Die to Live

Sin creates a chasm of unholiness between creation and its holy creator.  Sin must be paid and atoned for.  The wages of sin are death, meaning that in order for the cost of sin to be covered, blood must be spilled.  Under the Mosaic covenant sin was covered by the sacrificial offerings of bulls and lambs.

However, these sacrifices were wholly unable to remove iniquity, and the sin of man still stood as a debt. God was not pleased with the sacrifices of bulls and goats and desired a perfect sacrifice.  Fortunately, the Lord Himself determined to condescend into creation to become the perfect spotless sacrifice, Jesus (Heb. 10:4-14).

Because Jesus paid man's sin debt in full, spilt blood is no longer required for salvation.  Now salvation comes through true confession that Jesus is Lord and belief that God raised Him from the dead (Rom. 10:19).  Additionally, we are saved by God's grace alone, not by works so that no one can boast of his own righteousness (Eph. 2:8-10).

Before Christ, we were required to die, literally, to pay the penalty of our sin.  Under grace we still die physical deaths, this truth is not disputed; however, the physical death that we die now is a gateway into eternity, damnation or exaltation.  There's more to the story though: we now die to self in order to live to Christ.

In Colossians 3, Paul exhorts believers to die to sin, die to self, and be made alive to the Spirit, alive to God.  This is the Christian life in a nutshell.  When we die to our flesh, we are able to live a life unencumbered with the trappings of the world because it will no longer hold any weight in our eyes.  Also, we begin to see what really matters, what's actually worth living for.

Dying to self so that we can live to Christ is one of the sincere joys and constant challenges of the Christian life.  It is the essential truth.  To live a life of belief is to live a life of denying and dying to self in order to be made new in Jesus Christ, the Lord of all creation.  This is not a passive activity, we do not die to self apathetically.  On the contrary, truly dying to self in order to live to Christ, requires a very active believer.  We are to be in the Word and praying regularly, meditating on His precepts constantly, and pursuing Him.  This is how we live to God and die to self.