The King Gives Discipline
Romans 6:1-14
"But the fruit of the Spirit is... self-control... Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the sinful nature with its passions and desires."
(Galatians 5:22-24)
This verse used to puzzle me. How could I have crucified my sinful nature when it still seemed to be alive and kicking? Had I missed out on some crucial experience? Why was self-control so elusive for me?
Then I noticed Romans 6:8. "We died with Christ." Jesus took my sinful nature up to the cross and crucified it for me. We cannot exercise self-control over our "sinful nature." What I was unable to do, He did. The Galatians verse is not highlighting something we haven't done; it is reminding us of what Jesus has already done for us. Because of Him, we count that nature as dead.
In a recent TV program, some older people who had lost some of their previous abilities were challenged to think that they were 45 years old again. They did seem to act younger for a while and to recapture some youth. But our "counting ourselves dead to sin" is different than just determined thinking. This is no self-help philosophy. It is based on an objective reality: that Christ, our Maker and Friend, died for us.
INSIGHT
Are you unable to exercise self-control? It is a gift of the Holy Spirit. Ask, and He will make it a reality in your life.
READ THROUGH THE BIBLE IN A YEAR
Amos 1-3
Proverbs 17
1 John 1-2
Romans 6:1-14
Dead to Sin, Alive in Christ
1 What shall we say, then? Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase? 2 By no means! We are those who have died to sin; how can we live in it any longer? 3 Or don’t you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? 4 We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life.
5 For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we will certainly also be united with him in a resurrection like his. 6 For we know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body ruled by sin might be done away with,[a] that we should no longer be slaves to sin— 7 because anyone who has died has been set free from sin.
8 Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. 9 For we know that since Christ was raised from the dead, he cannot die again; death no longer has mastery over him. 10 The death he died, he died to sin once for all; but the life he lives, he lives to God.
11 In the same way, count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus. 12 Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its evil desires. 13 Do not offer any part of yourself to sin as an instrument of wickedness, but rather offer yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life; and offer every part of yourself to him as an instrument of righteousness. 14 For sin shall no longer be your master, because you are not under the law, but under grace.
Footnotes:
a. Romans 6:6 Or be rendered powerless
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