Normally on this blog I try very hard to think deep thoughts about setting aside the self and living for Christ.  Galatians 2:20 is a key verse for this idea, and it's a good one.

Today, however, I start Seminary.  I can't afford my textbooks, so I'm hoping for some grace from the professors until the loans and scholarship overage is disbursed.  I should be terrified.  I should be running around trying to scrounge up dimes from the couch cushions and Amazon gift cards from my secret Amazon gift card hiding place... but I'm not.
I know, somehow, this is going to work out.

I've spent lots of time in prayer.  I sought wisdom from many counselors.  I got lots of great advice on both sides, from people I greatly respect, and then I spent more time in prayer.

In the end, I was convinced that this is what God wants of me.

So even though I should be worried, even though I should be afraid, I'm just not going to be.  My Father owns the cattle on a thousand hills, and HE can do some amazing things.  My Master pulled a coin out of the mouth of a fish to pay His taxes.  And in His kingdom, they use gold as paving stones.
I should be afraid.  But I have been crucified with Christ, and it is no longer I who live, but Jesus Christ now lives in me.  And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.

“To slay the sinner is then the first use of the Law, to destroy the life and strength wherein he trusts and convince him that he is dead while he lives; not only under the sentence of death, but actually dead to God, void of all spiritual life, dead in trespasses and sins.” 

- John Wesley

What a brutal idea!  To "slay the sinner!"  We fear to speak in such terms today, because to do so is entirely judgmental.  If I'm to speak of slaying anyone, I am to enact violence upon them, and if I further declare the slain person a "sinner," why, I am breaking the fundamental law of modern American society entirely.



And yet, what Reverend Wesley says above is one of the most loving statements I can imagine.  The truth may hurt, but the truth is always more kind than a lie.



So let us deal directly with the issue, then; In Genesis, God says "For in the day that you eat of it, you shall surely die."  Adam did not die in a physical sense that day, but God did not speak untruth.  Adam lived more than 800 years after his disobedience, but he lived as a dead man.  Not as one who would someday die, but as one who was already dead.

Reverend Wesley above, then, is not pointing out something new, but rather making reference to Genesis (as well as the writings of Paul).  By the Law, we know what sin is.  By the law, we see the standard.  On the one hand, it's helpful to know what the standard is, but on the other hand, once you know, you must live up to it.

The Tanakh (Old Testament) contains 613 laws.  One of those laws is to never forget what Amalek did.

Do you know what Amalek did?

You sinner.

Me too.  I'm going to go look it up after I post this, but I honestly don't know what Amalek did.  I am dead, because of my violation of the law.

Could I, after I look it up, return to life?  What a silly question!  Only God gives life to that which is dead.

And yet we are promised eternal life.  And we may attain it through the shed blood of the Messiah, Christ Jesus.  Because He took upon Himself all the punishment for our sin... He took upon Himself our death.  As Ravi Zacharias has so powerfully said, "Death is dead."

I am crucified with Christ, therefore I no longer live, but Jesus Christ now lives in me.