HAVING THE BODY OF SIN DEAD

For if we have been joined together in the likeness of His death, we shall also be in the likeness of His resurrection; (6) knowing this, that our old man is crucified with Him in order that the body of sin might be destroyed, that from now on we should not serve sin.(7) For he who died has been justified from sin”,Rom.6:5-7

I am reluctant as to which verse to use in this Chapter of the book of Romans alone. There are so many we could use to state a fact that I recall was one of the greatest revelations I ever experienced. I believe it was the gospel which was revealed to me for the first time - the reality of it, the meaning and worth of it all. I recall my heart over-rejoicing concerning it all. The struggle against sin having been so great and merciless, I couldn’t believe all my heart was given to see then. For weeks on a row I would sing and cry out “dead unto sin, dead unto it, crucified with Christ”. I couldn’t believe salvation was so easy and so wonderful since I struggled against sin so much. For the first time I understood what it meant “to confess that Jesus came in the flesh”! To have it crucified and dead! If and when I am crucified myself, He is come in the flesh, my life reveals, testifies to that. He took it with Him to the cross - but for real! Hope the Lord does the same to your whole being as well. Resurrection will be real only if that death has really taken place.

I can state unto you that this glamour of victory should only be grasped and understood to abide in the heart of all Spirit filled Christians and none else. So, as you read on, have it in mind, for it is sealed unto His disciples.

There is a body of sin, within man, which has to die if sin is to stop forever. It breeds sin. To cancel its actions, to control it, is but to fight sin until it kills you. I was used to fighting sin, because I wished I could live as Moses and Elijah did before I came to know the Lord as He is. After I met Him face to face (so to speak) I realized I had been used to the wrong battle, for if sin dies from its roots, I have to learn to lay down my weapons against it and not to raise them up again or else I will be found shooting at something else at random, for I might even be shooting at holiness without noticing it. You cannot kill what has been made dead already. Let the man be crucified with Christ and there is no body of sin to fight against anymore – and it is true, and to assume it, is but to assume a fact if it is for real.

To the people who uphold justification as a mere assuming of something which is never real on earth, I have a word to state: repent, for you know not what you are missing or speaking about. And to such as do state that justification is something to attribute to forgiveness and old sins confessed, I feel free to state  you are wrong as well – you do never know what you have been missing as well or speaking about. The word says “For he who died, has been justified from sin”.

The process of sanctification, on the other hand, is but a process of laying down our own weapons against or for all sin since the work has been done inside. “Withstand no evil”, says the word of God and we could add, "uphold it not" as well. Because people love to sin, they fall into it – not because sin has power. Now, people conceive that sin has a strange hold on them, a strange power, a spell and a grip of some kind. But it is they who have that desiring grip on sin, rather. If and when I love something, my heart yields unto it or at least it feels tempted to do so – if I love it not, it doesn’t work out that way anymore at all. Whenever I am able to feel at rest when sin knocks at my door, it surely is because I am no longer in love with any of it nor will I open that door because I please not man any longer. If, however, I still have a love, a secret love towards it, once it knocks, than I may say towards sin “my beloved spoke, and said to me, Rise up, my love, my beautiful one, and come away”,  Son 2:10; “I sleep, but my heart is awake. It is the sound of my beloved that knocks, saying, open”, Son 5:2. Wherever your treasure is, there shall you heart storm to as well. If you sin, do not blame sin or the devil - blame yourself which is still alive.

Suppose the love of God floods your heart from then on and you receive more than the Baptism of John, your whole love changes poles and you start attributing these words of Scripture to Christ instead and from then on, as it ought to be indeed. Now you start fearing to loose Life because sin knocks at your door – or so you think it does – for your love towards the Lord is great and still believe sin is the one, since you have made up your mind for good that sin and God will not abide together at all, ever, just as doctrine frequently upholds they do. You fear, therefore, and start a fight against an old lover, no, an old love actually, for you believe you still love it since you have lived with it for many years and know not of any other kind of life from experience at all besides that. Friend, just suppose even further the lover you used to love so much (yourself) is in fact and beyond any doubt dead, really, really dead – or it can still be so, and in fact, more than dead, crucified (and not only supposedly dead, as some uphold it is until you get to heaven). What will you think of that love you still carry within you, or at least believe you can never live without at all? All there is left, is but the memories, the taste of sinning, the vice of it, the longings towards it all – nothing more, no heart for it anymore. If a smoker has no cigarettes and he happens to be on the verge of coming to hate whatever he does, he will soon make up his mind he is as good as dead unto it. Now, the Word states “Likewise, count yourselves also to be truly dead to sin, but alive to God through Jesus Christ our Lord”, Rom.6:11... only if it really so, that you really have Christ and do not merely believe you have.

You see, if sin is dead in a sinful world – at least concerning and touching you – sanctification, or a great part of it, is but to lay down the weapons because sin is but a love affair, a fantasy world and never a real one – it has no spell on you, no binding power at all and if the Lord manages to set you free, then you will be made free indeed. See what addicts children more, if it is not the fantasy games they easily play. To get rid of sin, you only need to get real about Christ - that's all. If you enter that rest, if you lay down your weapons, if you fear no more once your vice, your intruding memory or whatever, drags your mind back to its old pleasures, it is because you love no more as you used to do. If you sleep towards it, if your heart is no longer awake because of it, then do not dare go on living as if you are still fighting a lost battle, for to fight a victory battle against sin is less then the Promise even if you do, you being more than a conqueror. To fight a dead foe is crazy, is useless, a loss of a most precious time you could be using to serve God at rest and actively, and that battle against sin being dead unto it - if you really are - is a piece of fiction within your mind alone. Sin is fiction right from the start, there is nothing in sinning at all. Its powers are made up by its power to lie to you on and on, without interruption. To those you should not pay attention at all - only to Christ. A servant is not self-concious of being a servant at all, since he is concious of God. He is not conscious he is a servant - he is conscious of God in him. Once sin existed, there was nothing in its walls to offer anyway, besides captivity and martyrdom. If it was so when it was alive, conceive what that kind of nothingness it will become once dead - really, really dead - non-existing is less the nil, less then the zero it had already been before. Will you fight such a dead foe?

If, then, your love is considered to be dead, it is because you may consider truly to have it so - but let it be true. Sanctification is but to consider sin dead when it is dead, the making up of a mind towards it, it is a restoring of a sound mind towards truth, concerning the truth of it all: it is being truthful concerning a real issue, a truth beyond comparison. The other part of sanctification is but to learn in experience to do towards God as you did towards sinning before - you are now free to do so. But never regard sin as alive anymore once the Spirit of God fills you for real, for you are not living according to its reality then and lies are what makes sin still be bluffing strong. Use your time and your heart's thoughts and pre-disposition to serve the Lord rather. A surreal world is a non-existing one. A dead surreal world is one which is crucified with Christ. Once you have been justified, made loving towards another Lover, dead unto the old one, made righteous by a REAL change of nature and a new birth – as long as it is real in fact – let the dead bury their dead. Care not about the corpse, for it is dead – someone will come and pick it up for you in a dung truck. You go on, follow your Lord, for He will grant you many a reason never to look back upon a corpse again. The promise is that, “Behold, a King shall reign in righteousness, and a Prince shall rule” your heart, Is.32:1. Have you ever been among noble ones? And suppose that Noble One is righteous and decided to conquer your whole heart back again as it was before the world was made? Surely, you will gain a new love, just follow Him there to gain that new love. “Fear not, little flock; for it is your Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom”, Luke 12:32.

This is mainly what the Baptism of the Holy Spirit accomplishes in any person who is able to draw nigh and believe whatever is not possible with man, it is so possible with God. Amen.