“Be transformed by the renewal of your mind.” -Romans 12:2
Jesus tells the story of a couple of new-home builders. One finds a lovely ocean-front location and builds. But they didn’t attend to their foundation, so when the ocean storms rolled in, they were swept away. The other builders found a spot where they were able to bolt onto bedrock. Storm after storm came; they were unmoved. (Mt 7:24-27)
Jesus says, this story pictures two ways to live: on His Words—that is, on Scripture and the Gospel—or on the words of the world.
What are the words of the world? There are many sources for worldly wisdom: family values, folk sayings, new research, popular opinions, prophetic screeds. What they all have in common? Bad for building a life on.
It is very, very important that we build our lives on Jesus’ words.
It is very, very important that our mental starting place is the Gospel.
Getting ourselves firmly located—“stuck”—in Christ is the first step to getting unstuck from the various bolognas that keep us uncertain, unsteady, and unprepared. We need good bedrock in a shakey-time and sandy-world.
We need the Gospel.
As Paul tells us in Romans 12:2, we need our minds to be transformed, renewed; that is, made new. He works in Roman 1-6 laying new mental-footings, and noticing new data-streams, using Scripture. Then, in Romans 6:11, Paul gives the first of the conclusions from which we then live new lives. This is the first description of what a new-mind minds: “You must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.”
Last week we talked about what it means to consider ourselves as “in Christ Jesus.” It means to be in such a way that everything about us is “so-you!” and also, “so-Jesus!” Our selves emerge most truly as Jesus emerges from us; as we are transformed into His image, our true selves emerge. Is it paradoxical? It is perfect. Exactly how our Creator has planned it.
But this week we’ll shift and talk about a second question:
What does it mean to consider ourselves dead to sin?
Paul frames this idea in relational terms. That is, not dead as in inanimate, no-longer sensate. But dead as in “you are dead to me.” Because the opposite of dead to sin is alive to God, who is a person—alive to this relationship.
And Paul goes on to describe what dead-to-sin looks like: “Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, to make you obey its passions.” (v. 12)
Alive to sin, therefore, means the following things, which will help us understand what "dead to sin" means:
We are alert to the voice of sin. Sin calls us to obedience. Sin promises something wonderful if we will follow it into what it feels passionately about.
You often hear of people trying to break off a relationship but they keep texting with the person or they keep up with them on social media. They say that they don’t want a relationship, but they are alive to that person’s voice. And the bare suggestion of a texted, “How are you?” Or a funny meme-post, is enough to keep hooks in their heart. They are alive to that person still.
To be dead to sin means to stop taking its texts, stop following it on social media. Stop maintaining an awareness of it.
It also means to stop honoring its passions. Sin promises “aliveness.” Sin promises profound human experience. Just like that bad relationship, we maintain open-communication with our sins because we remember how good it was. Was it good? Sure. Sin has a goodness—“fleeting pleasures of sin.” (Heb 11:25) But its best goodness is thin, and rips easily, opening into an eternal descent.
And being alive to sin is a kind of subservience to the body ("let not sin reign in your mortal body"). It’s taking our physical, hormonal, emotional condition to be King-on-the-Throne over us. If I’m tired… If I’m hungry… If I’m lonely… If I’m sad… Our bodies and our spirits and our minds are intertwined. Sin exploits that connection and uses it (like Wormtongue beside Theoden’s throne) to rule us.
What sin suggests our body needs right now, is what our body needs, and is the final-word on our actions. “To do otherwise wouldn’t be healthy! And optimized physical and mental health and energy is the most important thing! There are no other considerations that come close to how important it is!”
To be dead to sin, therefore, means to take a look at the screen and see who’s calling before we just answer the phone. Why are they calling right now? What do they want? Will talking to them derail me from more important matters or relationships? Will engaging that relationship jeopardize more important relationships and values?
To be alive to sin is to let sin access—and functionally occupy—the CPU of our minds. To be dead to sin is to force sin to knock—to send sin to voicemail—to let the Gospel converse with our sense of our bodily needs, to inform and direct our decisions.
What’s the worst that could happen? “Alive to sin.” Who isn’t, right!?
To be alive to sin is to be friends with someone false, who doesn’t care for you, but who wants your attention, not because they feel your love but because they love to feel your pain, and who will do their best to amplify your pain until they exhaust your energy, at which point they will reveal their falsehood, their lies and tricks, exposing you as a simpleton and fool, opening up a cavernous darkness into which you will begin to fall until your whole life is defined by that falling; and you try to escape the falling horror but the only thing you can grab onto is yourself and so you begin to grab onto yourself and pull and you pull yourself apart bit by bit until you are a still conscious wheelbarrow-full of dislocated broken self, still falling, but now incoherent, and utterly incapable, as good as dead, no longer even able to grasp, only gasp, and still falling. Dead to God; Alive only in the sense that you can continue to sin.
And then you wake up. The nightmare is over. You’re alive! Alive to God. By grace, raised from death to life-eternal! (Eph 2:1-6) The cold painful horror, the nauseating despair, traded in a moment for a warm smile, flowered fragrance, and serenity recalled.
But the nightmare of sin is always possible, always inviting, always... interesting. You are cordially invited by death and hell to continue to live in that nightmare; be alive to the nightmare that is sin.
Don’t. Be dead to that nightmare. Mark its invites as spam; file its mail in folder-13. Listen to Christ first, the Gospel-Word first, and not your body, flesh, emotions, and old-self.
To be dead to sin is only possible for those who are alive to God, which we’ll talk about next week. But hopefully in this short devotional you have a sense of what being alive and dead to sin involves.
“Awake, O sleeper; arise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you.” (Eph 5:14)
We need and want transformed lives.
We need, therefore, new minds.
We need the Gospel to be where our minds start.
Father,
Turn to me and be gracious to me, as is Your way with those who love Your Name. Keep steady my steps according to Your promise and let no iniquity get dominion over me. (Psalm 119:132-133)
Photo by Brannon Naito on Unsplash
