But to illustrate.  It has often been true of a Jewish or Hindu convert to Christianity that the relatives, in order to express how completely they cast him out, actually celebrate his funeral.  Henceforth they treat him after this contemptible display of death as though he no longer exists.  We once heard a Jewish Christian thus describe his own "burial." Just after that funeral bad been celebrated, the father made as though he would kiss the son goodbye.  But the mother stepped between the two and said to the father, "Would you kiss that dead dog?" When Christ came into my humanity, He fastened me to Himself and took me to the cursed tree and down into the tomb that He might "once-for-all" terminate my relationship to my '.old man." Having been buried, I am "married to another, even to him who is raised from the dead." Has it ever dawned upon me what an ethical and moral contradiction I am to the Bridegroom of my soul when I step back to "kiss that dead dog"?  Let me, then, solemnly sign my death sentence, and for-ever celebrate the funeral!

Not long ago we were preaching along this line when a perfect "dandy" commented after the message, "I don't know what he was talking about-I am not as bad as all that." A friend said: "Do you mean that you are never bothered with envy or vanity or pride?" (Such things were all too manifest.) "Oh yes, of course," he replied.  "Well, what do you do about those things?" Glibly he replied, "Oh, the Blood takes care of all that." To this poor, self-sufficient young Christian, sin has not yet "become exceeding sinful." In the meantime the Lord Jesus is indeed a convenient fire escape out of hell, and His blood a handy rinse, absolving this superficial Christian of all responsibility.

Note again the close connection between the justification of Romans 5 and the sanctification of Romans 6, the one laying the basis for and leading immediately into the other.  Concerning the former Paul says, 'Where sin abounded, grace did abound more exceedingly." Concerning the latter he asks, "What shall we say then?  Shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound?  God forbid.  We who died to sin, how shall we any longer live therein?" (Rom. 5:20; 6:1, 2, A.S.V.). The apostle then proceeds to explain that, when we were justified in Christ, we were so united with Him, "baptized into his death," that our whole former connection with Adam and with sin was for-ever terminated.  In His death Christ placed between my old man and the new "the immeasurable depths of Calvary's annihilations.  In view of my life-union with Christ crucified, I am vitally involved in that death.  It is my judicial standing.  From it issues the life I live--a life of death unto sin and oneness with God" (Huegel).  This is my position the moment I become a Christian.
  While there is no scriptural reason why the justified believer should not, immediately upon conversion, reckon himself "dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord," the fact remains that most of us wander, as did the apostle Paul, in the wilderness of a divided affection (Romans 7) until we learn that "in me (that is, in my flesh) dwelleth no good thing." But once we cry out in utter hopelessness and despair, "O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death," then we enter into the blessed land of fruitful obedience-and conflict.  Ali yes, the conflict remains in Romans 8, but oh, how different!  In Romans 7 Paul experienced a conflict which issued in the most tragic defeat.  That chapter is full of "I" and " Me." In Romans 8 the conflict continues, but with Paul on the winning side.  "The Spirit of life in Christ Jesus" has made him free.

But note that Paul stands in Romans 8 at the fork of two roads.  To the left is the path "after the flesh"; to the right "after the Spirit." These two paths continually face the most victorious Christian.  It is ours to choose.  In Romans 8 the believer has liberty to choose to walk "after the Spirit." But it is not liberty that is automatic.  We must still choose.
  Thank God "we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live after the flesh." That is glorious encouragement.  The old debtorship has been cancelled.  Then Paul couples warning with encouragement in Romans 8:13: "For if ye live after the flesh, ye shall die." The phrase "ye shall die" has been variously rendered, "about to die," "on the way to die," and "doomed to die." Is this what James means when he warns those drawn away by their own lust that "sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death"?  Most good expositors see here a frightful warning to those