FOUR DEATHS: DEATH TO SIN
(Message by Tanny Keng)
1. Four Deaths
a) How many times have you died? That is not a silly question. There are four kinds of death (including physical death) mentioned in the Bible.
b) Some people may die all four of these deaths. Many will never experience any of them. You have probably undergone at least one, hopefully two. Puzzled?
c) Here is one of them.
2. Death To Sin
a) Paul tells Christians, "Consider yourselves to be dead to sin, but alive to God" (Romans 6:11). This is the reversal of being dead in sin and alienated from the life of God.
b) Death to sin is death of the sinful self. "We have been buried with Christ through baptism into death" (Romans 6:4). Baptism, obviously, does not bring us into physical death, eternal death, or death in sin. So the death we are "baptized into" is something else.
c) When we go "through baptism into death... our old self is crucified with Christ" (Romans 6:6). Out of this death, and in his death, we are born again.
e) This death to sin brings us back into the life of God — from which we were cut off when we died in sin.
f) Paul says, "I have been crucified with Christ, nevertheless I live, yet not I, but Christ is living in me. And the life that I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me, and gave himself for me" (Galatians 2:20).
g) When faith and repentance lead us to be baptized into Christ and his death, we become "dead to sin and alive to God" (Romans 6:11). This is a good death to die, isn't it?
The End ...
1. Four Deaths a) How many times have you died? That is not a silly question. There are four kinds of death (including physical death) mentioned in the Bible.
b) Some people may die all four of these deaths. Many will never experience any of them. You have probably undergone at least one, hopefully two. Puzzled?
c) Here is one of them.
2. Death To Sin
a) Paul tells Christians, "Consider yourselves to be dead to sin, but alive to God" (Romans 6:11). This is the reversal of being dead in sin and alienated from the life of God.
b) Death to sin is death of the sinful self. "We have been buried with Christ through baptism into death" (Romans 6:4). Baptism, obviously, does not bring us into physical death, eternal death, or death in sin. So the death we are "baptized into" is something else.
c) When we go "through baptism into death... our old self is crucified with Christ" (Romans 6:6). Out of this death, and in his death, we are born again.
e) This death to sin brings us back into the life of God — from which we were cut off when we died in sin.
f) Paul says, "I have been crucified with Christ, nevertheless I live, yet not I, but Christ is living in me. And the life that I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me, and gave himself for me" (Galatians 2:20).
g) When faith and repentance lead us to be baptized into Christ and his death, we become "dead to sin and alive to God" (Romans 6:11). This is a good death to die, isn't it?
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