We’re in Orlando for a week with my daughter Gretchen and her family. The kids are in school. The house is quiet and I’m getting prepared for a mentoring session with Zac, dabbling in Romans 6 – the description of the ideal Christian life. (Chapter 7 goes on to say Romans 6 is impossible to live, followed by chapter 8 that describes the power to live chapter 6).
It is interesting to note that in our time of positive psychology, death is the emphasis of this foundational chapter in the Bible. Old sin nature died. Old evil desires fatally wounded. Died with Christ. Sin loving nature buried. And twice mentioned: sins power broken. Just half of the times “New Life” (the positive) is addressed.
Allow me to digress to basketball coaching. If you see a weakness in a kid’s shooting style, you don’t give him positive feedback. You make him aware of the negative and demonstrate the correction – focusing on the correct way to shoot. Likewise, I believe God, through Paul, is saying to us, “No, no, no. You don’t have to sin. Do you hear me? You don’t have to sin. That person you were before you became a follower of Me is dead. Is gone. Let me emphasize: You don’t have to sin.” (Reformed doctrine -we sin every day…- is a bit shakey here.)
New life in Christ is available to us. Verse 11: so reckon, count on, look upon, consider, continually remind yourself of your position in Christ – dead to your old sinful ways, and alive in His new life. Think like it. Act like it. That is our true identity. 2 Corinthians 5:17 is supportive evidence. The NIV states: “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!” The Amplified version: “Therefore if any person is [ingrafted] in Christ (the Messiah) he is a new creation (a new creature altogether); the old [previous moral and spiritual condition] has passed away. Behold, the fresh and new has come!
It is interesting to note that in our time of positive psychology, death is the emphasis of this foundational chapter in the Bible. Old sin nature died. Old evil desires fatally wounded. Died with Christ. Sin loving nature buried. And twice mentioned: sins power broken. Just half of the times “New Life” (the positive) is addressed.
Allow me to digress to basketball coaching. If you see a weakness in a kid’s shooting style, you don’t give him positive feedback. You make him aware of the negative and demonstrate the correction – focusing on the correct way to shoot. Likewise, I believe God, through Paul, is saying to us, “No, no, no. You don’t have to sin. Do you hear me? You don’t have to sin. That person you were before you became a follower of Me is dead. Is gone. Let me emphasize: You don’t have to sin.” (Reformed doctrine -we sin every day…- is a bit shakey here.)
New life in Christ is available to us. Verse 11: so reckon, count on, look upon, consider, continually remind yourself of your position in Christ – dead to your old sinful ways, and alive in His new life. Think like it. Act like it. That is our true identity. 2 Corinthians 5:17 is supportive evidence. The NIV states: “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!” The Amplified version: “Therefore if any person is [ingrafted] in Christ (the Messiah) he is a new creation (a new creature altogether); the old [previous moral and spiritual condition] has passed away. Behold, the fresh and new has come!
Though we are new creatures in Christ, we still have a “flesh” that can sin. Verse 16 indicates that we have a choice – obedience to God or disobedience. Galatians 5 makes the options more visible. “And I say: In the Spirit walk ye, and the desire of the flesh ye may not complete; for the flesh doth desire contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit contrary to the flesh, and these are opposed one to another, that the things that ye may will -- these ye may not do; and if by the Spirit ye are led, ye are not under law. And manifest also are the works of the flesh, which are: Adultery, whoredom, uncleanness, lasciviousness, idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, strifes, emulations, wraths, rivalries, dissensions, sects, envyings, murders, drunkennesses, revellings, and such like, of which I tell you before, as I also said before, that those doing such things the reign of God shall not inherit. And the fruit of the Spirit is: Love, joy, peace, long-suffering, kindness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance: against such there is no law; and those who are Christ's, the flesh did crucify with the affections, and the desires; if we may live in the Spirit, in the Spirit also we may walk.Young’s Literal Translation
‘Nuff SAID. Followers of Jesus Christ: Think and Act Like who we really are.
