Most of us, at one time or another, have attended a wake or visitation at a funeral home of a deceased friend or relative. As we look at the deceased person lying in their coffin, that body lies there stiff and unmoving. No matter what is going on in the parlor at the funeral home, even a loud noise, won’t cause them to open their eyes or turn their head. Any words we may say while standing over them will not cause any reaction to them. Though no one would likely do this, but if someone reached over and pinched them, they wouldn’t move. They are dead. In our Scripture today, the Apostle Paul instructs us that in some ways, Christians are dead, and need to be as unresponsive as that body of the loved one lying in their coffin. Let’s see what Paul means.
As our Scripture passage opens, Paul reminds us that if we are saved, we need to know and believe that our old sinful life is dead and buried (vs. 3). Jesus died as our substitute, and our identification with Him in His death gives us all the benefits for which He died. The type of baptism that Paul is talking about in this passage is not water baptism, but a metaphor meaning being totally immersed, devoted to, and consumed with something. By placing saving faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, we have been spiritually immersed into Jesus, united and identified with Him, specifically with Jesus’ death and resurrection.
We are buried with Jesus. All of our sins and transgressions were buried when they put Jesus in the tomb. Since we are united by faith with Jesus, His death and burial become ours (vs. 4). We are also united with Him in His resurrection. Jesus’ resurrection is our resurrection. We now have a new quality and character in our life. That should be a powerful motive to resist sin. We need to treat the desires and temptations of the old nature as if they were dead, just as dead as that corpse we see lying in the coffin at the funeral home. We should live our lives manifesting resurrection life, free from sin’s control.
When we became a Christian, the sinful nature that we have died. Our evil desires, our bondage to sin, our love of sin, died with Jesus (vs. 5-7). Our old self died with Jesus. However, some sinful aspects of our character did not go to the grave willingly. Even though it still tries to retain a foothold, our old, unsaved life no longer has control. We should not follow its old sinful ways. We are now united with Jesus in His resurrection, and have unbroken fellowship with God, and freedom from sin’s hold on us.
Knowing this truth revealed in Scripture, we should never say, when some sinful habit or character flaw rears its ugly head, “Well, that’s just the way I am.” That is the way you were. That person died with Christ. We are now a new creation (II Corinthians 5:17). We now need to allow Jesus to complete His work in us. The power of the sin nature is ineffective in us. It no longer rules within our hearts and lives. We now need to serve Jesus, not the old master of sin.
When Jesus died, He met the legal demands of sin’s penalty. And He forever broke the power of sin over those who belong to Him. Before we were saved we were slaves to our sinful nature. Now, though, we can choose to live for Jesus. For some this may be hard to comprehend or to accept in practice in their life. However we now need to embrace by faith what God has revealed to be true.
When sin comes knocking at the door of your life, you need to answer by saying, “No, I can’t do it. I’m busy being dead!” You are a dead person, so act like it!
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