2. _Death for sin_. "Wherefore, my brethren, ye also are become dead to the law by the body of Christ" (Rom. 7: 4). This is the condition into {110} which Christ brought us by his sacrifice upon the cross. He endured the sentence of a violated law on our behalf, and therefore we are counted as having endured it in him. What he did for us is reckoned as having been done by us: "Because we thus judge, that one died for all, therefore all died" (2 Cor. 5: 14, R. V.). Being one with Christ through faith, we are identified with him on the cross: "I have been crucified with Christ" (Gal. 2: 20, R. V.). This condition of death for sin having been effected for us by our Saviour, we are held legally or judicially free from the penalty of a violated law, if by our personal faith we will consent to the transaction. 3. _Death to sin_. "Even so reckon ye also yourselves to be dead unto sin, but alive unto God in Christ Jesus" (Rom. 6: 11, R. V.). This is the condition of making true in ourselves what is already true for us in Christ, of rendering practical what is now judicial; in other words, of being dead to the power of sin in ourselves, as we are already dead to the penalty of sin through Jesus Christ. As it is written in the Epistle to the Colossians: "For ye died," judicially in Christ, "mortify"--make dead practically--"therefore your members which are upon the earth" (Col. 3: 2, 5, R. V.). It is this condition which the Holy Spirit is constantly effecting in us if we will have it so. "If ye through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body {111} ye shall live" (Rom. 8: 13). This is not self-deadening, as the Revised Version seems to suggest by its decapitalizing of the word "Spirit." Self is not powerful enough to conquer self, the human spirit to get the victory over the human flesh. That were like a drowning man with his right hand laying hold on his left hand, only that both may sink beneath the waves. "Old Adam is too strong for young Melancthon," said the Reformer. It is the Spirit of God overcoming our fleshly nature by his indwelling life, on whom is our sole dependence. Our principal care therefore must be to "walk in the Spirit" and "be filled with the Spirit," and all the rest will come spontaneously and inevitably. As the ascending sap in the tree crowds off the dead leaves which in spite of storm and frost cling to the branches all winter long, so does the Holy Ghost within us, when allowed full sway, subdue and expel the remnants of our sinful nature.