Identification Truths Plus 2012
Mike Doyle · May 13, 2012
Identification Truths Plus, No. 19
Holly Hills Bible Church
https://www.hollyhillsbiblechurch.org/teaching/messages/4926314132518

Transcribed from the recording by SermonAudio, so expect the occasional misheard word.

In discussing with Randy, I know last week that you didn't quite finish all of the questions in what is known as 13b. But before we do that, I've been listening to the tapes and I want to make a couple of points. Everything that we study and read from Romans 6.1 through Romans 6.10 is positional truth. I can't overemphasize that enough. Positional truth. What do I mean when I say positional truth? Come on, we have three classes on positioning.

What we are in Christ instantly, automatically, we've got it, we'll never lose it, our condition isn't that. Right, and all 6.1-10 is all position. It has nothing, I shouldn't say it that way, there is no condition in it whatsoever. And listening to the classes, what I'm hearing is an attempt to immediately make it conditional, like conditional makes it real. The reality is the position, not the condition.

The fact that you were baptized into Christ's death, the fact that you were buried with Christ, that you were risen with Him to walk in newness of life, that's only a position. and you should not seek to have an experience there or to look around in your life and see if it's working out. Until we get to verse 11, and Courtney teaches, Paul doesn't tell you what to do. There's nothing to do but to receive the facts.

Just learn the facts. I'm probably going to emphasize that some more because as we go forward, Understanding the facts is really important and here's why. We as believers have to live by faith. Faith in the facts. Not faith in how you feel about it. Not faith in whether you've experienced it or not. Faith initially only in the facts. But if you haven't learned the facts, your faith has nowhere to focus. You see that? You got to know what to believe. You just don't. The old Catholic dance was you have faith for faith's sake. Well, what the heck does that mean? It doesn't have an object.

It's got to have an object. And that's what positional truth is all about. It gives you the object and what to believe. And through understanding what your position is, you come to understand the real object of your faith, who is the Lord Jesus Christ himself.

Okay? Can we look how far down if you get question seven, six. Let's do this. Let's put it in. Oh, 13 B. I think we're pretty much pretty much done. Start round zero. Yeah. Thank you. Got it. So you got it. You think you got through four and five. OK, let's do this now. We're like four, 13 B. We're like one or two. Yeah. Oh, really? OK. Yeah. Well, here's what we're going to do to put it in context. Let's read one through 10. Somebody who can read English. Go for it. You don't have to stand up to do it. What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin so that grace may increase? May it never be. How shall we who died to sin still live in it?

Or do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus have been baptized into his death? Therefore, we have been buried with him through baptism into death. so that as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life. For if we would become united with him in the likeness of his death, certainly we shall also be in the likeness of his resurrection, knowing this, that our old self was crucified with him, in order that the 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. I make one correction. If your Bible says in 6.6, knowing this, that our old self was crucified, cross out self and put old man in there. Not just self, it's the entire man.

Now, position? Here we go. It almost sounds like position is who we are in Christ's crucifixion and condition is like who we are in Christ's resurrection. Oh, I like that. That's kind of cool. Yeah, position would be the crucifixion side is the death side. And that's done. And that's done, facts, who we are. Resurrection. That's also done positionally. It's done. You are resurrected now. From a conditional standpoint, though, what we learn is what it's like to live in resurrected life. It's the position that's already true of us. And it's the growth part. We do learn the death part, too, though.

You have to learn the process that sin can't, doesn't have dominion over you anymore because you died. But we still have a sinful nature. But you're dead to it. We are dead to it even though we tweak sin? You're dead to it. I mean the fact is, the positional fact is, is I'm dead to sin. My old man was crucified with him.

True or not? It's no fair going to God saying, I know what you said, but you don't understand it from my perspective. He says back to you, no, you don't understand what I did. Now, and here's the question. Do you believe what I'm telling you? Or do you believe how you feel about it and what your experience is?

That's a tough decision, isn't it? Don't you think? I mean, it'd be tough for me. It's very tough. Is God telling me the truth or not? If he isn't, he might as well go to the movies on Sunday morning. Watch replays of the Nuggets. What do you say to replace self with? Old man.

Is that the same as the sin nature? It's the entire man in Adam was crucified. Is there an opposite of sin nature? Would it be like divine nature? The resurrected life of Christ. Okay. Alright, so you're saying we should do question two? What is God's object or aim in our being identified with Christ's burial? Oh, that's a real simple one. You should know that one quickly. What is the very last act of any human being on the planet? What's the last thing you do with them? Yeah, bury their butts.

Right? Why? Because they're dead. Right? You put them six feet in the ground and you cover them up. And you leave them there. Christ was buried. You died. You think you ought to be buried? Yes, you should. That's why he brings it up. It's real simple. It's not a complicated concept. If you didn't die, why would we bury you? Maybe we didn't like you.

Revenge, yeah. So what does verse 4 tell us about, I'm sorry, what does verse 4 tell us it took to raise Christ from the dead? What's verse 4 say? What's verse 4 say? My version says, therefore, we were buried with him through baptism that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even we should walk in newness of life. Now, think about this. How much power did it take to raise Christ from the dead? What's the verse say? By the glory of the Father. What's glory mean? If you say, what is God's glory? You have to come up with a definition that says something like, it's the sum total of his attributes, of who he is. It took more power. for God to raise Christ from the dead than it did for him to create the universe the first time. Why? Because he was in sin. He was in a whole environment.

That's why the resurrection is the beginning of a new creation. It's a brand new creation that starts at the resurrection. Isn't that cool? Jesus Christ was identified with the dead. ones, and by dead I mean the entire race of Adam that was separated from God, and he was buried in that environment. Death did have dominion over him for a time, but God raised him from the dead, he raised him not only out of the realm of the dead ones, but he raised him to newness of life.

New creation. If any man be in Christ, he's what? A made up, remodeled Ford, right? Samuel Carr Ruscon. No, he's a new creation. This is a brand new creation that happened at the resurrection. Where were you in that creation when that happened? You were in him. Positional truth? How do you feel about that? Remember that happening to you? Felt good, didn't it?

Physician. Physician. So can you describe what newness of life is and what it means? He's taken on a different... What's that? He's taken on a different life. I mean, a different soul. That's pretty good, taking on newness of life. What is newness of life? By the way, the noun there is newness, not life. It needs to come into an entirely new state of being.

When the Lord Jesus was raised from the dead, was he the same as he was before he was crucified? No. Why not? Sin made him that. He was made sin for us. He was identified with sin. When that happens, what happens to him? He dies. He's separated from his father. My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? So, when he rises from the dead, he rises with a... First of all, he's got a different body than what he was crucified with, right?

But he was sinless. He was sinless until he was up on the cross and then God took your sin and put it on him. But not Bruce's. That would have been too much. He put all sin on him, and he made him to be the thing sin itself. Not only was your personal sins put on him, but he was made, he was identified with sin, your sin nature. Because that happened, from God's perspective, God had to turn away from him, and when he did, he died. So, when he's raised from the dead, he's a brand new kind of human being on the earth, never been here before.

Never been this kind of man. Looked the same, got two arms, two legs. But it's interesting, even Mary Magdalene in the garden didn't recognize him. She thought he was a gardener. And he hadn't even been glorified yet, but he was different. The guys on the road to Emmaus, they didn't know who he was.

Was he able to alter his appearance? When he came into the upper room and he said to Thomas, you know, put your finger in the holes in my hand and your hand on my side. This was a man who was functioning without blood. Ah, how do I know that? No scabs. Christ didn't have blood? Nope. Not when he rose from the dead.

You know why? What's the life source of your body now? So if I take the blood out of your body, what happens to your body? It ceases to function, right? So if you have a resurrected body like Christ, does it need blood to function in a brand new creation that's a spiritual body? No. It's got a new source of life, it doesn't need blood. Why do you think God always required a blood sacrifice for sin? Because it meant that whatever was going to get blood drained out of it was going to die. Now, we don't rely on blood in this newness of life. I mean, we still do because we're pumping around in these old bodies, but when you get your new one, you won't be able to get Band-Aids. You won't need them. No bloody noses.

That's cool what you said. I didn't know that Mary thought Jesus was a gardener. Yeah. That's a cool thing to think he, you know, was as a gardener, because that's kind of... Well, she accused him of stealing his body. Where did you take his body? And until he said her name, then she recognized him. Word. Yeah, one word. So, okay.

Newness of life. It's important, I think, from a positional standpoint to recognize that newness, coming into a new state of being is really important. This new life we get Next question, is there a difference between resurrection of Christ to newness of life and the forthcoming of Lazarus from the grave? Is there a difference? Yes. As soon as you say yes or no I'm going to ask you to explain. Because Lazarus had to die again. That's right, he came back to the same old life. I mean if I'm Lazarus and I'm a thinking man, I'm thinking this is not cool. Thanks a lot.

So Christ, as we'll see, when Christ is raised from the dead, what is it going to say about him? He doesn't die anymore. He can't. Alright, six, if we're baptized into Christ's death, what involvement do we have with him when he's raised to newness of life? Understand the question?

So if the Holy Spirit takes me, It takes Russ and unites Russ with Christ at the point at which he dies. Now once you're united, you don't get to get separated. So what role do you have now in the resurrection of Christ? In Him, seated at the right hand of God. That's exactly right.

From now on, whatever is true of Christ is also true of Russ. From now on, whatever is true of Christ is true of everybody in this room. A guy told me one time years ago, he said, to demonstrate this point, I want you to read Romans 6, and wherever it talks about Christ, put your name in there. I said, well, isn't that blasphemy? He said, no. Whatever is true of him is true of you. Why don't you put your name in there?

Mike was crucified with Christ. Mike was buried. Mike was resurrected. Was I? Yeah, I was. So, once I'm baptized and I'm involved with Christ, that also means that from That point forward in all eternity, whatever is going to be true and is true of Christ is also true of me. Here's another interesting thing.

When did your history begin? When did Courtney's history begin? Before he was born. Before he was born. When? How far back? Back to Adam. So remember we studied the two men? And Adam all die? So everybody's history began in Adam. Now, when the Spirit of God takes you out of Adam and baptizes you into Christ, and you're crucified, buried, and resurrected with him, how far back does your history go now? How far back?

Eternity. So when you read in the Bible that God said, I knew you in Christ before the foundations of eternity, that's how come he can say it. Do you see that? Because now you entered into the eternal man, you're from ever to ever. That's really cool. It's also kind of a scary thought. Is he saying that just because we are all the same or is he saying that he knew me and he knew Bruce and he knew that we were different but he knew all about me? He knew you personally as Monique in Christ before he ever created the universe. How cool is that?

He brought you forward in time, identified you with Adam, you were born in Adam, you lived out your life, and at some point the Spirit of God led you to Christ. And you became, in reality, what He's always known you as for all eternity. And the reason is because when you were identified with Him on that cross, your history changed. Because if I can take you or he can take you out of Adam, then before you're a believer you can trace your lineage all the way back to Adam and Eve, right? Isn't that where we all came from? Was there anybody before that? Some guys think Melchizedek lived before that, but he didn't. Was there any human beings around before Adam and Eve? So we all came from Adam and Eve, right?

That's our history. It has a beginning. Now if I can take you out of Adam and put you into Christ, now think about how far back you go. How far back do you go? You go beyond the creation back into eternity because you're in Christ. How cool is that? For us to realize that our history in Adam is over is a big step. And what we're studying right now are the mechanics and how God did it. He took you out of Adam and put you in Christ. That changes everything about who you are. Huh? Kind of hard, Monique, right? Yeah. It is hard.

So our names are written in the book of life, prior to the existence of life. Amen. But there's not, since we do believe though, all of the bad things have been erased. Paid for. Gone. Okay, but they haven't been embraced? Oh yeah, gone. Okay. Yeah. You're not going to run into your sins again. No. Okay. That's what you think. Okay. We okay so far? Alright. So, that being the case, what is our identity with the sin nature in the whole sphere of the first Adam life now? As much as we choose to make it. Huh? As much as we choose to make it.

I'm going conditional. I'm going conditional. Sorry. Sorry. Now think about this. Nothing. What is my identity? Put your name in there. You know what, I can see that name thing saying Holly and Christ or Christ and Holly. I don't see the Christ out of there. That's fine. What is your identity with the sin nature? None. Nada. Zero. in the whole sphere of the first atom life now. You don't have any. Right. Okay. Last question. Positionally. Positionally. That's why I'm banging on position. Yes. Verse 4. The King James says we should walk in newness of life. The word walk means to grow together. What do you think the source of energy of this walk is? What do you think it is?

It's you're really wanting to do it really bad, right? Working really hard. Exercising my faith as hard as I can. Maybe put it this way. Do you have to, when you have children, those of you who have children, when they kind of got to the point where they could sort of understand stuff, did you have to sit them down and teach them how to sin? Why not? Because they already had it. How did they have it? Because they were born into it. Yeah, that's right.

The sin nature functions on its own cognizance. You don't have to teach, I didn't have to teach John how to sin. Now Donald was convinced he was born without a sin nature, but he proved her wrong. Just by functioning every day, right? Now, if you're a new creature in Christ, How about that new life? Does that new life, do you need to teach that life how to function?

Yeah. No. If I didn't have to teach myself how to sin, I was just doing it, do I have to teach my new life how to function? No. No, I don't. I don't. What do I have to do with that new life, about that new life? What do I need to do about it? I need to find out about it. Don't I? I need to find out how it functions. And the how turns into a who. Do you see that?

When the Lord Jesus gets up in the morning, if he gets up in the morning, he doesn't have to make decisions about how he's going to glorify God today. He just does it because it's his nature to do it. When I get up in the morning, if I'm outside of Christ and I'm living in Adam, I don't have to decide about the sins I'm going to commit today. I'm just going to do them. You ever committed a sin you didn't want to do? Never. I never have. Maybe you have. I like every one of them. I still do.

So the point is that the resurrected life of Christ has its own power source. Our engagement in it is knowing and believing. So that's why the elements of this class, the next thing we're going to study is grace, because it functions in the environment of grace only.

It does not function in the environment of law. It doesn't function there. It's like if I'm going to go scuba diving, I need a tank. I can't function under the water with my lungs. If I'm going to go down 40 feet and look at God's creation on the reef, I need some sort of apparatus so that I can function. If I'm going to walk in resurrected life, I need something to function in there.

Guess what it is? It's the life itself I have. I'm in Christ. You see that? You alright with that? You know, it's hard to understand it all in our little stupid mind because it's so against Yes, it is. That's exactly right, Monique. You get the star today. Oh, thank you. I appreciate it. No, that's exactly right. You can describe that a thousand ways. If I'm dead to sin, how come when the music starts, my feet are moving? I should not be reacting. Part of the reason why I think it's so illogical, it's important to understand.

If you go back, let's rewind time back to Genesis chapter 3. And Adam and Eve fall. They eat the fruit. How could Adam deal with it at that point in time? What's man's solution to this severe problem of debt? Philodendron. Yeah, he's like, I got some plans. And that's the best solution we got. And God says, no, I've got a better solution. Doesn't make any sense to you guys, because you guys think plans are a good idea. That's right.

And you notice, if you think about it, what did God tell Adam would happen if he sinned? What was the consequence? Death. Death? You mean there wasn't any purgatory, 40 years of hard labor, 50 buck fine, nothing like that? Death. Has there ever been any other remedy for sin other than death? No, there hasn't been. And why death? Because sin Sin is not consistent with who God is. He cannot have it in his presence. So what has he got to do to save Monique? He's got to take her out of that entire realm of sin and death and transplant her or recreate her in an entirely new life in which there is no sin. Did he do it? Yes, he did do it.

Alright. One of the things, when I get to my teaching, you know, I'm going to... Don't jump ahead. I ain't. I ain't. But it's going back to these verses. And I think it's... I think it... I was going to have everybody read it when I get there again. It's...

Do you believe this? And I think, again, the linchpin, I think, is verse 6. If you read, you know, and I think you said this one time before, just read this. And, you know, knowing this, that our old self was crucified with him. Is that one of those verses you just sweep under, you read it, but... Sure you do. I don't understand that, I don't believe it, I don't, you know, you end up...

I was going to edit your computer and put old man in there. Well, I looked at it, it is Anthropos, which is man. Well, fortunate. The New American is usually the better translation. You know, I think it's one of those things where I really just think, do you believe this? Is that something, when you read this, just read it. And that's the thing, do you believe that?

Knowing this, that our old body was crude. And I think you have to understand a little bit of position, because it's always that, well, wait a minute, I'm still here, what do you mean I got crude stride? Which is what Mike was starting out with, was position is. To understand this, you need to know position and condition. this positionally, this is true about us right now.

But is this one of those ones you just sweep under the rug? You just can't believe this. And I think it really comes down to this is a linchpin, that you've got to understand this and believe this and understand what that means. Because otherwise, all the rest that we're going to talk about and all that Paul talks about doesn't make sense. And when I get into the other verses on newness of life, new creature, new, What does that mean unless you understand this verse? That's right. It's an example that you might understand. Bruce's mom won't listen. And then when it's presented to her, she won't believe it. She sweeps it under the rug. Right? It's not important. She reads books. Yeah. And it's not important.

Identification truths are not important to a believer I think until he has a need to have them important to him. In other words, he gets to a point where he says, you know, I'm this really good Christian person and I'm putting on this act and everybody thinks I'm terrific, but inside my heart I'm seeing this evilness that dogs me and I can't get free. Then identification matters. That God did something about that dog inside.

Question one. Of less than 14, which fits right in with what we're talking about. It's a question within a question. Everybody have less than 14. I have thirty five. Yes. All right. Is the following statement true? If I did not die with Christ on the cross, I cannot be living with Him risen from the dead, but I'm still back in the old Adam in which I was born." Is that statement true? I got a yes. Everybody agree that it's true or not true? If I did not die with Christ on the cross, if that's true, I cannot be living with him risen from the dead, but I'm still back in the old Adam in which I was born. Why? That's the hard part of the question. The why part.

The only thing is you changed it to say with him. It should be in him. Fine. With him, in him is fine. Well then you don't believe. If you're not... Well, you know, I think you can... Okay, so here I am. I was going to say young Christian, but that probably isn't a true statement. I'm just a believer and I come across Knowing this, that my old man was crucified with him, that the body of sin might be done away with or put out of business, that I or we should no longer be slaves to sin. I read that.

What do I do with it? I don't understand what he's talking about. What do I do? What do I do? Believe. That's it. Believe. I take him at his word and I give him the time to work it out so that I do understand what he means. Well, I mean I could say I don't understand it, sweep it under the rug, I'm moving on to some sort of spiritual push-up. You know? Because if you don't get revelation about this, do you really understand what it is? Nope. You don't. Involved in programs. Yeah. Clean-up programs.

Okay, so I was right then, it's a no because you really don't believe. You do believe it because you took God at his word. But you may not understand the nuances of what you just read. But if God said it to me, you know he's been pretty faithful up to this point when he said that Christ died for my sins and he was buried and resurrected and if I believe him he'll save me. You know, he persuaded me about that one. He can persuade me about this one. Here's why I'm going that way. I'll read a couple of things.

Perhaps no more difficult task, no task requiring such constant vigilant attention is assigned by God to the believer. It is the stupendous thing, this matter of taking note of and keeping in mind what goes so completely against your consciousness that your old man was crucified.

Was he or wasn't he? These words are addressed to faith and to faith only. Christ died once, once and for all, and to sin. He's not dying continually. He already did. So you get that information in your mind. The only thing that God asks you to do about it is to believe Him about it. Not to feel it, not to experience it yet, not to jump up and down, not to try to persuade somebody you're really smart, just to believe Him. Just believe that fact that your old man was crucified with Him. So I think this is kind of like two different questions though, because Christ died for us on the cross and paid for our sins no matter what we believe.

It's a fact. So, this is kind of saying, do I understand that fact? Do I believe in that fact? It's an additional fact. It's not only that he died for me. This says I died with him. That's a whole other fact. Right, and so that is another fact, but Whether or not we accept and believe that's true is a whole other one. Yes it is. Now, enter in a couple of other elements. Number one, the day that you're cruising through Romans 6 and you see this, the light goes on, wow, this says something different than what I've ever seen before.

I wonder what that means. That thought process alone was put into your heart by the Holy Spirit. Just that much of it, okay? Once that seed is planted, hang on to your chair because he intends, now that he's shown it to you, he intends to bring you into the reality of it. And that may take some time. Having said that, it sounds like, oh, this is really highly spiritual stuff, right? I get two chevrons and a thing if I... No. This is basic Christian understanding. This is chapter 6 of the very first book. This is Christianity 101. Identification is basic stuff. Okay?

So when you see this, or any other truth in the word, where the spirit goes bingo, and you go, oh wow, that's pretty cool. Your job is to believe him, nothing else. And recognize that now that he has shown it to you, get ready, because we're going to live in this as we go forward. This will be part of what my life is. It may take you years, but that's okay. How long does it take the Spirit of God to convince you, settle you down on the fact, I really am separated from my sin nature and I don't have to respond to it anymore.

Because I'm focused on the Lord Jesus Christ. Oh, I can do that too? Yeah, but if you have that, what you just said, that doesn't mean that you don't go a few steps back. because you get completely discombobulated and some things you read. When I first saw this, you know what it represented to me?

This was the first bit of information I had ever received in my life that said to me, this is the pathway to maybe not sinning so much. This is the road. Confession and restoration wasn't the answer. I was confessing before I was even sinning because I knew it was coming. you know, that's not the road. But when I saw this, I thought, wow, you know, this means, what this really means, if you extrapolate it out in the future, I'm going to sin less. I may not sin at all at some time. Not the rest of my life, but there will be times I won't be sinning. Because if this fact is true, that's really what it translates into. You see that? It's cool. Now I know it's tough for you guys because you're not big time sinners. What am I told to do about this?

I'm told to believe it in that death of Christ. I'm not told to do my own dying. I'm not told to die to sin, to self and the world. But on the contrary, to simply believe, to enter in by faith into the death that I died with Him. That's it. But we're still in verse 6 and we haven't been told to do anything yet. We're just told to take in the facts. Alright, question 2.

Who is the old man? Held sin nature, who we were in Adam? My old man was crucified with him. Who is the old man? Barack Obama, right? Hit off Hitler. Okay, the old man is the person that doesn't believe. Is that right? The unbeliever? Okay, keep adding to him. It's more than just the unbeliever. What is the old man? Or who is a better question? Who is the old man? What makes up the old man?

Everything about me that's not in Christ. That's pretty good. Everything about me that's not in Christ, which means everything about me that's from Adam. You see that? Adam's sinful life and nature. How about that? Adam's sinful life and nature. I'm going to read some things to you.

Romans 6.6 sets forth doctrinally and positionally what happened to me as identified with the Lord Jesus in his death unto the sin nature on the cross. I, the old Adamic man, was crucified with him. I was not forgiven. Was the old man forgiven? Was he? No, he wasn't. He was crucified with Christ. You, the person, were forgiven, but your Adamic old man was not forgiven. He was crucified.

I, the sinful one, was condemned in the death of the cross in order that I might be recreated in the risen last Adam. Now, God chose to introduce me into this world via fallen Adam, didn't he? Isn't that what he did? everybody here came in here via fallen Adam, from whom I received a sinful life in nature.

Isn't that true? Other terms for that condemned life are old man, flesh, sedamic nature, old nature, indwelling sin, old life, and the principle of sin. All of those are the same thing. Do you see that? So God chose to introduce me into existence via this old man. So every thing that I am with my identity to Adam is the old man. My propensity to sin, my attachment to the world, my dominion by Satan and my old sin nature. Which is not dead. What? Which is not dead. No, you're dead. It isn't dead, you are. Yeah, right. To it. It didn't go anywhere.

As a matter of fact, when I die, am I going to cease to exist? Where am I going to be? I'm going to be somewhere else, right? But you'll say, gee, Mike's dead. Poppy Matthews said, oh, I really want to be in Mike Doyle's class when I get older. I hope he doesn't die before I get there. So if I die, I'm just someplace else, right? And you would say, well, he's dead. Body's down at the mortuary. He's not here. That's what death means.

It just means separation. And so if I'm, as a person, dead to sin, it doesn't mean sin died. It means I got separated from it. I still exist and so does the sin nature. It's just that it doesn't have control and dominion over me and I'm not identified with it. My old man was crucified with him. Okay? Why? What was the reason? Next part of the verse. Well, before that, let's work on it.

What's the word crucified mean? Now think about crucifixion. It's a method of putting someone to death, right? It's just a method. I mean, if God just chose to do it another way, he could say that my old man was electrocuted with him. But here's the cool thing, not cool, but an understanding thing about crucifixion. When a man was crucified, or a woman was, I don't know, did they crucify women? I don't know if they crucified men. They probably stoned women. I don't know.

Anyway, when the guy went up on the cross, he wasn't dead. It took him sometimes weeks to die. Your sin nature goes up on the cross, is it dead? Is it going to die? He ain't coming down. So the longer you're on the cross, the longer a person is on the cross, the closer to death he gets and the less he is attached to the world, he begins to move away and the people on the ground watching him. He's dying.

So you have to view your sin nature as on the cross and it ain't coming down. You're separated from him, but he's still kicking. He's still barking orders to you, or trying to, and he's trying to get you to respond. What you learn after you know these truths and the work of the Spirit in you is not to respond. If I was standing here, and my old man was up on the cross, and it's yelling sinful impulses to me, and I realize, wait a minute, you're there, and I'm here, I'll see you. That's what it's like. See? That's what it's like. Okay.

Well, we didn't get as far as I was hoping, but we'll pick up at verse 4 next week. Dear Father, we thank You for Your Word. Paul, I thank you and we thank you for this tremendous fact that we were, in fact, included in that crucifixion of your son on the cross. Your design for us was to free us from the dominion of sin, Father. We're so thankful for that. And we pray in your son's precious name. Amen.