What does it mean to be dead in Christ

One of my favorite scriptures is Galatians 2:20  I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me. 

Before Christ was risen from the dead, death rained from Adam until that time.  Death was brought on by the sin of Adam, and passed down to all who came after Adam.  No one could escape it.  Even though we were alive in our bodies, we were nothing more than the walking dead.  We had lost fellowship with God our creator, and sin now controlled us.  Paul tell us in Romans 1-4  1) Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ, called to be an apostle, separated unto the gospel of God, 2) (Which he had promised afore by his prophets in the holy scriptures,) 3) Concerning his Son Jesus Christ our Lord, which was made of the seed of David according to the flesh; 4) And declared to be the Son of God with power, according to the spirit of holiness, by the resurrection from the dead: 

According to verse 4 Christ obtained the full title of being the Son of God with power, when he was resurrected from the dead.  And how was he resurrected from the dead?  He was born of a virgin, and his father was God the father, so Christ had no sin in his veins.  He never gave in to the temptations of Satan, and lived a holy and sinless life.  Therefore, when he was crucified, the Holy Spirit of God was able to raise him up from the dead.  The very same Holy Spirit that now dwells in all those who call themselves part of Christ’s Body.

Ephesians 1: 19 – 2:1  19) And what is the exceeding greatness of his power to us-ward who believe, according to the working of his mighty power, 20) Which he wrought in Christ, when he raised him from the dead, and set him at his own right hand in the heavenly places, 21) Far above all principality, and power, and might, and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this world, but also in that which is to come: 22) And hath put all things under his feet, and gave him to be the head over all things to the church, 23) Which is his body, the fullness of him that filleth all in all.  2:1 And you hath he quickened (made alive), who were dead in trespasses and sins;

Paul makes it plain, that it’s not through any works we do that we can attain this great salvation, but through our simply believing in him.  Christ did all the works for us, when he fulfilled the law and died upon the cross.  All we have to do is believe and God will send us the Holy Spirit that raised Christ from the dead.  That Holy Spirit of God will be our law, and teach us to walk accordingly through wisdom obtain from the word.

Romans 8: 10 – 11  10)  And if Christ be in you, the body is dead because of sin; but the Spirit is life because of righteousness. 11) But if the Spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, he that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken (make alive) your mortal bodies by his Spirit that dwelleth in you.  When we believe in Jesus Christ, God imparts Christ righteousness on us.  So now, we too can boldly proclaim:  I am crucified with Christ, never the less I live, yet not I, but Christ that dwelleth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.

Love is the fulfilling of the law

Romans 13:9-14  9) For this, Thou shalt not commit adultery, Thou shalt not kill, Thou shalt not steal, Thou shalt not bear false witness, Thou shalt not covet; and if there be any other commandment, it is briefly comprehended in this saying, namely, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. 10) Love worketh no ill to his neighbour: therefore love is the fulfilling of the law. 11) And that, knowing the time, that now it is high time to awake out of sleep: for now is our salvation nearer than when we believed. 12) The night is far spent, the day is at hand: let us therefore cast off the works of darkness, and let us put on the armour of light. 13) Let us walk honestly (properly), as in the day; not in rioting (revelry) and drunkenness, not in chambering and wantonness, not in strife and envying. 14) But put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make not provision for the flesh, to fulfil the lusts thereof.

Almost all of the things I write and put into this blog, are not things God has given me to pass on to you to correct you for errors in Christian living, but these are things God has given me during my walk with Christ to help fix me.  They ended up (howbeit it took a while) being a great benefit to me, and helped me to turn around and get my Christian walk back on track.  I only hope, that passing this info along may be a help to other also.

I was one of those Christians that loved to worship on Sunday, but considered the rest of the week was mine, to go out and live in sin (even thou I would justify it in my head as not being sin).  Surely God wouldn’t hold me accountable, because deep inside I felt I loved him.  I do know a lot of others who call themselves Christians, but live like the devil.  I can’t say whether or not God will save them or not.  I know when I read the letters of Paul, I come across lists of sins (some of which I was doing, if not fiscally, I was doing in my heart) and after Paul list them, he says those who do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God.  Funny thing was, nowhere could I find a verse that gave me permission to do any of those things I was guilty of doing.  Fortunately for me, I have a Godly wife, that doesn’t mind at all straightening me out, when I get off track and the Holy Spirit of course. 

Understanding Romans 7 part III

Before I start going over the remainder of Romans chapter 7, let’s look at another scripture that will explain this a lot better than I can.

Galatians 5:17  For the flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh: and these are contrary the one to the other: so that ye cannot do the things that ye would.

The rest of Romans 7 deals with the war that goes on between the godly side of man and the sinful side of man.  It’s like the old cartoon that showed an angel on one shoulder and a devil on the other: each one trying to convince you to follow their advice.  The sinful nature we are all born with will always try and get us to follow our desires.  This battle rages on in the life of every Christian believer, and usually the side that gets fed the most, is the strongest and the one that will win out. 

Let’s say you have a problem with pornography.  You’re alone at home and turn on the TV, and you immediately feel a desire to find a channel that shows things you know you shouldn’t watch.  The battle is on.  Your inward sinful nature doesn’t want you to turn to a Christian station, because it knows that will kill your desire. Your godly spirit wants you to feed it with good teaching or worship that will drive out any bad desire your feeling.  It doesn’t matter if your weakness is pornography, adultery, fornication, lying, stealing, coveting or whatever.  The battle is the same.  The sinful nature loves the darkness, and light always drives out dark. 

Romans 7: 14-20  14) For we know that the law is spiritual: but I am carnal (fleshly), sold under sin. 15) For that which I do I allow not: for what I would, that do I not; but what I hate, that do I. 16) If then I do that which I would not, I consent unto the law that it is good. 17) Now then it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me. 18) For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh,) dwelleth no good thing: for to will is present with me; but how to perform that which is good I find not. 19) For the good that I would I do not: but the evil which I would not, that I do.  20) Now if I do that I would not, it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me.

In the next few verses, Paul mentions the word “law” and “law of sin”.  These terms for law do not represent the Ten Commandments or the Jewish law.  A better term for law here would be to insert “a fact of life.”    As in verse 21 Paul states “I find then a law, that, when I would do good, evil is present with me.”  He is actually stating, “I find it a fact of life that, when I would do good, evil is present with me.”    Consider this when reading the remaining few verses.

Romans 7: 21-25  21) I find then a law, that, when I would do good, evil is present with me. 22) For I delight in the law of God after the inward man: 23) But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members. 24) O wretched man that I am! Who shall deliver me from the body of this death? 25) I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord.  So then with the mind I myself serve the law of God; but with the flesh the law of sin.

Verse 24 makes it clear, that without the work of the cross, there would be no salvation attainable for us. Verse 25 leads us into chapter 8 which will bring out the Holy Spirit. In ourselves, there would be no hope of salvation, but by allowing the Holy Spirit to rule over us, salvation is our gift from God. Through the Holy Spirit, we can overcome our sinful desires and not give in to them or let those desires rule over us.

For a more complete and detailed study of Romans 7, or the entire book of Romans, please click on the Les Feldick link on the left side of my blog home page.

Understanding Romans 7 part II

In verses 8 through 13 the apostle Paul talks about the law.  This section sounds very confusing when you just read through it.  In one sentence Paul mentions how holy and good the law is, and in the next sentence he mentions how the law is a death sentence, and condemns.   In order to break this section of Romans 7 down, we need to take a good look at the apostle Paul himself.

Before his conversion on the road to Damascus, Paul was a devout religious Jew.  He followed the law to the letter, and excelled in his religion far above his peers.  But on the flip side of this, he went around persecuting his fellow Jews who accepted the fact that Jesus was their Messiah.  In Paul’s mind, he was following the law by capturing, torturing, and putting to death, the followers of Jesus. He was convinced he was keeping the law of God, by doing this.  So the question becomes, was Paul correct by doing this, or was he actually going against the law of God?  Since it was Jesus who gave the law to Moses, it becomes clear that the law Paul thought he was upholding, was actually the law that was going to condemn him and put him to death for what he was doing. 

It was not the fault of the law, the law as given by Christ was good and holy and for the good of all mankind.  It was Paul himself that got off track, through his religion he let sin come in and take control of him, and he lost sight of the true law, and he was destroying himself in the process.

Romans 7: 8-13  8) But sin, taking occasion by the commandment, wrought in me all manner of concupiscence (immoral thinking). For without the law sin was dead. 9) For I was alive without the law once: but when the commandment came, sin revived, and I died. 10) And the commandment, which was ordained to life, I found to be unto death. 11) For sin, taking occasion by the commandment, deceived me, and by it slew me. 12) Wherefore the law is holy, and the commandment holy, and just and good. 13) Was then that which is good made death unto me? God forbid. But sin, that it might appear sin, working death in me by that which is good; that sin by the commandment might become exceeding sinful.

Understanding Romans 7 part one

There are three words you need to understand before you can understand what the apostle Paul is trying to explain to us in this chapter. Those three words are sin, law and grace.  The word sin is simply to do or think something outside the will of God. Another definition is a transgression of a religious or moral law, deliberate disobedience to the known will of God.

When God first created Adam, God gave him one requirement.  That was: he was not to eat of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. So to Adam, nothing he did was considered sin, except for that.  Adam was free to do anything he wanted, as long as he stayed away from that tree. Once he ate of that fruit, then he was accountable for all sin, because he then had the knowledge of discerning good from evil.  But what things did God consider a transgression?  How was mankind to know what things were against the will of God?

This is where the law came in.  God gave Moses a set of commandments to let us know what things would be held against us.  This is where the human race learned that God would hold us accountable for things such as killing, stealing, fornication, adultery, coveting, ect.  The problem with the law was that if you broke this law, the punishment was severe.  If you were caught in adultery, or fornication or using God’s name in vain, the punishment was death.  There were no second chances or leniency.  The law was good because it taught us about sin.  We wouldn’t have known that coveting was a sin if it hadn’t been for the law telling us.  

When Christ came to the earth in the form of a human, he let us know that the law was also impossible for us to keep.  The law tells us not to commit fornication, but Christ let us know that if we even look upon another with thoughts of fornication we have already committed fornication in our hearts. 

From the fall of Adam until now, there has only been one person that was able to keep the law without sinning. That person was Jesus Christ.  Because he was perfect, and gave his life up as an offering to God for us, we can now live by grace instead of law. Christ, being perfect, fulfilled the law, and by his death, delivered us from the law and gave us something better.  Grace. 

Grace is to believe that Jesus Christ was the son of God, born of a virgin, that he walked this earth, was crucified, and rose the third day.  We give our hearts to God, and now God takes away the law that was written on tablets of stone, and instead, placed the Holy Spirit in our hearts making our bodies a temple for God.  Now when we believe, we put our old life to death, and start all over again as a new creation.  Our old self is now dead, and the new us filled with the Holy Spirit now lives in our current bodies.  This does not mean that we have the freedom of Adam, and nothing we do is considered sin as long as we believe.  We are under grace, but we still know what God considers sin, and are told not to give in to it.  We will still be held accountable for what we do.

Romans 7 1-7  1) Know ye not, bretheren, (for I speak to them that know the law,) how that the law has dominion over a man as long as he liveth? 2) For the woman which hath an husband is bound by the law to her husband so long as he liveth; but if the husband be dead, she is loosed from the law of her husband.  3) So then if, while her husband liveth, she be married to another man, she shall be called an adulteress: but if her husband be dead, she is free from that law; so that she is no adulteress, though she be married to another man.  4) Wherefore, my brethren, ye also are become dead to the law by the body of Christ; that ye should be married to another, even to him who is raised from the dead, that we should bring forth fruit unto God. 5) For when we were in the flesh, the motions (passions) of sins, which were by the law, did work in our members to bring forth fruit unto death.  6) But now we are delivered from the law, that being dead wherein we were held; that we should serve in newness of spirit, and not in the oldness of the letter.  7) What shall we say then? Is the law sin?  God forbid.  Nay, I had not known sin, but by the law: for I had not known lust, except the law had said, Thou shalt not covet.