Outside Reading #3

NO LONGER SINNERS

Romans 6:7

“For when we died with Christ we were set free from sin. And since we died with Christ, we know we will also live with Him.”

As Christians, I had thought that we were still sinners after salvation for a very long time. I thought that, while Jesus sets us free from sin, He didn’t really set us free from sin. We were “kinda” free. We had to be sanctified. We would toil and struggle, and we have a “dual nature”. Those verses were true, but only positionally. Jesus showed me that I have one nature and it is the new man. The old has passed away. When I actually read all of Romans with all of my religious glasses off, I started to see how Jesus Christ is the Liberator. When He died, I died with Him in Baptism. My “old self” had died with all his sin issues, struggles, fears, and worries. And because Christ was raised to life, so have I. I have been raised to walk in newness of life, and I didn’t have to relate to myself as a “sinner”. That old identity was dead and gone. I was a sinner. I am now a saint. I can live a totally free life because Jesus sets us free from sin. He didn’t die so we could be kinda free or sorta free or free with a bunch of theological tack-ons. He died to make us truly, completely, wholly free from all sin. This revelation is one of the most beautiful ones I have ever experienced. Praise be to Abba, who have given us life and life abundantly through Jesus Christ, His Son, our Lord and has set us FREE from the power of sin and death!