Our Victory in Christ

“For if we have become united with Him in the likeness of His death, certainly we shall also be in the likeness of His resurrection, 6 knowing this, that our old self was crucified with Him, in order that our body of sin might be done away with, so that we would no longer be slaves to sin; for he who has died is freed from sin.

Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him, knowing that Christ, having been raised from the dead, is never to die again; death no longer is master over Him. For the death that He died, He died to sin once for all; but the life that He lives, He lives to God. Even so consider yourselves to be dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus.

Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its lusts, and do not go on presenting the members of your body to sin as instruments of unrighteousness; but present yourselves to God as those alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness to God. For sin shall not be master over you, for you are not under law but under grace.” Romans 6:5-14

The only means by which sin’s penalty can be satisfied and sin’s power overcome is the cross of Jesus Christ. When Jesus was crucified on a Roman cross, He died to pay sin’s penalty and thereby also to provide the power for victory over sin in our lives as Christians. Included were all who believe in Him. In other words, when Christ died, we died with Him. When He rose from the dead, we were raised up with Him. Thus, through our union with Christ on the cross, we have died to sin’s rule and reign. Its stranglehold on our lives was lifted at Calvary. We were, as Paul said, “crucified with Christ...” (Gal. 2:20).

What was crucified with Christ at Calvary was our old sin nature. We are no loner in Adam (our old sin nature) but in Christ. We are no longer sinners but saints. Since the cross has stripped away our old, dominant sin nature and given us a new identity in Christ, we can experience Christ’s victory over sin in our daily walk by the indwelling Holy Spirit.

We appropriate the victory of the cross over the power of sin just as we did for its sufficiency for the penalty of sin - by faith. We died to the rule of sin through Christ’s death on the cross, and we live in triumph over its power as He reigns in our lives.

“For sin shall not be master over you...” Romans 6:14