ALIVE IN CHRIST
Romans 6:11-13
In the same way, count yourselves dead to
sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus.
Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its evil
desires...but rather offer yourselves to God, as those who have been brought
from death to life.
We must appreciate the gravity of that with which
sanctification is concerned. There are several respects in which this must be
viewed. All sin in the believer is the contradiction of God’s holiness. Sin
does not change its character as sin because the person in whom it dwells and
by whom it is committed is a believer… Remaining, indwelling sin is therefore
the contradiction of all that he is as a regenerate person and son of God…The
presence of sin in the believer involves conflict in his heart and life.
There must be a constant and increasing appreciation that
though sin still remains it does not have the mastery. There is a total difference
between surviving sin and reigning sin, the regenerate in conflict with sin and
the unregenerate complacent to sin. It is one thing for sin to live in us: it
is another for us to live in sin. It is one thing for the enemy to occupy the
capital; it is another for his defeated hosts to harass the garrisons of the
kingdom. It is of paramount concern for the Christian and for the interests of
his sanctification that he should know that sin does not have the dominion over
him, that the forces of redeeming, regenerative, and sanctifying grace have
been brought to bear upon him in that which is central in his moral and
spiritual being, that he is the habitation of God through the Spirit, and that
Christ has been formed in him the hope of glory. This is equivalent to saying
that he must reckon himself to be dead indeed unto sin but alive unto God
through Jesus Christ his Lord. It is the faith of this fact that provides the
basis for, and the incentive to the fulfillment of, the exhortation, “Let not
sin therefore reign”. In this matter the indicative lies at the basis of the
imperative and our faith of fact is indispensable to the discharge of duty. The
faith that sin will not have the dominion is the dynamic in bond service to
righteousness and to God so that we may have the fruit unto holiness and the
end everlasting life. It is the concern of sanctification that sin be more and
more mortified and holiness in-generated and cultivated.
Redemption
Accomplished and Applied by John Murray, pg.145.