Freedom from Sin (Part 7)

by R. Kent Hughes

The logic of our passage is compelling in its three key words: “know... consider... present.” Do we know something of our amazing solidarity with Christ—that we actually participated in his death and resurrection? We do not completely understand it, but do we at least understand that the Scriptures claim this union for us? Then, have we consciously set to our account that we are dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus? Finally, have we yielded our entire lives to him?

If so, then we know the answer to those who argue that grace encourages sin. As Romans 6:14 tells us: “For sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law but under grace.” Grace has delivered us from the old system.

When as a young teenager Stuart Briscoe was drafted into the Royal Marines during the Korean War, he came under the control of a particularly imposing regimental sergeant major who strode around the barracks leaving a train of tough men quaking in their boots. Briscoe did not realize how dominant this man had become in his life until the day he was released from the Marines. Clutching his papers in one hand, he was luxuriating in his newfound freedom to the extent of putting the other hand in his pocket, slouching a little, and whistling—sins so heinous that if they had been observed by the sergeant major, they would have landed him in big trouble! Then Briscoe saw him striding toward him. On an impulse he sprang into the posture of a Marine until he realized that he had died to him. He was not dead, and neither was the sergeant major. But as far as the sergeant major’s domination of his life was concerned, it was all a matter of history. So Briscoe did some reckoning, decided not to yield to the man’s tyranny, and demonstrated that fact by refusing to swing his arms high and march as if on parade and keep his back at ramrod stiffness. Instead he presented his feet, hands, and back to his newfound freedom as aformer Marine—and the sergeant major could not do a thing about it!

Let us continue considering ourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus.