In this deep dive into Romans chapter 6, we explore common misconceptions among Christian therapists and pastors about the phrase 'dead to sin'. Learn why misunderstanding this key passage has historically led to spiritual turmoil and how it continues to affect the faithful today. This episode aims to clear the fog, bringing clarity to the true meaning of holiness and righteousness in the Christian context, while encouraging religious leaders to reevaluate their interpretations and teachings.
00:00:05 Misinterpretation of Romans 6 and its Consequences
00:05:30 Historical Misunderstandings of Sin and Holiness
I want to speak to professionals today, to professional therapists, to counselors, to pastors. And I realize that there may be only one or two listening, but if I can influence just one, it will be worth it. We're looking at Romans chapter 6, which is about dead to sin. And there are among us Christians, there are Christian therapists, Christian counselors, and of course pastors are Christians. And there are some over the decades and centuries that have so badly mauled Romans chapter 6 and then preached it from the pulpit or counseled it in therapy sessions that they have created enormous fear and wounds in those who are their clients or their congregations. The reason for this is that the gospel has been terribly misunderstood. The truth is that the gospel is about Jesus Christ standing in for humanity, substituting for humanity, and taking the identity of humanity upon himself and suffering the judgment of humanity on behalf of humanity. However, that is not how some pastors and some therapists who are Christian have understood this passage. When they look at this passage and they talk, they see the phrase, dead to sin, we died to sin, Romans 6 verse 2 says, They completely misunderstand what Paul is saying and think he's talking about the psychological effect of believing in Jesus Christ so that people gradually learn how to die to sin by having no more desire for it, no more temptation for it, and no more actual failure in it. so that the belief is that as we grow in the sanctified life, we will get to the place where we no longer have temptation to sin. Now, I grant you that this is a rare breed of people who believe that in these modern liberal days where even Scripture itself is not regarded as very much, and certainly no detailed study of Scripture takes place in most cases. We're all generalists these days, and we all just slap on Scripture our liberal left- or right-wing views. But if you should really be a serious Christian and get it wrong, you could do serious damage to people. There are Christians who are very serious about reading and studying the Word and devoted to Jesus and wanting to serve Him, who have not been trained or guided in how to understand what Paul is saying, and when they read these verses, this verse here, We Died to Sin, they immediately think that it means that they should get to the place where they don't feel any sin anymore or any desire for it. And they set themselves on a course, on a goal of overcoming sin in such a way that not even by a thought or a temptation does the urge take place or does the urge come upon them and the failure takes place. A century ago, maybe 150 years ago, this was called holy flesh. There were people who actually believed that you could get to the place where you no longer had a sinful nature, a human nature inclined to sin. And these people would do all kinds of things to get to that place. They would read the Word for hours a day. They would fast for sometimes weeks on end. They would go into ecstatic experiences to try to get to the place where they actually transcended their human nature. Some of these people would actually go insane. Others would get so sick that they would start hallucinating and all kinds of ill conditions. They'd run around becoming not hilarious, but the word is... I'm not coming up with the word I want here, but they would... Hysterical. They would get hysterical in their... state of mind and would be so troubled if they were not reined up to an unreal super-spirituality that they were trying to maintain where they had this holy flesh, never felt any sinfulness at all. These people very often would despise others because they would see that others were tempting to them because the others didn't have these views and were just ordinary Christians seeking to live by faith in Jesus but with lots of flaws. And they hated, that is, these perfectionists hated the flaws in other people. And so what very often happened is that they became isolationists. isolationists today might be looked at from a psychological point of view, but centuries ago, and in certain areas today even, they would be looked at as people who closeted themselves in monasteries and kept themselves free from people. Other people in other cultures, they would be living in caves or isolating themselves in such a way as to keep themselves from humanity because humanity was a temptation to them. Some people even believed that Jesus was one of these people, that he was an isolationist. But this cannot be demonstrated in the Word of God because Jesus very much lived among people, ate with them, drank with them, and the Pharisees accused him of being a glutton. So it couldn't be that Jesus was one of these Gnostics, as they're called, who lived in caves and tried to supersede and transcend their human nature. That's what Buddhists try to do. Now, granted that most, I presume most Buddhists are not crazy, they don't go insane, but they do live a life that is so isolationistic that after some years it would be very difficult for them to live among ordinary society. So, what are we doing wrong here? What we are doing wrong is failing to understand the gospel. The gospel is not the gradual, slow infusion of holiness, infusion of holiness into a human being so that he slowly transcends his human nature, rises above it so that he's no longer a normal human being. That is not the gospel. It is Buddhism that has a Christian cloak on it. It is a spiritualism, a spiritualism that is very, very far removed from the gospel. What went wrong? What went wrong is that people misread the teaching of godliness and the teaching of holiness. Paul is going to talk about the teaching of godliness. He spends three or four chapters on it, actually, in the book of Romans from chapters 12, 13, and 14, and 15. Well, chapters 12 to 15, roughly. But that godliness is not what people think it is. If we forget the salient truth that righteousness is counted, counted, counted to the human, to the person, to God's children, not infused into them, but counted to them as if they were righteous. If we forget that truth, we turn the gospel into a terrifying, sick, religious psychology. There are churches that do this, whole churches. They think that when Paul talks about our being righteous and sanctified, that we are at the place or should get to the place where there is no more desire for sin and no more failures in sin in the human being. To get to the place where we have transcended our humanity. You may be one of these. You may have been under that teaching for years. If so, quit. Run. Get out of that church. It is a terrible danger to you, to your psychology. The person who feels this way, who has the idea that God is infusing Jesus' righteousness so that you can be as righteous as he was— The person who believes that is endlessly neurotic, endlessly trying to have a holy mind when in fact some wrong thoughts come and go at the most inconvenient times. That is not the righteousness that Paul is talking about. He is talking about Christ who is counted and reckoned to be our righteousness because he has taken the place of all humanity and is substituting God. His judgment for humanities, that is, His judgment on the cross, was on our behalf. And His righteous life was ours. There are many Christians who get afraid of this teaching because they think, well, it's soft gospel. It leads us to live in whatever way we want. No, it does not. It leads us to gratitude, to thankfulness towards God's mercy, to loving Him in a way that being religious neurotic could never produce, a love that could never be produced by a religious neurotic. But it leads us to be so grateful to God's mercy that of course we serve Him, but we serve Him imperfectly. We are still in our human nature. And that human nature, though, is not counted against us. Romans 4 verse 5, we are counted as if we were righteous. So I'm urging professionals, maybe a person is listening to me who is a professional counselor and a Christian, or maybe somebody is listening to me who is a pastor and And I'm saying to you, please, do your homework. Go back to the gospel and explore its meaning verse by verse so that you can catch the mind of Paul and what he is really saying, so that you don't unconsciously—I know it's not your intention—abuse sinners with a standard that is so unreal and unhealthy that you turn them into religious neurotics and make them worse sinners when they came to you than before they ever knew you. Thank you for listening today. Colin Cook here and How It Happens. You can hear this program on your smartphone any time of the day or night. Simply download a free app, soundcloud.com or pudbean.com and key in How It Happens with Colin Cook when you get there. You can also hear the program on the radio, of course, as you may be listening now. If you'd like to make a donation, it would be very much appreciated. Send it to FaithQuest, P.O. Box 366, Littleton, Colorado, 80160, or make your donation online at faithquestradio.com. Thanks so much. See you next time. Cheerio and God bless.
As we traverse the theological landscape laid out by Paul, we begin to see the distinction between the sin kingdom of Adam and the righteous kingdom of Christ. The episode takes us on a journey exploring faith's vital role in reshaping our identity, especially when battling addictions or personal struggles. Through vivid examples, such as facing the daily challenges of alcoholism, we learn the significance of separating our identity from our struggles. Embracing our true nature as men and women of faith positions us beyond the dominion of sin and into the liberating realm of grace.
I hope you feel you're getting some really useful and helpful advice and insight in the issue of being dead to sin from this chapter 6 of Romans. And here's a sample, for instance, of how we think differently once we understand the gospel as revealed here from how we might have thought before. He says, likewise, you also reckon yourselves to be dead indeed to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus our Lord. So he's telling us something here that is tremendously revealing. He says, reckon yourselves to be dead to sin. This passage, this one verse is packed with so much, and yet it has to be interpreted according to Paul's context, because we can positively misunderstand what he is saying. So, let's try to understand it from Paul's context. Reckon yourself. Now that word reckon is the same word as impute or charge to your account or consider as. And you remember how the word or to what the word impute refers in other parts of Romans? Paul says righteousness is imputed to us. Now it's not simply Paul that says it. He's recording or repeating the account of Abraham 2,000 years earlier than his life. When Abraham believed God, his faith was imputed to him as righteousness. That is, God gave him faith and then considered it as Abraham's righteousness, when in fact it wasn't his righteousness at all, because Abraham, no human being, is righteous. And so you see, the same idea of imputing comes right here in the word reckoning. We are to impute to ourselves the experience of being dead to sin. Rather, I shouldn't use the word experience. That's another trap. We are to impute to ourselves dead-to-sinness. Now, what is this dead-to-sin? Well, you've heard me talk about it over the last several days. Paul is not talking about you not having any more feeling for sin or temptation or never more ever failing again. He's talking about being dead to the sin kingdom of Adam. Let's get the connection and the context to see that. First of all, the larger context is Romans 5, of course, where Paul says that as through one man's offense, that is Adam's, judgment came to all humankind, all men, resulting in condemnation, that is Adam's offense led to the condemnation of the whole world. because the whole world was ruined after Adam's fall. Even so, through one man's righteous act, that's Christ, the free act came to all men, resulting in justification of life. And so, through one man's righteous act, that's Christ's sacrifice for the sins of the world, Every human being is declared innocent, that is, justified. And we have this verse also that comes up. As sin reigned in death, that's verse 21 of chapter 5, even, that is, sin reigned through Adam's failure and fall, even so grace might reign through righteousness to eternal life. So you see, Paul is talking about kingdoms. The kingdom of Adam reigns. in sin and death, but the kingdom of Christ reigns in righteousness and life. That's the larger context. Then the closer context comes in chapter 6. Paul says, knowing this, that our old man, that is our old humanity, was crucified with him, not just believers, the whole of humanity, crucified with him, executed along with Jesus. In other words, Jesus was executed as God, the God-man, crucified. upon on behalf of the whole of humanity knowing this that our old man was crucified with him that the uh um that the body of sin that's our old man another way of speaking of the body of of the old man that is our sinful nature our natural humanity might be rendered powerless because now there's no condemnation for it, you see, because it was accounted as, reckoned as, crucified with Jesus Christ. So then, Paul says, for he who has died has been freed from sin. And you remember what that meant. Not that we're free from ever sinning anymore or being tempted by sin, but we're freed from sin's power and identity because we no longer live in the kingdom, sin kingdom of Adam. And then he makes it clear, makes sure that we understand it, by saying, now if we died with Christ, of course we did, we know that, that Christ died for the sins of the whole world, and the faith has revealed it to us, if we died with Christ, we believe we shall also live with him, knowing that Christ, having been raised from the dead, dies no more. Now Paul's making the point that there is no more death power over Christ. He dies no more. Death no longer has dominion. Notice the word dominion there. The same idea as reigning. Death now no longer reigns over Christ. And what's the importance of that? Because Christ representing us means that death and sin, the sin and death kingdom of Adam, no longer reigns over us. But the life that he lives, he lives to God. Let me read that verse again. For the death he died, he died to sin once for all. Christ's work on the cross and his resurrection is the entire summation of the human race. that the kingdom of sin and death is now in Christ over. And when Christ comes, he will bring that kingdom with him. And in the final judgment, when the reconciliation of all things takes place, and the sin and death kingdom will be over, and as Isaiah says in chapter 25, he will remove the veil that is covering all peoples. He will remove death forever. That's Isaiah 25. Now, that's all the context. Verse 11, likewise also reckon yourselves to be dead indeed to sin, which means, of course, now the context is clear, death dead indeed to the sin kingdom of Adam, but alive to God in Christ Jesus our Lord, which means by the context alive to God in the righteous kingdom of Christ Jesus our Lord. See, do you begin to perceive how you look at this verse quite differently when you've got all the context? This is not talking about being dead to sin inside of you so that it doesn't have any more feeling or any more power over you. In other words, it's not talking about the psychology of of sin and death, that now we no longer feel it. You've heard me say a hundred times, a thousand times, that the gospel is not about the psychology of the human mind. It is about what God has done in Christ, but it affects the human mind. So, when you look at this verse, you are called upon to think differently. You're not looking inside you about death to sin. You're looking outside you about the new kingdom in which God, through Jesus, has placed you. This doesn't mean to say we don't have anything to do with the issue, or we don't, this doesn't mean to say that there isn't any work to do on sin in our own lives. No, of course there is, but it's in the context of where we stand. Do we stand in the kingdom of Christ, in which there is no condemnation of sin, no identity of sin, no power of sin? Or do we stand in the kingdom of Adam, in which just every day something goes wrong and we sin either in our thoughts or our minds? So how do we respond to this then psychologically? Well, we lift up our heart during, let's suppose you're struggling with an addiction. Let's say alcohol. and you lift up your heart each day, and maybe more times in one day than just once, and you say, Father, I thank you that I am not an alcoholic in the sin kingdom of Adam. Yes, I struggle with alcohol, and I may fail with alcohol, but I praise you that I am in the kingdom of Christ, and if I should fall, the power of alcohol has no power to identify me or condemn me. Now this is radically different from the way most people deal with their addictions. They identify themselves with an addiction. If they go to an anonymous group, they say, Hello, my name's George, and I'm an alcoholic. No, you don't say that anymore. This is not denial that I'm counseling you with. You say it according to the Word of God. Hello, my name's George, and I'm struggling with alcohol, but I thank God that it has no power to separate me from Him. and that it has no power to identify me, and no power to condemn me. What happens when you speak by faith in this way to yourself and to God is that you separate your identity from your addiction. That is crucial. You must not identify yourself with your addiction. Why not? Because you in Christ are far wider, bigger, higher, deeper than your addiction. You are a child of God, a man or woman of faith. You are a person who now walks with Jesus, stumbles maybe, but gets up again, helps other people instead of being endlessly obsessed by himself. Do you see that the alcoholic, or rather any addict, is obsessed by himself because he's worried about his guilt? He's deeply ashamed. He's afraid that everything in his life will be ruined. This is what addiction is. It is a self-obsession. It cannot get away from itself. But in Christ we can. because we say, Father, I thank you that I am not what I am, and I am what I am not. That is to say, I am not what I am, what I thought I was, an alcoholic, and I am what I am not. That is, I am a faith-filled, righteous man or woman in Jesus Christ. which is really what I'm not, but I'm reckoned that way. Do you see the paradox we are looking at here? Do you see the contradiction of faith? How important faith is for your life? Some people criticize me and say, all he talks about is faith. There aren't any works involved. Oh, shut up. Because the truth is, when you exercise faith in Jesus Christ, you will do more works than you ever did by the law. Thanks for listening today. Colin Cook here, and this is how it happens. Thanks so much for joining me each day. You can hear this broadcast every Monday through Friday on the radio at 10 o'clock in the evening, repeated at 4 in the morning on KLTT AM 670 in the Denver and Colorado and surrounding states areas. You can also hear this broadcast any time of the day or night on your smartphone. Simply download a free app, soundcloud.com or podbean.com and key in how it happens with Colin Cook when you get there. If you'd like to make a donation to this listener-supported radio now in its 27th year, you can do so online at faithquestradio.com. I appreciate your support very much. See you next time, then. Cheerio and God bless.
Join our host in unraveling the complex yet beautiful tapestry of Paul's teachings in Romans. From understanding our shared identity with Christ to the implications of living under His kingdom, this episode challenges common misconceptions and encourages a more profound faith rooted in the knowledge that we are freed from sin's condemnation and are alive in Christ. Learn how the power of His resurrection applies to all humanity, bringing hope and eternal life.
For me, the Book of Romans gets more broad and wide and deep and high every year I teach it. Somehow there's more in it every time I look at it, and it is awesomely beautiful. It's not only the issue of... How we become or are accounted righteous by faith alone in him, how he is our righteousness, that's a wonder in itself. But also the fact that this is applying to the whole of humanity. It's astonishing that I didn't see it earlier. That is decades and decades ago, but you have to keep reading to see what Paul is saying. And then this wonderful chapter that we're in right now, which is identification with Jesus. I hadn't seen that as clearly as I do now. This chapter, dead to sin and rising with Christ, is identifying with Jesus. It's a wonderful thing. So Paul is saying to us now in 6 verse 7 and then onwards, He who has died has been freed from sin. Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with him. Knowing that Christ, having been raised from the dead, dies no more, death no longer has dominion over him. Now, this really is astonishing. Let me explain why. Because Paul is talking about Jesus, but in talking about Jesus, he's referring to us. When he says, "...knowing that Christ, having been raised from the dead, dies no more," What is that trying to tell us? Simply that Jesus rose from the dead and died no more for himself? No. He's saying that the fact that Christ rose from the dead and dies no more and that death has no dominion over him, the fact that that applies to Jesus means that it applies to us because we are identified with him more accurately. Christ has identified with us. Death has no dominion over us. Now that sounds odd because we die, but it doesn't have dominion over us. It doesn't reign in us. We who believe in him have eternal life. And that truth is going to apply to the whole world because God is going to make sure that all humanity will ultimately come to believe in him. He will do this through taking us through our suppression of Him, taking us through the consequences of our idols, so that we see that we have nothing. They are windbags, these idols, and we have nothing without Him, and thus we call upon Him for mercy. God takes us through all of these judgment experiences where we resist Him, and He allows us to resist Him, so that we come to nothing. And thus, when we come to nothing, we call out to God for his mercy. And thus, as Paul says in Romans 11, verse 32, he's going to have mercy on all. What an astonishing thing. But what is so wonderful that I'm hitting today is this reality about our identity with Jesus. For he who has died has been freed from sin. Now, you remember I talked about that last time. Not we are free from sin in the sense that we never sin anymore or never have any temptation to sin, but we are freed from sin's identity and power. and authority over us. We are freed from sin's ability to condemn us and to declare us simply, basically, fundamentally sinners. That's all we are. No, we're not. We are now resurrected with Christ. We're in Him, counted as righteous. Then he says, if we died with him, we believe that we shall also live with him. Now, that's not a condition. Now, he's not saying, now, look, if you die with him, make sure you die with him, then you'll live with him. No, he's saying, since we died with him, we shall live with him. But remember what I talked about last time or the time before in regard to what this death is. Years ago in my perfectionism and legalism, I thought to myself, I would get so angry with Paul, I'd get irritated with him. Why in the world doesn't he explain, I would think to myself, how we die with him? How do we die? Do we go through lots of meditation on his crucifixion? Do we try to enter into his pain? Do we try to enter into his sense of separation from God? Do we try to meditate our way through this or to fast our way into it? Is that what we do? Paul, please tell us how we die to sin. Die with Christ? No, he doesn't have to tell us. He's already told us. And the fact is that he has told us that we are identified in Christ's death. How shall we who died to sin live any longer in it? Do you not know that as many of us as were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? In other words, in that baptism, whether we did it literally or in our mind, We are saying to God and affirming to God, Lord, I recognize now that when Jesus died on the cross, I died with him because he did it for me. He identified with me and therefore I'm identified with him. This is what it means. We died with Christ. Well, why is that important? Because we don't want to be endlessly condemned and judged and feel guilty and ashamed and afraid of this fallen human nature of ours in which we still live. We live in it, but we're now Christians resurrected in Christ. Well, how can that be? How can we be living in it while we're resurrected in Christ? were counted as resurrected in him, just as he is counted as condemned in us. And so, we swap identities, as it were. We take on Christ's life, and we say, Father, I thank you that I'm no longer counted as a sinner anymore. I'm freed from its identity. I'm freed from its condemnation. I'm freed from its power, even though I may fall and sin, Lord God, or be tempted by it. I'm freed from its power to judge me and condemn me. We have to have this courage of faith. Those who don't believe it think we're being sacrilegious, think we're taking advantage of grace. They think we believe in cheap grace, a soft gospel. Not at all. This is a courageous faith. So Paul says, knowing that Christ, what do we know about Christ? Knowing that Christ, having been raised from the dead, you see, he rose from the dead, didn't he? This is not a mystical rising from the dead. It's not symbolic, a real resurrection. It is the actual rising of Christ's body from the dead in his eternal body, and it is a real resurrection that is no longer subject to death. Now, knowing this then, that Christ, having been raised from the dead, dies no more. He's not under the power of death. Death no longer has dominion over him. Why is Paul saying that? Is he simply explaining what Christ went through? No, he is explaining that what Christ went through is applied to us. For then he says, for the death that he died, he died to sin once for all. But the life that he lives, he lives to God. Likewise, you also reckon yourselves dead indeed to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus our Lord. There you have the clincher. That is what Paul is getting at. In the same way, he says, likewise, verse 11, you also reckon yourselves dead to sin. And not only reckon yourselves dead to sin, but reckon yourself as sin, a death having no more authority or power or dominion over you. And that death is linked with sin. For the death that he died, he died to sin. So you and I die to sin. Now, again, If you're a legalist or a perfectionist, you won't get the meaning of this. You will think that Paul is saying, now look, keep praying and keep reading your Bible and keep recognizing as you do and meditating and fasting and praying. that you are dead to sin so that you don't feel it anymore and you don't get tempted anymore and you don't fail anymore. I used to go through days and weeks and months of this praying and earnest pleading with God that I could die to sin. because I thought that Paul was talking about a process that we go through by faith, by prayer, by meditation, by reading the Bible, by going to Bible meetings, and by fasting, and so on. Paul is not talking those terms. That is a psychological interpretation of the gospel. Thousands, millions, I would say hundreds of millions of Christians are stuck in that false kind of understanding. If you read the book of Romans carefully, and Romans 6 particularly is connected to Romans 5, you will realize that Paul is talking about the kingdom of Adam, which he brought in by his sin, which brought sin and death upon all of us, and we all went under the condemnation of his kingdom. He's talking about the kingdom of Adam and the kingdom of Christ, the kingdom of Christ versus the kingdom of Adam. Whereas Adam brought in sin and death upon all, Christ brings righteousness and life upon all. The extent of Adam's kingdom that it reached to every man on the globe is... is the same extent as Christ's kingdom, which reaches to every man and woman on the globe. So, you see, when he's talking in those terms, he's telling us to make sure you live in the right kingdom. Let's read this again in the light of what I just said. Knowing that Christ, having been raised from the dead, dies no more, death no longer has dominion over him because he's not under Adam's kingdom, you see, anymore. For the death that he died, it's not simply his personal death, it's death in regard as a substitute for the whole kingdom of Adam. The death that he died, he died to sin, to the sin kingdom. of Adam. Once for all, that kingdom is now over for all men and women in Jesus Christ. But the life that he lives, he lives to God. We live our life now in the kingdom of Christ. We live it to God. Therefore, he says, likewise, you also reckon yourselves to be dead indeed to sin. Not simply dead to sinful habits or sinful temptations or sinful addictions. Yes, it's included, but it's not the major issue. Why do I make this emphasis? Because once you see the priority of having been released from the kingdom of Adam and introduced the kingdom of Adam, which is sin and death, and introduced into the kingdom of life, kingdom of Christ, which is righteousness and life, then sinful habits and sinful temptations take a lesser and lower priority in your life. You become more concerned about whose kingdom you're living in than about what you're doing. And as you have faith in the kingdom you are living in, then what you are doing is slowly diminished. That is, if it is an evil, and what you are doing in Christ's kingdom becomes slowly more wonderful. So, what a wonderful thing. Reckon yourself alive to the kingdom of Christ every day. Thank you very much. in the Denver and Colorado and surrounding states areas, well, think again because you can hear it any time of the day or night on your smartphone. Simply download a free app, soundcloud.com or podbean.com and key in how it happens with Colin Cook when you get there. And if you'd like to make a donation, you can do so online at faithquestradio.com. Thanks so much. See you next time. Cheerio and God bless.
Colin Cook takes listeners on a journey of faith, focusing on the transformative power of the gospel. He discusses how the cross liberates us from the judgment of sin and calls into question the validity of self-condemnation when God has already forgiven us. In moments of weakness, especially for those grappling with addiction, Cook offers a unique perspective on embracing faith, highlighting that the reaction to our failures often exacerbates the problem more than the failure itself. Discover a path to rebirth and renewal as Cook inspires listeners to take their faith seriously and reclaim their spiritual identity.
So Paul makes this astonishing statement in Romans 6, verse 7, for he who has died has been freed from sin. What in the world does that mean? Well, it certainly doesn't mean for he who has died is free from sin, but has been freed from sin. Do you catch the difference? We'll talk about the difference or explain it in a bit. But there are people in the world, Christians, and I will have to say they are fanatics. They're still God's children, but they're fanatics who believe that you can actually in this world get free from sin totally. not only in behavior but in thought so that you never sin again. These people put that goal before you like a carrot before the horse. They say the sanctified life will bring you to the place where you will never sin anymore and that you will get rid of your sinful nature, and they place this before people to such an extent that these people get religiously neurotic and somewhat crazy, and setting this goal before them and pleading and going on before God in agonizing prayer and fasting and berating God for this blessing to come upon them. The early Methodists, not the present ones by any means, called this the second blessing. The Salvation Army used to call it holiness. I've forgotten they used another phrase as well. But anyway, there were people, and there have been people throughout the world that have believed this. as a denomination, as a whole doctrine. But listen, I'm not simply talking about people like that. I'm talking about you and me. Because the fact is that if you have an addiction like drugs or alcohol or sexual addiction or food addiction, you may very well slip into this kind of thinking because you're getting so desperate. We all get desperate when there's an addiction lurking around or when we're indulging or involved in an addiction because we know that addiction leads us to such loss of control that all chaos can break loose. We can destroy our families, our friends, our relationships. We can destroy our health and our financial situation. It can be really scary. And so the temptation when you become religious with an addiction is that you might well feel that God has to remove your sinful nature. And that means that you get to the place where you never have a thought or a sin anymore. That is not what Paul is talking about here. And that is not the way to be free from an addiction. It says here, for he who has died has been freed from sin. Not is free from sin, but has been freed from sin. So what does that mean? Well, it means freed from the power of sin, freed from the identity of sin, freed from the judgment of sin. Do you hear the difference? A person who is freed from the judgment of sin is not the same as a person who is free from sinning anymore. The judgment that has come upon him from the Lord has been taken away. But has the judgment that comes upon you from your own mind been taken away? If you don't know the gospel, then it hasn't. And so what happens is that you constantly berate yourself when you fail again, yet again, yet again, and again. And you say, oh, what's wrong with me? I'm no good. I don't amount to anything. I am such a sinner. I'm hopeless. I'm lost. And people go into panic stations. There are people still in this Christian age that do go into panic stations in regard to their spiritual health or ill health. And they... get worse and worse every day. Some people try to go to church not simply once a week, but four times a day on Sunday, and several times during the week in order to cure this sinful nature of theirs. They read the Bible instead of five minutes or 15 minutes a day, two or three hours a day if they have time. Some people exhaust their health by getting up at four o'clock in the morning to pray. I'm not saying there's anything wrong with this if this is a true faith, peaceful state that you are in, and you choose to fellowship with the Lord in that way. But I'm saying that it is hellaciously dangerous if you go into those behaviors of spirituality because you're in panic and you don't know what else to do. So, you see, let us explore what it is to be freed from sin. Let's remember what Paul said in verse 6. Our old man, that is our natural humanity, has been crucified with him. How so? We weren't at the cross? We weren't there with him? We don't have any nails in our hands and feet? We haven't died in a literal sense? No, of course not. Paul is talking about Jesus, as I mentioned yesterday and the day before and the day before that, I have to keep repeating it, is that Jesus is our substitute. He takes our place on the cross. He is judged on the cross for you and me. Now that has to be absorbed by faith, in which we say, Lord God, I'm going to take Jesus' death seriously and really treat myself as if I had already been judged or executed, as if I had already had the punishment of the law of God upon myself. I'm going to take it that Jesus took my place on the cross, and therefore I am no longer under judgment and condemnation. Therefore, my old man, my natural humanity, which is under the judgment of death, is no longer under the judgment of death. Now this takes, this isn't simple talk. Some people think, well, Colin talks soft Christianity, soft gospel. This is simply too easy. Are you kidding me? Listen to me. If you really take that seriously, you will find how difficult it is to take it seriously, to believe that every day, to express it to your Heavenly Father when you've done wrong or made a mistake or goofed once again. I'm telling you, this is faith with its gloves on. This is faith where the rubber meets the road. This is faith that is ironclad. This is not soft gospel. Lord God, forgive me, have mercy upon me, and I thank you that I am not condemned. Suppose a guy who is struggling with alcohol takes a drink after he hasn't drunk for several weeks or months, and then he takes another, one is never enough, as they say, and he gets drunk, and he's under the table. What state of mind can he now express to God? Well, in the natural state of mind, he will be terribly discouraged, He will be overwhelmed, he will be depressed, he will say, oh God, I have failed again, and all of that. The natural inclination is not at all to think positively or to give praise to God in a state of drunkenness, especially addiction to drink. But if that man were to say, Father in heaven, I will not accept judgment and condemnation. I will praise you that I am still your child. I will praise you that I am freed from sin, that is, freed from its judgment, freed from its condemnation, freed from its identity. I thank you, dear God, that I am not an alcoholic, even though I am drunk. This sounds sacrilege. That's why it is very, very difficult faith, I'm telling you. It is not soft gospel. It is a brave man of faith, or woman of faith, that talks in this way to God in a state of drunkenness. But if you do... you will begin to see that the power of the alcohol is not the same as it was when you just went moaning and groaning and depressing yourself in such a state. The point is, not the whole point, but one of the major points is that the reaction to a failure is greater than the failure itself very often. Because if you get depressed and angry and overwhelmed, that reaction to failure, that's worse than the failure itself. But if you lift up your heart and say, Father in heaven, I praise you that I am freed from the power of sin. freed from the power of sin. You must begin to absorb this, you see. If you do that, you will see that the addictive force of your addiction is not in the chemical itself, but in your mental reaction to it. He who has died has been freed from sin. Well, how did we die? Well, we talked about that a minute ago, but we'll talk about it again We're still alive. We're still in this body. We're not transcended. We haven't ascended to heaven yet. We have not superseded our natural state. We're still living in this body of death. But we are considered as, reckoned as, treated as, we are imputed as if, it is imputed to us as if we had died, as if we had been executed. Why, you say, Colin, how sure can you be of this as if business? Well, because it says it. Paul says it several times, and the one that I will refer to is 4 verse 5, but to him who does not work but believes in him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is accounted as righteousness. We are counted as if we were righteous, do you see? That is the great truth of the gospel. Why are we counted that way? Because Jesus is counted as a sinner. Do you see that Jesus took upon himself all the judgment of humanity's sins? He was numbered among the transgressors. The word numbered in Hebrew is the same word or the equivalent word to counted in Greek. so that when Jesus was numbered among the transgressors, he was treated as if he were a transgressor, so that we could be treated as if we were righteous. It's the divine swap. Jesus takes our sin, we take his righteousness. But Jesus wasn't a sinner in the same way that we are not righteous. But he's counted a sinner in the same way as we are counted as righteous. And if God makes that account, then you have to agree with it. I've heard people say so sanctimoniously, well, I know God forgives me, but I can't forgive myself. That's a lot of poppycock and rubbish. If you can't forgive yourself, then you do not know that God has forgiven you. You are not believing what he says. if God has forgiven you and the cross of Christ and the gospel message of the atoning work of Christ hasn't dawned on you yet, because once it does, you will be giving yourself this wonderful acknowledgement that you are freed from the judgment of sin. And when you are freed from the judgment of sin, you know, that is, you declare yourself freed from that judgment of sin because you know you have died. but not died in yourself, died to humanity. You haven't committed suicide. You have treated yourself as dead because Christ took your place. Ah, so how seriously are you going to take this? Do you take this as a little bit of simpleton Christianity, a little bit of, you know, naive talk by this radio preacher that doesn't know any better and keeps repeating the same stuff all over again, or are you willing to be very, very serious about it? Take it into your heart. Believe it. Express it before God. Give praise to him and thanks. And rise up when you've fallen so that you bounce back because of this truth. Are you willing to do that? If you are, you're taking it seriously then. And that's what faith does. Thanks for joining me today. Colin Cook here, and you've been listening to my broadcast, How It Happens, which you can hear on the radio if you haven't heard it before on the radio at 10 o'clock in the evening, repeated at four in the morning on KLTT AM 670 in the Denver and Colorado and surrounding states areas. You can also hear the program any time of the day or night, though, on your smartphone. Simply download a free app, soundcloud.com or pudbean.com and key in how it happens with Colin Cook when you get there. If you would like to make a donation to this listener-supported radio, now in its 29th year, You can send your donation to FaithQuest, P.O. Box 366, Littleton, Colorado, 80160, or make your donation online at faithquestradio.com. Thanks, see you next time. Cheerio and God bless.
