What an amazing difference these two conditions present. Few may be that thought of it, and yet each person is in God’s sight either “dead in sins,” or “dead to sin.” Perhaps my reader has not yet solemnly considered these weighty points and would like to know what Scripture teaches concerning them.

“Dead in sins” is the divine estimate of every one of us in our natural condition. (Ephesians 2:1–5). Man, however amiable or virtuous, is spiritually dead. God speaks, but there is no response—man perceives it not. “The natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God.” Not a thought, feeling, or desire springs out of his heart that is acceptable with God. All the fruit he brings forth, religious or irreligious, is “unto death.” He is “dead in trespasses and sins.” What a dreadful state to appear in before God—“in sins,” yea “dead in sins.” And as a dead man neither feels, understands, nor sympathizes with the living round about him, so man in his natural state, educated, or uneducated, neither understands the living and true God, nor does anything according to His mind.

In these days, men do not object to be called sinners. They have become accustomed to it. Besides, what they understand by it is that they have a good nature and have only occasionally and accidently done what is evil in God’s sight, which a few good deeds may counterbalance. They thus deceive themselves. They do not believe God, who says that “we are all by nature children of wrath,” that we are all “under sin,” “alienated and enemies in mind.” They do not see that their nature is bad. Hence, they speak of serving God and keeping His commandments; they like too to be told to keep commandments, because it gives importance to them as men in the flesh, but it denies the divine verdict, that they are “dead in trespasses and sins.” The consequence is that they are further blinded by false hopes of improving men in the flesh, “raising the masses” as some call it, and the like, which give impetus to a multitude of schemes, all of which reflect more or less credit on man in the flesh, and bolster up the false doctrine that, though man is a sinner, he is capable of being made subject to God; thus plainly setting aside the testimony of God that man is “dead in sins,” “not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be.”

The Scripture, however, cannot be broken. God has declared what man is, and his whole history proves the truth of it. The fact is, what man needs is “life,” nothing less than a new nature capable of entering into God’s mind and enjoying Him. This is the starting point. Hence, we are told that when we were dead in sins, we believers were quickened or made alive together with Christ. (Ephesians 2:5). For this purpose, we also learn that “God sent His only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through Him.” This is simple enough. Man is not only a sinner, but dead in sins—not only needs pardon, but life; and Jesus lifted up and crucified brings us all we need. The brazen serpent was a type of this. Hence, we read, “As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up; that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.” Life, observe, through looking by faith to the Son of God crucified for sinners.

To be “dead to sin” is a very different thought. The wages of sin being death, nothing short of death could meet the requirements of divine righteousness. Righteousness demanded death for sin. In fact, there is no deliverance from sin in any other way than by death. Divine mercy brought in a Substitute; one able, because a man, to stand in man’s stead, and because He was God, able to meet every demand of divine righteousness. Thus Jesus the Son of God died—the just for the unjust. “He died unto sin once”; not for Himself, surely, for He was without sin, but for us, who were “dead in sins.” Hence it is that we died unto sin. Blessed, precious truth—“dead with Christ.” The cross shows us this. There we find that “our old man is crucified with Him.” There righteousness is maintained as to God’s dealing with sin, and grace abounds. God is just, as well as rich in mercy. Grace reigns “through righteousness unto eternal life by Jesus Christ our Lord.” God has, then, met sin judicially with death on the cross. He spared not His own Son. He “condemned sin in the flesh.” Therefore the believer is free, delivered from condemnation. He has been judged, condemned, crucified with Christ; and being thus made free from sin, he becomes a servant to God. He is made free and is now at liberty to serve God. And if Christ is risen, then he is risen. Christ is alive again, on the other side of death—alive from the dead, and Christ is our life.

“The gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.” The believer then has life, life in Spirit, life in Christ risen from the dead. As a matter of fact, he feels flesh in him, its affections and lusts working; he is enjoined, therefore, to reckon himself to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God in our Lord Jesus Christ. This is liberty indeed, based on every claim of divine righteousness having been met, and redemption accomplished. The delivered soul is able therefore to look up to Christ at the right hand of God, as his life, righteousness, redemption, strength, and source of every good. Such have no longer the false idea of improving the “old man,” but seeing that completely and judicially set aside in the cross, they practically “put off the old man,” and live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved them, and gave Himself for them. On the cross, it was Himself instead of myself; in the glory, it is myself in Himself, “complete in Him, who is the Head of all principality and power.”

The doctrine of the believer being now “dead to sin” and “alive unto God” is set before us in Scripture both for peace and for power. As to peace, it shews us that every question as to flesh and its doings, sin and its workings, has been already judicially met for us in Christ, who was “made sin for us.” Every exercise of conscience which we have of the evil nature in us is answered by the fact that it has been judged, condemned, and crucified with Christ. Faith therefore reckons it dead. Experience says, “I feel its dreadful lusts.” True, and Scripture recognizes that “the flesh lusteth against the Spirit,” but calls on us to reckon it judged and dead. When the conscience is so troubled that the inward cry is raised, “O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?” The Spirit, through the written word, directs us to Him who was crucified for us. Faith, therefore, looks to Jesus, and says, “I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord.”

The power over sin, and for practical holiness, that this truth gives is also most blessedly set forth. If our old man is crucified, we cannot but deny all its reasonings, its claims, and its resources. We have “no confidence in the flesh.” This is an immense clearing away of hindrance to practical godliness. Then, if we have life in Christ risen, life in the Spirit, and the Spirit is in us, we can have fellowship with the Lord Jesus, and power of testimony for Him in this time of His rejection. Our eyes, therefore, by the sanctifying action of this truth, are turned outward and upward to the Son of God Himself, the true and only source of joy and strength. In this way we are above the atmosphere of self and sin, we are able to deny ungodliness and worldly lusts, we are willing to suffer with Christ, and, if need be, for Christ, and wait patiently for His return from heaven. It gives true rest of soul, and deep joy to our hearts thus to enter into the divine teaching that we are dead; that Christ is our life; that at this moment God can speak of us as not in flesh, but in Spirit. But we need watchfulness lest we get away from the enjoyment of this liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free, and the eye gets turned inward, so as to give importance to self—the old man, instead of reckoning ourselves to have died indeed unto sin, and to be alive unto God in Jesus Christ our Lord. May all true believers enter into and enjoy their blessed new-creation place in Christ!