Life in Death

“For I through the law am dead to the law, that I might live unto God. I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.” (Galatians 2:19-20)

Life in death.  How can such a phenomena exist?  As Christians, we have been freed from the power of sin through the sacrificial work of Christ on the cross.  “Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with him, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin. For he that is dead is freed from sin.” To become aware of this freedom is to know hope and joy.  We know that “sin shall not have dominion over [us]” because Jesus has crushed the power of sin and provided a “way of escape.”  If we will consider ourselves “to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord,” we will experience the fullness of life that God has intended for all those that love Him.  “What shall we say then?  Shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound?  God forbid.  How shall we, that are dead to sin, live any longer therein?” 

Since we have been given abundant life through death to sin and the flesh, we are no more servants to sin, but rather servants to God.  “But God be thanked, that ye were the servants of sin, but ye have obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine which was delivered you.  Being then made free from sin, ye became the servants of righteousness.”

“Death is swallowed up in victory. O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory? The sting of death is sin; and the strength of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore, my beloved brethren, be ye stedfast, unmoveable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, forasmuch as ye know that your labour is not in vain in the Lord.”

God says it so much better than I could…read Romans 6.