. – Galatians 3:19 NLT

From the very beginning, God had intended for man to be made right with Him through single individual who would somehow satisfy His just and holy demands. God had made a promise to Abraham that all the nations of the earth would be blessed through him. He had promised Abraham that his "seed" – singular – referring to a single individual, would be the source of this blessing. From the family tree of Abraham would come the Messiah, Jesus Christ, who would bless the nations with His provision of salvation through faith in His sacrificial death on the cross. Paul makes it clear that this promise of the coming Messiah was given 430 years before the law was given at Mount Sinai. And the law did not replace the promise. "The agreement God made with Abraham could not be canceled 430 years later when God gave the law to Moses. God would be breaking his promise" (Galatians 3:17 NLT). In other words, God would be changing the rules in mid-stream. Rather than God making a promise or covenant that was unilateral and unconditional, He would be placing impossible conditions on our ultimate salvation. But the covenant God made with Abraham did not include conditions. It was not dependent on Abraham's actions or behavior. It was purely based on the faithfulness of God. So then why did God bother to give Moses and the people of Israel the law? Paul has made it clear that the law was never intended to save mankind, so what was its purpose? Again, Paul tells us, "It was given alongside the promise to show people their sins" (Galatians 3:19 NLT). He clarifies this thought in his letter to the Romans. "…it as the law that showed me my sin. I would never have known that coveting is wrong if the law had not said, ‘You must not covet.’ But sin used this command to arouse all kinds of coveting desires within me! If there were no law, sin would not have that power" (Romans 7:7-8 NLT). The law was given to make it clear what God's holy and righteous requirements were. The law put in writing what God's expectations of man were. And by revealing His expectations, it also revealed man's limitations. It showed man just how impossible it was to live up to God's standard. When men tried to obey the law, it actually resulted in more sin, rather than less. Knowledge of God's demands revealed an inherent desire to break those demands. Our own sin natures rebelled against God's law.

Basically, the law was intended to show us our desperate need for a Savior. Trying to obey the law showed men that they were incapable of saving themselves. The couldn't live up to God's standard, so God provided another way. He sent His own Son to live as a man and do what no other man had ever done: keep the law to perfection. Jesus became the fulfillment of the law. He was completely obedient to the law, resulting in a sinless, spotless life. He kept the law. He met the standard. He fulfilled the requirement. And therefore, satisfied the just and righteous demands of God. So Paul asks, "Is there a conflict, then, between God's law and God's promises? Absolutely not! If the law could give us new life, we could be made right with God by obeying it. But the Scriptures declare that we are all prisoners of sin, so we receive God's promise of freedom only by believing in Jesus Christ" (Galatians 3:21-22 NLT). For Paul, it always goes back to this one thought, this one truth. Man can't save himself. Man can't live the kind of life God requires on his own. He needs a Savior. The law shows us our desperate need for a Savior. "For everyone has sinned; we all fall short of God's glorious standard. Yet God, with undeserved kindness, declares that we are righteous. He did this through Christ Jesus when he freed us from the penalty of our sins. For God presented Jesus as the sacrifice for sin. People are made right with God when they believe that Jesus sacrificed his life, shedding his blood" (Romans 3:23-25 NLT). God gave the promise before He gave the law. And God will fulfill the promise because His son fulfilled the law. We have nothing to add except our faith.

Father, I have no problem admitting or acknowledging my sinfulness. It is painfully clear to me. You have shown me my sin, but You have also revealed to me the solution. And it has nothing to do with my effort to stop sinning. It is solely based on the sacrificial death of Your Son in my place. You promised to bless all mankind and You have. You have provided a way to be made right with You and it has nothing to do with my ability to earn or deserve Your favor. It is all because of what Jesus Christ has done on my behalf. Thank You! Amen.