Now, to the issue of sin’s power over you.
It doesn’t have any.
I know, that doesn’t seem to be true. Your feelings tell you it’s not true. Your experience screams at you that it’s not true.
I’m telling you it’s true. Who are you going to believe?
When your old man died at the cross, something vital happened as well. You died to sin. That freed you from its power. I know, you don’t feel freed from the power of sin. You don’t look freed from the power of sin. You may not act freed from the power of sin. But you have been freed from the power of sin.
The old man was the source of sin within you. It was the rebellious spirit you were born with. From it, all sins flowed. The power of sin resided in it. And when your old man died, guess what? The union of your spirit to sin was forever severed. You were freed from sin’s grasp. You were freed from its power. It no longer has any claim on you.
I, too, died to sin on the cross. Not that it ever had a rightful claim on me, but at the cross I chose to become sin on your behalf. I fully submitted to its every claim. But when I died, I died to it. And since you are one with me, you died to it. It no longer has a claim on either of us.
When I was raised, I was raised alive to God. The life that I live, I live only to the Father. You, too, were raised alive to God. The life that we live together, we live to the Father. Sin has no claim on us. Sin has no power over us. You are no longer a container of sin. You are a container of me.
So why can you still sin? Because you still live in an unredeemed body. The power of sin still resides there, in your bodily, physical members. Your unredeemed body was born with a sinful spirit and from birth was trained to sin. So sin can still call to you from there. One day, you will eject from this unredeemed body, and sin will no longer even call to you.
But those calls, however strong they may feel, are not who you are. Your old man, your sinful spirit, was crucified. He was removed. You received a new heart, born of my Spirit. You are holy and righteous. Your heart is for me. Despite feelings to the contrary, there is no one in the depths of your being who wants to sin. So if you do pay attention to those calls and do choose to sin, it’s not the real you who is sinning. It is sin still hanging out in your bodily members. I see the difference. I know where your heart is. I know that you are simply being deceived.
This isn’t an excuse to sin. It’s a recognition of reality. You died to sin. Affirm that. Say it repeatedly. Even sin that remains in your bodily members has been rendered powerless. Its hold on you has been broken, because its hold on me has been broken. I only live to the Father. I only live to the Father through you.
Struggling in your self-effort against sin is useless. Why? Because sin, at its heart, is not just bad deeds. It is living for self. It is the spirit of unlove, not other-love. So self-effort is useless against it. Self-effort is Satan’s principle for living. It is trying to live independently of me. Living-for-self is empowered by self-effort, not defeated by it. A life of self-struggle against sin leads nowhere but self-condemnation.
The key to dealing with sin’s deceitful calls is the same as the key to everything else. You and I are one. It is no longer you who live. I live in you, and I always live to the Father. I will live my completely overcoming, always victorious, perfectly loving life to the Father through you, as you. You affirm that. You relax into that. And as you do, my Spirit will confirm it in you. You will enter into—by experience—what is already fact: sin has no power over you. I am the victory in you, through you.
I’ve said all of this before:
… knowing this, that our old self was crucified with Him, in order that our body of sin might be made powerless, so that we would no longer be slaves to sin; for he who has died is freed from sin. (Romans 6:6-7)
How shall we who died to sin still live in it? (Romans 6:2)
For I joyfully concur with the law of God in the inner man … (Romans 7:22)
So now, no longer am I the one doing it, but sin which dwells in me …For the good that I want, I do not do, but I practice the very evil that I do not want. But if I am doing the very thing I do not want, I am no longer the one doing it, but sin which dwells in me. (Romans 7:17, 19, 20)
… but I see a different law inthe members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin which is in my members. Wretched man that I am! Who will set me free from the body of this death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! (Romans 7:23-25)
For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and of death. (Romans 8:2)
For the death that He died, He died to sin once for all; but the life that He lives, He lives to God. (Romans 6:10)
But thanks be to God, who always leads us in triumph in Christ … (2 Corinthians 2:14)
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