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Alive Day 5 Dead To Me

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Alive Day 5 Dead To Me

Sarah Afan

September 17, 2021

Christ,Gift,God,Holy Spirit,Jesus,Love,Scripture,Sin,Trust

Read His Words Before Ours!

Romans 8:10-13
Colossians 2:4-14
Colossians 3:1-11
Romans 5:6-11

“Now if Christ is in you, the body is dead because of sin, but the Spirit gives life because of righteousness. And if the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead lives in you, then He who raised Christ from the dead will also bring your mortal bodies to life through His Spirit who lives in you.

“So then, brothers and sisters, we are not obligated to the flesh to live according to the flesh, because if you live according to the flesh, you are going to die. But if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live.” (Romans 8:10-13)

After reading these verses, we might wonder what it means to be “dead to sin, but alive because of righteousness”. The Apostle Paul is charging us not to live according to the flesh anymore. If we do, this amounts to death for us; but, if by the Spirit, we put sin to death, we would live.

How can one be both dead and alive?

When it comes to questions in Scripture, other passages help us find the right answer. According to Romans 5:12,
“sin entered the world through one man,
and death through sin,
in this way death spread to all people,
because all sinned.”

As a result of our corruption by sin, our physical bodies are frail, mortal, and short-lived.
In our natural state, we are “owned” by Sin. We are “alive” to Sin and its torment, which makes us “dead” to Christ and the true life that flows from God.

Our bodies are limited by death:
“And just as it is appointed for people to die once” (Hebrews 9:27).
This means, if our physical bodies die on earth without having the spiritual Life of Jesus breathing inside of us, we will forever be separated from Life in God. We will have “died once”, and for the rest of eternity, we will perpetually experience the full, un-ending wrath of God with broken bodies and all of our consciousness intact.
We will never again have the opportunity to be “alive” in righteousness.

But the Spirit who lives in all who trust Jesus will bring to life our mortal bodies,
just as Christ was raised from the dead. (Romans 8:11)

Here is the good news of Jesus!
Christ came to “kill” Sin and Death forever,
offering us to “come alive” with the abundance only He gives!
In the Life of Jesus, we too can be “dead to sin” and made “alive in righteousness”. 

However, God’s gift of life in the Spirit does not bring instant, automatic change in our everyday lives. The transformation of our once-sin-loving character to reflect the righteous character of God is a continuous life-long process. The Holy Spirit needs our cooperation, in the form of obedience to His leadership. While the Holy Spirit gives us life, we must also yield to Him as He transforms us to the likeness of Christ, day by day. 

Therefore, we must continually remain dead to sin (also called the desires of the flesh) by following the Holy Spirit as He guides us into righteous living. We are not to subject ourselves to sin anymore, for “He erased the certificate of debt, with its obligations, that was against us and opposed to us, and has taken it away by nailing it to the cross.” (Colossians 2:14)

Jesus freed us from the eternal and unpayable debt of our sin; how foolish then would we be to rip that certificate from the blood-stained wood of the cross and embrace it once again, by continuing to pursue sin?!
We may fall into temptation, but this habitual pattern of death no longer needs to control us.

For if we neglect the leadership of the Holy Spirit, and return to lives dominated by following our human, rebellious nature, we would die spiritually. 

The Lord Jesus said anyone who does not remain in Him is like a branch cut off from the vine; it withers. That branch is good only for burning. (John 15:6)
“For if we deliberately go on sinning after receiving the knowledge of truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins, but a terrifying expectation of judgement and the fury of fire about to consume the adversaries.” (Hebrews 10:26)

We harm ourselves if we abandon the work of the Spirit within us, knowingly and volitionally becoming slaves to sin once again.

We must put to death the desires of the flesh (meaning sin) through the Spirit, for — hear me, sisters — we cannot conquer sin on our own!
Instead, we should “walk by the Spirit and you
will certainly not carry out
the desires of the flesh.” (Galatians 5:16) 

Walking by the Spirit means “to present your bodies as living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God.” (Romans 12:1) In obeying the Spirit, we “take off your former way of life, the old self that is corrupted by deceitful desires, to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and to put on the new self, the one created according to God’s likeness in righteousness and purity of truth.” (Ephesians 4:22-24)

We “put on the new self” by constantly reminding ourselves we have died to sin.
We must always weigh our thoughts against the Word, and allow them to be refined by Truth. When sin threatens to rule us again, we remind ourselves we are new in Jesus and the old Sin Master is gone! (2 Corinthians 5:17)

Surely, by the Spirit, we will put to death our sinful desires, and live in the rich abundance of Jesus’ Life!

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Seeds Day 9 Stepping Into Identity: Digging Deeper

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Digging Deeper Days

Finding the original intent of Scripture and making good application to our everyday lives as we become equipped to correctly handle the Word of Truth!

Yesterday’s Journey Study connects with today’s!
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The Questions

1) Why does Paul say the readers were “dead” when they were in fact “living”?

2)  How does the phrase “but God” impact our understanding of the Gospel message Paul was committed to proclaiming?

3) If salvation comes by grace alone, not by good works, why did Paul say we were created for good works?

Ephesians 2:1-10

1 And you were dead in your trespasses and sins 2 in which you previously lived according to the ways of this world, according to the ruler of the power of the air, the spirit now working in the disobedient.
4 But God, who is rich in mercy, because of his great love that he had for us, 5 made us alive with Christ even though we were dead in trespasses. You are saved by grace!
6 He also raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavens in Christ Jesus, 7 so that in the coming ages he might display the immeasurable riches of his grace through his kindness to us in Christ Jesus.
8 For you are saved by grace through faith, and this is not from yourselves; it is God’s gift—
9 not from works, so that no one can boast.
10 For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared ahead of time for us to do.

Original Intent

1) Why does Paul say the readers were “dead” when they were in fact “living”?
Scripture teaches that “dead men walking” is a very real thing. Although we can’t see it with human eyes, every single person in the world exists in one of only two categories: either spiritually dead or spiritually alive. Believers understand physical death to be the separation of the soul from the body. Of even greater significance is spiritual death, which separates the soul from God. Paul explains this difference using the phrase “liv(ing) according to the ways of this world.” (Verse 2) Those living only for the world were not really living. We trace this kind of dying back to the Garden of Eden.
In Genesis 2 God told Adam that eating the fruit from the forbidden tree in the garden would cause sure death. (Genesis 2:16-17) Even though Adam and Eve disobeyed God’s instruction, physical death did not occur immediately, signifying that God had another type of death in mind. Believing Satan’s lie, Adam and Eve sadly discovered their enlightenment created a great gulf between themselves and their Creator.
One of the saddest scenes in the Bible is found in Genesis 3:8: “Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden at the time of the evening breeze, and they hid from the Lord God among the trees of the garden.” The intimate fellowship that had existed between man and God was broken. They were now separated from God and, in effect, had died. Later in Ephesians, Paul describes this separation by saying that those living apart from Christ had been “excluded from the life of God.” (Ephesians 4:18)  Paul gave a similar message to the church at Colossae. It is an essential belief of the gospel message to understand that sin separates us from God and results in soul death. (Colossians 2:10)

2)  How does the phrase “but God” impact our understanding of the Gospel message Paul was committed to proclaiming?
Although not translated with two English words every time, the message contained within the transitional phrase “but God” demonstrates a thread that runs throughout the entire Bible. In fact, to recognize the importance of these two words as they are used in Scripture is the beginning of comprehending the width and breadth of the gospel. In one way or another, the book of Romans is filled with this rally cry of Paul: BUT GOD! (Romans 5:1-10) Immediately following verse 10 in our passage, Paul begins to express his wonder at the thought of God’s grace in the life of his readers and his own life. Reminding his readers of their previous sinful state, he emphasizes how it was God who reached out toward them. We read in Acts 9, 22, and 26 of Paul’s personal story of God’s pursuit. At one time in his life, Paul was on his way to Damascus, heading in the opposite direction of the God he thought he worshipped. In his possession was a letter from the high priest giving him authority to arrest those who followed Christ. Now, because of God’s grace, he was boldly preaching the very message of those he was persecuting. (Ephesians 3:7-9)

3) If salvation comes by grace alone, not by good works, why did Paul say we were created for good works?
Are works part of our salvation or are we saved by grace alone? Like it is with so many Bible questions, the answer is YES! But that can’t be, can it? It is questions like this that can cause Bible students to get sidetracked in debate. In conversations about grace and works, many people stir the pot of biblical controversy by pitting the teachings of Paul against those of James. But they were not contradicting each other. In fact, both Paul and James agree that our works can’t save us. James stressed that everyone who has ever sinned has broken God’s law. That includes everyone. In ourselves, we are unable to correct the distance that is created. It’s only through mercy that we will escape judgment. (James 2:10-13) So why do the teachings of Paul and James seem to be different, and what does that have to do with the Ephesians? Unlike James, who wrote to intellectuals putting head knowledge above obedience, Paul’s emphasis on grace was specific to people who were tempted to trust in their works for salvation. But Paul’s message of grace was always accompanied by the teaching that genuine salvation would be demonstrated by walking in the ways of God. Grace is the root, of which, good works of obedience flowing from love, are the fruit!

Everyday Application

1) Why does Paul say the readers were “dead” when they were in fact “living”?
“Jesus didn’t come to make bad people good. He came to make dead people live.” Attributed to C.S. Lewis, this quote is a good way to translate what Paul is saying in this passage. Our main goal as believers should not be to place rules around ourselves and others to make us or them better people. Parent experts have written many books to explain that rules alone without a genuine relationship with our kids won’t produce spiritually healthy kids. Far too many of us seem to care more about morals and good behavior than we do about the gift of grace given to us. It is not a certain lifestyle that will save us or keep us in a right relationship with God. Apart from Christ we are dead. And nothing will revive us except the Spirit of God working in our hearts. It is only by His kindness that we have been “raised us up with Him and seated with Him in the heavens in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages He might display the immeasurable riches of His grace!” (Ephesians 2:6-7)

2) How does the phrase “but God” impact our understanding of the Gospel message Paul was committed to proclaiming?
But God. Theologian James Montgomery Boice wrote: “If you understand those two words, they will save your soul. If you recall them daily and live by them, they will transform your life completely.” There are several two-word phrases in the Scriptures that impact me. “Jesus wept.” “Be still.” “Rejoice always.” These are a few, but none carry more weight than the two words: “But God”. The lyrics to a newer hymn perfectly speak to the deep, life-changing confession we find in these words.
But as I ran my hell-bound race, indifferent to the cost,
You looked upon my helpless state and led me to the cross.
And I beheld God’s love displayed; You suffered in my place.
You bore the wrath reserved for me; now all I know is grace. (All I Have Is Christ)

3) If salvation comes by grace alone, not by good works, why did Paul say we were created for good works?
Paul told Timothy that “all Scripture is inspired by God and is profitable … so that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work”. We do not need to fret that Paul was confused when he wrote to the church at Ephesus. Neither must we choose who to have confidence in, either Paul or James. They did not have different beliefs about salvation.  In Ephesians, Paul shows that a life of good works was the evidence of grace, emphasizing it is grace, and God’s transforming love, that leads us to obedience. Genuine believers will live out their faith by doing what God wills. What has happened in our hearts through salvation will be fleshed out in our works because God Himself has made us new! (Philippians 2:12-13) Even though the book of James challenged his thinking to the point of frustration, it was Martin Luther who said, “We are saved by faith alone, but the faith that saves is never alone.” Obedience will flow out of our salvation. We will serve God from a grateful heart that recognizes such great mercy extended to us who don’t deserve it and can never boast that we do!

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Finding the original meaning is a huge deal when we study Scripture and can make all the difference in our understanding as we apply God’s truths to our everyday lives.

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