Grace Dependent

The ongoing conversation of my reading in Jerry Bridges’ book: The Discipline of Grace.

Read part one, part two, part three.

What does it mean to die to sin?  Do we understand this concept?  We, as believers, must understand that the death of Christ secured for us not only freedom from the penalty of sin, but also deliverance from the dominion of sin in our lives.  Paul says in Romans 6, “What shall we say then?  Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase?  By no means!  We died to sin; how can we live in it any longer?”

The question of ongoing sin so that grace might increase, comes from two basic ideas:

• It can come from people who see God’s grace and the total forgiveness of our sins as an open door to irresponsible behavior based on the notion that, “If God loves me unconditionally regardless of my behavior, then I’m free to live as I please.”
• It can come from people who are concerned and fearful that a strong emphasis on God’s grace will indeed lead people to live such irresponsible lives.

What it means to be “dead to sin”:

• This death has already occurred in the past.  It is not something that we should do but something that we have already done. We are not to “die more and more to sin”.  We cannot possibly die to sin any more than we already have.
  
• This death has occurred even though the believer may not be aware of it.  Our awareness and understanding of a fact like this does not make it any more true, but it does determine how we respond to and apply the fact.
• This death occurred as a result of the believer’s union with Christ.

A question that commonly comes up is, “If we died to sin’s dominion, why do we still struggle with sin in our daily lives?  When Paul states that we are dead to sin and that we shouldn’t live in it any longer, what he is communicating is that we should not continue in, abide in or have as a settled course of life…a life of sin.  There must be a distinguishing between the activity of sin (all believers participate in) and the dominion of sin (all unbelievers participate in).

Sin to the believer should be a burden that afflicts us rather than a pleasure that delights us.