Scripture: "We who died to sin, how shall we any longer live therein?" —ROM. vi. 2.
After having, in the first section of the Epistle to the Romans (i. 16 to v. II), expounded the great doctrine of justification by faith, Paul proceeds, in the second section (v. 12 to viii. 39), to unfold the related doctrine of the new life by faith in Christ. Taking Adam as a figure of Christ, he teaches that just as we all really and actually died in Adam, so that his death reigns in our nature, even so, in Christ, those who believe in Him, actually and effectually died to sin, were set free from it, and became partakers of the new holy life of Christ.
He asks the question: "We who died to sin, how shall we any longer live therein?" In these words we have the deep spiritual truth that our death to sin in Christ delivers us from its power, so that we no longer may or need to live in it. The secret of true and full holiness is by faith, and in the power of the Holy Spirit, to live in the consciousness, I am dead to sin.
In expounding this truth He reminds them that they were baptized into the death of Christ. We were buried with Him through baptism into death. We became united with Him by the likeness of His death. Our "old man" was crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be done away—rendered void and powerless. Take time and quietly, asking for the teaching of the Holy Spirit, ponder these words until the truth masters you: I am indeed dead to sin in Christ Jesus. As we grow in the consciousness of our union with the crucified Christ, we shall experience that the power of His life in us has made us free from the power of sin.
Romans vi. is one of the most blessed portions of the New Testament of our Lord Jesus, teaching us that our "old man," the old nature that is in us, was actually crucified with Him, so that now we need no longer be in bondage to sin. But remember it is only as the Holy Spirit makes Christ's death a reality within us, that we shall know, not by force of argument or conviction, but in the reality of the power of a Divine life, that we are in very deed dead to sin. It only needs the continual living in Christ Jesus.
