Dead Already!

We can't die (I technically have a terminal brain injury) because WE'RE ALREADY DEAD!   When we were baptised we were BAPTISED INTO HIS DEATH!!  

I'd encourage y'all to read the entire passage, as it's relevant to the discussion above about sexual sin, a journey I'm on myself, some on here know, not going into detail now, but this verse I want to highlight - 

Romans 6:5-14 ESV

[14] *For sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law but under grace.*

I'm a big fan of Joseph Prince, who has seen many set free of all manner of addictions under his ministry of grace, and this idea is absolutely KEY...  

Below is another key verse to understand... and I'm quoting this in the King James, as the language is so beautiful and vivid (a prize for anyone that can drop 'concupiscence' into conversation!), the idea is that when we are conscious of the law, we fall into sin, but when we comprehend God's immeasureable grace, that our sins he remembers no more... that he looks at us and sees his perfect sinless son... then sin gives us up!

Romans 7:1, 5-10 KJV

[1] Know ye not, brethren, (for I speak to them that know the law,) how that the law hath dominion over a man as long as he liveth? 

.... [7] What shall we say then? Is the law sin? God forbid. Nay, I had not known sin, but by the law: for I had not known lust, except the law had said, Thou shalt not covet. [8] *But sin, taking occasion by the commandment, wrought in me all manner of concupiscence.* For without the law sin was dead. [9] For I was alive without the law once: *but when the commandment came, sin revived, and I died.* [10] And the commandment, which was ordained to life, I found to be unto death. 

This is mind bending/warping stuff, it takes being renewed in the spirit of ones mind to get it, but JP says it this way - if we are legalistic, law/sin conscious, we will sin, but if we are grace/Jesus conscious... we don't give up our sin, our sin gives us up...!  The grave gives us up... we just let fall our grave clothes and walk in the newness of life in the Spirit... sow to the flesh, reap destruction/degradation, sow to the spirit, reap life, and life more abundantly, the zoe life!!

I preached a little sermonette once, on how Moses raised up the bronze serpent in the wilderness - those little serpents biting the Israelites were as a result of their sin and disobedience... and if they looked down at the serpents, at their sins in this context, if their focus was downwards on their sin that was causing their death, well they would die.  But Moses made a serpent out of bronze - a mixture of copper and tin - copper representing the divine nature, and tin man's nature - and in Jesus both were contained in one man.  He was without sin, yet he took our sin into his own body on that tree and was lifted up - so that bronze serpent that Moses lifted up was Christ - but why was he a serpent?!  BECAUSE HE (who knew no sin) BECAME SIN FOR US!!!

So when the Israelites looked up at that bronze serpent, when we look at Christ crucified, they/we SEE OUR SIN BEING PUNISHED IN THE BODY OF ANOTHER!!!  'It is finished!' Jesus cried, he had paid a full, perfect and sufficient sacrifice for all our sins past, present and future...!  SIN NO LONGER HAS A HOLD ON ME!!  My chains are gone, I've been set free, my God my saviour has ransomed me!

We have a choice - to look down at our sin, and sin, or to look up, at the cross, and see our sin already punished in the body of another!!  And God is a just God who won't punish our sin twice, there's no double jeopardy in the courts of heaven!

https://bible.com/bible/1/rom.7.1-10.KJV

https://bible.com/bible/59/rom.6.5-14.ESV