Day 9

“The day you eat of that fruit, that day you will die.”  —GENESIS 2:17

When humanity fell by disobeying God in the Garden of Eden, God withdrew His Holy Spirit from the human spirit. In Ephesians, Paul describes the fall becoming ‘separated from the life of God’. After the fall, our first parents retained their animal bodies and animal functions; eating, sleeping, and mating, but with minds to think, emotions to feel, and a will to decide. However, in the fall they became disconnected from the Spirit of God and therefore died spiritually. This is the natural condition into which human beings have been born ever since.

If the absence of physical life means physical death, so the absence of spiritual life means spiritual death. When Paul says in Romans 6:23, “The wages of sin is death”, he is not making a statement about the future as in, ‘The wages of sin will be death’, but a statement about the present, ‘The wages of sin is death’. This is the condition into which we were born.

Our state of spiritual death denies us the ability to function as God intended, for it was His presence in the human heart that would equip us to do that. Hence, the gospel, in the first instance, is about regeneration; that is, restoring the Holy Spirit to the human spirit. It is giving back to human beings what was lost in the fall. Our natures are fallen and we retain that throughout our earthly lives, which is why we live in a state of civil war in our souls. Paul writes, ‘For the sinful nature desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the sinful nature. They are in conflict with each other, so that you do not do what you want’ (Galatians 5:17-18). The gospel does not sanctify the old nature, or improve it, but replaces it with the Spirit and nature of Jesus Christ. Jesus said to Nicodemus, ‘Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit’ (John 3:6).

Our task is to live in fellowship with the Lord Jesus Christ and in dependence on Him and obedience to Him, so that His life might be expressed in us and His character revealed. It is the death of Jesus that reconciles us to God, but the life of Jesus that saves us day by day from the power of our old nature. Paul wrote, ‘For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of his Son, it is much more certain, now that we are reconciled, that we shall be saved and daily delivered from sin’s dominion through his resurrection life’ (Romans 5:10-11 Amplified Bible).

PRAYER: Thank You, Lord Jesus, for your life that indwells me, which not only reconciles me to God, but day to day saves me from the power of my sinful nature.

TO REFLECT UPON: Am I living in daily fellowship with Jesus, aware that through His resurrected life living in me, I am delivered from sin’s dominion over me?