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Originally Posted by J-Roc
Actually, my brother, I am not attaching pride to this....that it could become a stumbling block down the road there is no question.
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I cannot agree, because the whole point of victory over sin is the key of humility before God in knowing we cannot do it on our own. As soon as we become proud, down the road or whenever, we have fallen from walking in the Spirit, and we will sin again. So it just cannot occur if we continue to walk in the Spirit.
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I think where you and I differ is how we are interpreting what it means to die to sin...it seems that you believe we die to it in the sense that it never appears again in our Christian walk so long as we remain in Christ...
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No. Sin CAN indeed appear again if we continue to walk in the flesh. But the point I am making is that we die to sin
with Christ. Since
Christ DIED ONCE TO SIN, and
we DIED WITH HIM, then
we are as dead to sin as can be! Being dead to sin is not saying sin cannot crop up in our lives. It is simply saying sin cannot RULE us. Like Stmatt said, we CHOOSE to sin or else YIELD to it, and that is the only way sin can crop up in us again. Not because we are not dead to it.
People mistaken death to sin as being a state where WE CANNOT SIN. Not true. It simply means sin is no longer ruler over us. And if we do sin, after having died to it, it is because we never learned how to walk in the Spirit, or perhpas never knew what walking in the Spirit even means! People who think they simply HAVE TO SIN do not even realize the truths of
Romans 6.
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but I can prove to you biblically that that is not so...we can remain in Christ and yet produce no fruit (an immature place to be within the vineyard of the Lord)....
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Moot, because I agree,
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...my view in dying to sin is in regards to dying to an old pattern of living and thinking and adopting a new quality of moral excellence (holiness).
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I do not think that is what the bible means by dying to sin. I am using Paul's thoughts to state what death to sin is.
First of all, we do not die daily to sin, as I pointed out. That contradicts the facts stated in
Romans 6 that WE ARE ALREADY DEAD TO SIN if we're saved, because he that is dead is freed from sin and we died IN CHRIST. His death was attributed to be our deaths when we were baptized into His death. This means that we are considered dead now, to sin, since then. And he that is dead IS FREED FROM SIN. the whole key to this is carefully following the context of
Romans 6:3-11.
Dying to an old pattern of living implies we DIE to sin every day, as you stated, But that is not what
Romans 6 said.
1 Cor 15's reference to dying daily is in no association to sin whatsoever. It is PHYSICAL THREATS OF DEATH ALONE Paul spoke of in
1 Cor 15.
Romans 6 is the death that is associated with sin. And Christ died ONCE to sin. We died with Him. Therefore we do not die any more to sin. Deny self? YES! All the time. But not to sin, ince that is done once and for all.
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In Christ's death, He submitted for the sake of sinners to the "reign" of sin but his death broke the judicial link between sin and death and he passed FOREVER from the sphere of sin's reign.
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Exactly. You have that correct. But
Rom 6:9-11 is trying to relate to us that WE ARE TO CONSIDER OURSELVES JUST AS MUCH DEAD TO SIN as Christ is.
Paul told us to reckon, or consider, ourselves dead to sin INDEED! Permanently. That does not mean we cannot sin, though, and I think here is where you are getting offkey.
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For the Believer, he is to exchange sin for righteousness as his master....
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Yes! But believers who have not exchanged sin for righteousness as their master ARE STILL DEAD TO SIN! They just never knew it. They thought they HAD TO SIN. And if one is duped into thinking one has to do something that one does not really have to do, then sin is one's master when it does not have to be! That is the point.
The Romans knew nothing about their deaths with Christ to sin. Paul informed them that they had to learn this so that they coudl stop expecting that they HAD TO SIN. Once they knew they were dead, they could stop YIELDING THEMSELVES to sin as their master. Sinners cannot do that. They ARE slaves to sin. But believers are duped into thinking they are slaves when they really are not, and so they yield to sin and sin is then their master.
Sin likes that!
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in doing so, he will live a life characterized more by moral virtues than sinful behavior...but as St. Matthew suggested, this is a daily choice to be made by the believer.a
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It is indeed a daily choosing, but it is also daily realization that
we are already dead to sin, and have need of ever presenting ourselves to God as THOSE ALIVE FROM THE DEAD, since we DIED ONCE, and our members as His instruments!
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