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Shall we Continue in Sin
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What then shall we say? Shall we continue in sin so that grace may increase? By no means! How can we who died to sin live in it any longer? Or aren’t you aware that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death? We therefore were buried with Him through baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may walk in newness of life.
For if we have been united with Him like this in His death, we will certainly also be raised to life as He was. We know that our old self was crucified with Him so that the body of sin might be rendered powerless, that we should no longer be slaves to sin. For anyone who has died has been freed from sin.
Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with Him. For we know that since Christ was raised from the dead, He cannot die again; death no longer has dominion over Him. The death He died, He died to sin once for all; but the life He lives, He lives to God. So you too must count yourselves dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus.
Therefore do not let sin control your mortal body so that you obey its desires. Do not present the parts of your body to sin as instruments of wickedness, but present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life; and present the parts of your body to Him as instruments of righteousness. For sin shall not be your master, because you are not under law, but under grace. (Romans 6: 1-14 BSB)
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Can we be Free From Sin in our Lifetime?
I have heard it said by a number of Christians that even though our spirits are freed from the power of sin and dead to its influence our bodies are corrupt and will unfortunately keep on sinning until Christ’s return despite our good intentions. When He returns, they say, He will give us new bodies which are incorruptible and free of sin. They infer that even though God now views us as righteous in His sight our bodies are weak and not capable of living without sin.
Yet this is not what we read above in Romans; so why would Christians say that sin will always be in our corrupted, physical bodies causing us to sin? Let’s look more closely at the scripture passage and like good Bereans try to see what Paul is telling us. Verses 6 and 7 in the AKJV says it all: “Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with him, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that from now on we should not serve sin. For he that is dead is freed from sin” (Romans 6:6-7). If we are freed from sin, as Paul relates in his letter, then we should no longer be under any obligation to obey it. And to emphasise the point Paul directly compares our death to sin to the death of Christ on the cross. As God raised Jesus to new life so our death to sin frees us from its power, and gives us new life so we can instead serve God in righteousness.
Think about it: Jesus had a physical body just like ours. Even though He was fully God He was also fully human. His sinless life proves that the physical human body is not patently evil or corrupted by sin, otherwise how could He live a perfectly sinless life? Sin and its control over us is a spiritual problem not a physical problem. Those who blame the body of flesh (the physical body) are just making excuses for their sinful behaviour. The scripture above proves it.
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PeterF
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