“If Christ is in you, your body may be dead because of sin, but your spirit is alive because of righteousness” (Rom. 8:10).
In Paul’s understanding, human beings are in a sense dead (Eph.2:1). This assertion may be understood from three considerations. Firstly, human beings have ceased to live spiritually in so far as they lack any positive relationship with their Creator. Secondly, we are physically as good as dead, since we are cut off from the source of life and are gradually dying. Thirdly, we are under God’s sentence of eternal death. But the entrance of the Spirit of God brings the dead spirit to life and we begin to live in the society of God.
The Spirit’s presence in us is made possible by God’s forgiveness and justification, which Paul refers to as righteousness. This gift of righteousness also removes us from under the judgment of God, so that all that remains of our former state of ‘death’ is the decaying and weakness-afflicted body. The state of the Christian is henceforth a living spirit and a dying body.
But the life-giving work of the Spirit does not end with the regeneration of our spiritual nature. God raised Jesus’ mortal body from death by the power of the Holy Spirit, and since the same Spirit now lives in believers, He will make our mortal bodies alive through His Spirit who has His home in us (Rom.8:11). Thus the life-giving work of the Holy Spirit includes even our resurrection.
But why the extensive explanation of the state of the Christian?
This is particularly relevant with respect to those who imagine Christians should be free of sickness in this life. They contend that Christ’s work on the cross not only deals with the guilt of sin, but also with sickness. It is indeed true that total healing will come to the Christian ultimately as a fruit of the atonement. However, unlike forgiveness, physical healing is not an immediate consequence. In this life, our experience is to be reconciled with God, having the Holy Spirit within us, and a living spirit conjoined with a decaying body. Paul calls this ‘the firstfruits of the Spirit (Rom. 8:23). At the resurrection, the Spirit will complete His work and give life even to our dying or dead bodies. This is the healing which we all long; Paul calls it ‘the redemption of our bodies (Rom.8:23).
There is no quarrel with the claim that Jesus’ death had in its view healing as well as forgiveness (‘by his stripes we are healed’ – Isaiah 53:5), but only with the teaching that we should claim the healing now, The healing which Jesus purchased by his dying is applied to us first as forgiveness, then as sanctification, and finally as resurrection (the redemption of our bodies). Sanctification takes place in the context of a decaying body in a decaying world, where patience and hope are all-important virtues (Rom.8:24-25). We must not go from there to say that God does not heal today – clearly, he does, and we should pray for it expectantly and confidently when it is appropriate. But we should understand that it is healing within the context of a gradual dying of our bodies. Sickness among Christians, even chronic illness (including mental and emotional disorder) is not necessarily a sign of failure or lack of faith; it is the thing to which God has committed our world for its salvation, and us for our sanctification.
Understanding this clearly would help a great deal for those who become ‘disillusioned’ with God and with prayer for healing, especially when they are told that they were not healed because of their lack of faith or because of their sins. The three friends of Job insisted that Job suffered greatly because he sinned greatly against God – we know from the Bible that Job was noted by God as one who was godly and righteous and his intense sufferings were not because of his sins directly. We can cause more pain to those who are ill by insisting on such ‘accusations’ – in fact, in the case of Job, God finally told Job’s friends to ask Job to pray for them as they had wronged him and spoken wrongly about God.
We conclude with the words of Paul:
“Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly, we are being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal” (2 Cor. 4:16-18).
Compare this with the definition of faith: “Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see” (Heb.11:1). Indeed, the just shall live by faith.
(B) Sanctification: A lifelong process and ‘struggle’
God in redemption finds us more or less disintegrated personalities. Disintegration and loss of rational control are aspects of our sinful and fallen state. Trying to play God to ourselves, we are largely out of control of ourselves and also out of touch with ourselves, or at least a great deal of ourselves, including most of what is central to our real selves.
God’s gracious purpose is to bring us into a reconciled relationship with Himself through Christ – and through the outworking of this relationship, He seeks to reintegrate us and make us whole beings again.This is in fact the essentials of the gospel – in the wonderful ‘exchange’ at the cross, Christ was made sin for us and we in consequence are made the righteousness of God (2 Cor. 5:21).
The work of sanctification (recreating us as beings on whom Christ’s image is stamped) however is not the work of the moment. Rather, it is a lifelong process of growth and transformation. It extends beyond this physical life, for the basic disintegration will not be finally healed until “the redemption of our bodies” (Rom. 8:23).
Inward struggle is the painful condition of every Christian from the moment we embrace the gospel to our death and transformation into the image of Christ. There is no real basis in Scripture for a sudden transformation into sinless living in this life.
Christian life begins with a conversion of repentance from sin followed by an experience of forgiveness and justification, but life following conversion also contained these elements. Sin, repentance, forgiveness and justification are our continuing experience, even when we know that, in one sense, all our sins are forgiven and our justification is total.
The daily reality of sin causes us again and again to look to our Saviour for forgiveness, and to rest our trust in Him that we stand accepted by God ever and only because of His gift.
God gave the law so we could recognise sin and deal with it (Rom. 7:7). The law makes us recognise ourselves as law-breakers and sinners. If we are eager to dispose the law, we are like patients who will not let the doctor tell us the truth. The law tells us that we have a moral cancer which, barring a miracle, will be terminal. The good news is, there happens to be a miracle, and that miracle is the death of Christ.
Paradoxically, the way of life beyond the law is far more fruitful in doing the good things the law is concerned about than is the way of duty. That is why in Rom. 3:31, Paul could say, “Do we then annul the law through faith? By no means. Rather, we establish the law”. As Christians, by the Holy Spirit, we can put to death the deeds of the flesh – the Spirit enables us to do so, and in that sense, ‘we fulfil the law’.
‘Co-crucifixion’, ‘co-burial’, ‘death to sin’ – are concepts we need to know for it is crucial for us to grasp them if we are to understand how the cross works to satisfy the demands of God’s law and release us to new life. Not only can we say that Jesus acted as a substitute for us when He died on the cross (like the sacrificial lamb), but that He represented us, as our King. It is possible for the Christian to say, “I died in Christ”. In Rom. 6:7, Paul gives the reason why sin is still able to trouble us but not to destroy us – sin loses its ultimate power to enslave us i.e. the power to remove us from God eternally and deliver us over to death – “For the person who has died has been justified from sin”. Justification could take place by acquittal if we were innocent, penalty if we were guilty. Praise God, because Christ died as our substitute, the guilt and penalty of sin were dealt with, and because we died in Him, we are acquitted in Him and accepted in the beloved.
As fallen humans, we are all guilty and the law demands our death; but now as believers, we can say we have died, not personally, but in Christ, who hung on the cross as our representative. We have borne our punishment (in Him) and so are justified from sin by full payment of the penalty. Now that the full penalty for all our misdeeds has been paid, our sinful self no longer has the power it once had to plunge us into ruin.
We sometimes sing, ‘my chains are gone – I have been set free’ – indeed, knowing that we have been broken free from the chains that anchored us to condemnation and death, and knowing that the end of the road is glory, we have the motivation and the will to walk in newness of life – indeed, it is AMAZING GRACE that saves wretches like us!!
(C) We who died to sin shall no longer live in it (Romans 6:1-14)
The legalist and moralist insists that teaching people they are saved by grace would lead to a slack attitude to morality; the liberated (antinomian) church person may say that since we are saved by grace apart from work, it does not matter what we do; the Christian under pressure from temptation may reason that it is not so bad if we sin – after all God will forgive me anyway – so it is okay to sin and give way to temptation. So, shall we continue to sin so that grace may increase? Apostle Paul’s answer: “Absolutely not! We who died to sin, how shall we still live in it (6:2)? We have noted that there is no perfection here on earth and a Christian is still not beyond temptation, but that does not mean we cannot live a life apart from sin with God’s enabling and with the right understanding of what Christ has done for us.
Paul goes on in Rom. 6 to tell believers why we are to be holy.
We are to be holy and no longer live in sin by continuing to sin as a way of life because we died with Christ (Gal.2:20). Christ’s death was a proxy death for us. We were with Him on the cross, with Him in the tomb, and with Him in the resurrection (vv3-4). When Christ died for sin, we died to sin. Baptism, Paul says, is a constant reminder of our participation in Christ’s death and resurrection. Union with Jesus is the key to our justification and holiness.
When we died with Christ, we died to sin. Sin did not die; rather our physical body which sin used as its instrument was taken out of gear (v6). Conversely, we have been raised with Christ to a new life (vv4,5,8). This new life is never ending (v9).
As God sees us as believers, we are to see ourselves now. Previously, before we died with Christ, our master was Satan and sin; after we died with Christ and were raised with Him, we have a new Master – Christ and righteousness. We no longer need to listen to the old master; although we may be unduly influenced by the devil and sin, we are no longer obligated to do what they desire – we are free to serve God and righteousness because we are born again (united with Christ) and adopted as children of God. As God’s children, we are to be like Him in His character (holy, just and righteous) but because we still have dying bodies and we are still living in the fallen world (where Satan is the prince), there is now the constant battle and fight to be holy and pleasing to God. In one sense, we are free to fight – to say “no” to sin, the old self, and the devil – and to say “yes” to righteousness, the new self, and the new Master and Lord of our new lives. Hence sanctification is a life-long process and ‘struggle’ in this sense.
As we learn in the conclusion of the Sermon on the Mount that we shall not only say we believe and yet we do not do, and we are not just to listen to the preaching and teaching of God’s Word, and not do the application – in other words, we need to obey and apply the truth in our outworking, and to build a strong and stable foundation in God and His Word, by the dwelling and enabling of the Holy Spirit.
Although the sinful nature of the ‘old man’ remains a powerful force within the believer, God has given the believer a powerful gift, the indwelling Spirit who enables us to do God’s will; the Spirit leads us to put to death the misdeeds of the body (Rom. 8:14-15) and He also empowers us for godly living.
Nonetheless, our present experience is one of suffering and groaning; although we have received the down payment of our salvation in the person of the Holy Spirit (Rom.8:23), we groan as we wait for the rest of the payment when our bodies will be transformed (1 Cor. 15:35).
There should be none of the unreal positivism that dominates the churches which claim the experience of life is one of triumph after another. Nevertheless, the first fruits, the down payment (the Holy Spirit) guarantees the rest of full salvation is yet to come. The war is over but the “battles” still carry on but victory has already been secured by our Lord and Master!