Having died on the cross we no longer are slaves to sin. Paul wrote Romans 6:7 to show the benefits we derive from dying with Christ on the cross, a position we are to take by faith and maintain by faith every day of our Christian discipleship. When we depart from intense fellowship with the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ we go back into a vain religion that operates through the talents and efforts of human beings. Fellowship with the death and resurrection of Christ is the mainspring of the Christian salvation.

Now if we died with Christ, we believe we will also live with him. (Romans 6:8—NIV)

Our purpose in dying is that we might live. Resurrection always comes from crucifixion with Christ, from nowhere else. It is only as we are willing to share in His sufferings that we can live by His resurrection Life.

For we know since Christ was raised from the dead, he cannot die again; death no longer has mastery over him. The death he died, he died to sin once for all; but the life he lives, he lives to God. (Romans 6:9,10—NIV)

Christ took upon Himself our sins, He had no sin of His own. Having been raised from the dead He is immortal. Death cannot control Him any longer. Thus Christ died to sin once for all time and now lives to God alone.

In the same way, count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus. (Romans 6:11—NIV)

We are to live in precisely the same manner. We are to identify ourselves with Christ on the cross, then with His resurrection, then with His ascension. We have died to sin once for all time. We now live to Christ alone and to God through Him.

But is there sin in us? Yes, there is. But the Holy Spirit brings to our attention only a small part of our worldliness, lust, and self-will. We must deal with what we have been shown if we expect to remain without condemnation. We must confess, renounce, denounce, turn away vigorously from whatever problems we are shown. The blood of Jesus keeps forgiving the part of our personality that has not as yet been dealt with.

As the Spirit reveals the death that is in us we must ask God to forgive us and remove it from us. This is what it means to walk in the light of God, and as we do, God forgives us and cleanses us from all sin.

This is how we attain to the resurrection into eternal life in the body. Our body is dead because of the sin that is in us. Our task is to cooperate with the Holy Spirit as He attacks the sin that is causing the death of our body. If we are faithful in putting to death the deeds of our body, then, when the Lord returns, He will finish the work of redemption and clothe us with eternal life.

But if we do not follow the Holy Spirit in putting to death the deeds of our body, then we can forget about being raised into immortality when the Lord returns. It will not take place. We have not overcome sin and therefore we will not be given to eat from the tree of life.

To be continued.