The Application of the Messianic Mikveh
6: 8-11
The application of the Messianic mikveh DIG: Why is it important for believers today, that Messiah was raised from the dead, never to die again? Why doesn’t sin have any authority over us? How and why are we to consider ourselves dead to sin? Why do we have a choice?
REFLECT: When sin suddenly makes its reappearance, do you recognize it, and consider yourself to be dead to it and alive to God? What sin have you died to, that in the past would have been a real temptation? Looking back at your life, how have you become a new creation?
The one death of Messiah was a death to sin; anyone united with Messiah is a new creation
– the old has passed, the new has come.
The argument (6:8-11): In the previous file (to see link click Br – The Significance of the Messianic Mikveh), Paul presented the negative aspect of the surgical operation God performs in the sinner when he believes, namely, the separation between him and his [sin nature]. Now, Paul gives the reader the positive aspect. Now since we died with the Messiah, we trust that we will also live with Him (6:8). That is, all of Messiah’s righteousness was transferred to his spiritual bank account at the moment of salvation. What was true of Messiah becomes true of the believer, minus His deity. Hence, we live by means of Messiah.
We know that the Messiah has been raised from the dead, never to die again. Yeshua raised people from the dead, as did Elijah and Elisha; but the people that they raised from the dead all died again. For example, Lazarus was raised from the dead (see the commentary on The Life of Christ Ia – The Resurrection of Lazarus: The First Sign of Jonah), but later, he died again. Yeshua’s resurrection, however, is the firstfruits of a new creation (First Corinthians 15:20 and 23), in which believers have a share (Second Corinthians 5:17; Galatians 6:15; James 1:18), a new creation from which death has been removed (First Corinthians 15:50-57; Revelation 20:14 and 21:4). The Mekhilta of Rabbi Ishmael in a midrash halakha to the book of Exodus 20:19 says, “If it were possible to do away with the angel of death, I would. But the decree has long ago been decreed. Rabbi Yosi says, ‘It was on this occasion that Isra’el stood before Mount Sinai, on the condition that the angel of death would not rule over them.’ For it said, ‘You are gods (Elohim), etc.’ But you corrupted your conduct, ‘Surely you will die like men’ (Psalm 82:6-7).” But Yeshua has gone beyond this; He has conquered death, so that death has no authority over Him. And because death has no authority over Him, it has no authority over us (6:9).152
And because Messiah lives forever, we will live forever with Him. For the death He died, He died to sin once and for all, but the life He lives, He lives to God (6:10). Because death is the penalty of sin (6:23), to break the authority of sin is to break the authority of death. Two extremely important truths should be emphasized here. First, Messiah died to sin. Having lived a perfectly sinless life during His incarnation, Messiah obviously never had the same relationship to sin that every other human being has. Not only did sin never have any authority over Him, but He never committed a single sin.
How then, we wonder, could the Messiah have died to sin? The Bible teaches that He died to the penalty of sin by taking upon Himself the sins of the whole world. Messiah’s death on the cross satisfied every claim of God’s holiness and justice so that Ha’Shem is free to act on behalf of sinners. This is not cheap grace. It was very expensive. It cost God the Father the unspeakable death of His one-and-only Son (John 3:16). Not only that, but Messiah also died to the power of sin, forever breaking its authority over those who belong to Him through faith. Paul assured even the immature and sin-prone believers in Corinth that ADONAI made this sinless man to be a sin offering on our behalf, so that in union with him we might fully share in God’s righteousness (Second Corinthians 5:21).
The second crucial emphasis in 6:10 is that Messiah died to sin once and for all. He achieved a victory that will never need repeating. Day after day the Levitical priest (Hebrew: cohen) stands and performs his religious duties; again and again he offers the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins. But when this Cohen, Yeshua Messiah, had offered for all time one sacrifice for sins, He “sat down at the right hand of God” (Hebrews 10:11-12 quoting Psalm 110:1). Messiah’s sacrifice was better because it removes sin, which the Levitical sacrifices could never do. The B’rit Chadashah went from daily sacrifices to one sacrifice, from many ineffective sacrifices to one perfect sacrifice. These two verses are a series of contrasts – the many priests to the one Priest, the continual standing of the Levitical priests with the sitting down of the Great Priest, the repeated sacrifices with the once-for-all-time sacrifice, and the ineffective sacrifices that only covered sin with the effective sacrifice of Yeshua Messiah that completely removes sin. The Levitical priests always stood because their ministry was never finished. But Yeshua didn’t need to stand up because His work was completed. The Levitical priests, with all their repetition, could never take away sins, however, Yeshua’s one sacrifice took away sins of believers for all time.153
Therefore, we are to continually consider ourselves to be dead to our old [sin nature], but alive for God by your union with Him (6:11). Paul isn’t telling us to feel as if we are dead to the old [sin nature], or even to understand it fully, but to act on God’s Word and claim it for ourselves. The Greek word consider (Greek: logizomai, meaning to take into account, to calculate, to estimate). This kind of thinking is faith in action. It is like endorsing a check. If we really believe that the money is in the bank account, we will sign our name to it and collect the money. Continually considering, here, is not merely claiming a promise, but acting on it as a fact. YHVH does not command us to become dead to our old [sin nature]; He tells us that we are dead to it and commands us to act on it.154 That means that we now have a choice. We can say “No!” to it. But we are also to take into account the fact that we are alive for God, that is, the divine nature has been transferred to our spiritual bank account, so that we now have both the desire and the power to live a holy, separated, life.
Dear Marvelous Heavenly Father, You are so Awesome! Words cannot thank You enough for transferring your divine nature to our spiritual bank account, so that we now have both the desire and the power to live a holy, separated, life. You designed the caterpillar to change from a crawling insect into a beautiful flying butterfly. The body and nature of the creature has totally changed. The butterfly’s nature causes it to fly. It will never go back to being a caterpillar and crawl around to voraciously nibble on leaves.
In a similar, yet quite different way, those who choose to love and follow God as Lord and Savior, are given God’s new nature inside of them. They can fly away from temptation when it knocks for the Ruach ha-Kodesh lives within them and gives them both the desire and the power to live a holy, separated, life. I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Helper so He may be with you forever – the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it does not behold Him or know Him. You know Him, because He abides with you and will be in you (John 14:16-17). I praise, love and worship You. In Yeshua’s holy name and power of His resurrection. Amen
Therefore, if anyone is united with the Messiah, they are a new creation – the old has passed; look, what has come is fresh and new (Second Corinthians 5:17)! And the reason why God is totally free to accept us, is because we are so identified with Yeshua Messiah. But there is a difference between our position in Messiah and our experience in the world. Positionally, what God says about us at the moment of salvation (justification) is true, that we have died to our old [sin nature], because of our union with Messiah. Our experience, however, is to continue to grow in our relationship with Messiah, being conformed into the image of Messiah (8:29) for the rest of our lives (sanctification).155
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