The Body Is Dead Because Of Sin

Romans 8:10, “And if Christ be in you, the body is dead because of sin; but the Spirit is life because of righteousness.”

I was pondering the meaning of this Bible verse tonight. What does it mean that THE BODY IS DEAD BECAUSE OF SIN? We know that everyone's body will eventually be dead, because everyone dies. Hebrews 9:27, “And as it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment:” So we know we all must die. But what does Romans 8:10 mean that the believer's body is dead because of sin? I think it means exactly what the Bible says in Romans 6:23, “For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.” The moment that we got saved, our true life began in the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is God living within our body and soul (1st Corinthians 3:16-17; 1st John 3:24). Effectively, our body died the moment we received Jesus Christ as our personal Savior, because our new life in the Spirit of Christ superseded that old life.

John 5:24, “Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that heareth my word, and believeth on him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation; but is passed from death unto life.” This is an amazing truth in the Bible, that we are dead when we get saved. Colossians 3:3-4, “For ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God. When Christ, who is our life, shall appear, then shall ye also appear with him in glory.” Proponents of Lordship Salvation have it all backwards. They teach that you must surrender everything to be saved. The Bible teaches the very opposite, that when you get saved, God gives you all things (Romans 8:32). When the Bible says that the 'BODY IS DEAD BECAUSE OF SIN,' obviously your body is not literally dead. It means that our true life is now in Christ, alive in the Holy Spirit. That is our true life from now on!

Many religious people live a spiritual life, but they do not possess life in the Spirit. That is, they have never been born-again by the Holy Spirit. I seriously worry about the Bob Jones University crowd today, because they have changed their beliefs over the decades. They've gone from once believing Free Grace Theology while Bob Jones Sr. (1883-1968) was still alive, to somewhere along the way adopting Lordship Salvation instead. The really unsettling thing is that Dr. Steve Pettit (president of BJU since 2014) and their college's faculty are in theological denial, relentlessly attempting to preach Lordship Salvation in a wrapper of Free Grace Theology. It is horrifying and another gospel, which cannot produce the new birth! BJU today shamefully honors, promotes and sanctions Pastor John MacArthur's demonic ministry in California. So also does the apostate Harvest Baptist Church on Guam. Truth matters!

As God's redeemed children, we still have the flesh, but we also have the Holy Spirit indwelling us, who is our true life. That is why the body is dead, because it is no longer our primary life's source. For the unsaved man, his earthly life is all he has! When his body perishes within 70 years or so, if not much sooner, his unregenerate spirit will descend into the fires and torments of an everlasting Hell (Psalms 9:17; Revelation 20:15). Colossians 3:3-4, “For ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God. When Christ, who is our life, shall appear, then shall ye also appear with him in glory.” Please don't miss the verses that we just read, because they well explain the phrase: “THE BODY IS DEAD.” 

Carefully notice that our “LIFE” is hid with Christ in God. So the reason why we are dead, is simply because Christ has become our life. Look at verse 4, “CHRIST, WHO IS OUR LIFE.” The very moment that I got saved at age 13, my identity became hidden in Christ. My identity wasn't lost, it became one with the dear Savior. That is why the Lord said in Matthew 25:40b, “Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.” Jesus is saying that we're in thing thing called Christianity together. All for one, and one for all! I love that truth!

Our blessed Savior even went as far, as to set us on equal footing with His personal family. Matthew 12:48-49, “But he answered and said unto him that told him, Who is my mother? and who are my brethren? And he stretched forth his hand toward his disciples, and said, Behold my mother and my brethren!” Wow! That is so cool! All these deceived Roman Catholics, who are running around honoring and praying to Mary (Jesus' earthly mother), don't understand the Scriptures! Jesus said that each and every redeemed child of God IS HIS MOTHER! So Biblically I am just as special as Mary, and Mary no more special than me or any other believer!

The Holy Spirit is Jesus and God the Father dwelling in us. John 14:23, “Jesus answered and said unto him, If a man love me, he will keep my words: and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him.” Eternal security is the Gospel! To have Jesus Christ is to have eternal life in you. 1st John 5:20, “And we know that the Son of God is come, and hath given us an understanding, that we may know him that is true, and we are in him that is true, even in his Son Jesus Christ. This is the true God, and eternal life.” Jesus is eternal life!!! 

The body is dead because of sin, or said another way, because of our sin the body must eventually die. Effectively, the moment a believer is saved, their body became dead. God told Adam and Eve that if they sinned, by eating the forbidden fruit, they would die. Genesis 2:17, “But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.” Adam and Eve did choose to sin, but their bodies didn't die. Was God mistaken? No, Adam and Eve did die, they died spiritually inside. Adam opened the floodgate of sin, misery and death upon the human race (Romans 5:12). Consequently, every human being since the Garden of Eden, has been born spiritually dead. This is why we all MUST be born-again (or born for the second time) in order to enter into the Kingdom of God (John 3:1-7).

The opposite happens when a person gets saved. The bodies of Adam and Eve didn't die the moment they sinned, their spirits did. When we get saved, our body doesn't come to life, our dead spirit does! In Adam all men became sinners (the fall of mankind), but in Jesus all men who desire it can be made the righteousness of God (justified by faith). Romans 5:19, “For as by one man's disobedience many were made sinners, so by the obedience of one shall many be made righteous.” This is why we are exhorted as believers to “Fight the good fight of faith, lay hold on eternal life...” (1st Timothy 6:12a). That means grab the horns! We've already got it, so we ought to make the best of it. God has purchased us a brand new pair of shoes (salvation), so we ought to wear them!

The Bible says that to be spiritually minded is LIFE and PEACE. I don't know about you, but I like my peace of mind. To be carnally minded is DEATH. Death is a deadend. Carnally minded people have nowhere to go in their mind, which is why they are so miserable. They have no hope. They live only for this temporary life, totally oblivious to the next. The born-again Christian has the blessed hope of living forever. We don't hope, we have a hope! Titus 1:2, “In hope of eternal life, which God, that cannot lie, promised before the world began;” I love that... GOD CANNOT LIE!!! I have that blessed hope, do you friend? Jesus said that living in sin is a servant's life, because death is inevitable, and with death a life of sin will end; but to believe on the Son of God makes us a son, who abides in the house forever Jesus said, because He is unto us eternal life  (John 8:32-36).

Jesus Christ is our life as believers! What a precious truth. I don't know about you, but that truth burns in my heart, making me rejoice!  Galatians 2:20, “I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.” The reason why we are saved at all as Christians, is because Christ is our life. Jesus doesn't just give us eternal life, JESUS IS OUR ETERNAL LIFE!!! The physical body is merely a temporal tabernacle (tent) to house our soul and spirit. When the body can no longer sustain our earthly life, we go to be with the Lord (2nd Corinthians 5:8).

Refuting The Heretical Bob Jones University Camp

The following wonderful passage of Scripture exposes the ungodly Harvest Baptist Church on Guam as a cult, and exposes Bob Jones University as a cult, and exposes Moody Bible Institute as a cult, who all teach the Devil's counterfeit gospel of Lordship Salvation. Before I quote this passage, let me give you an example of what I'm talking about, so you'll know I'm not just barking up an empty tree here. Dr. Steve Pettit (the theologically incompetent new president of BJU since 2014) said this:

“You can't just speak about getting saved, and you accepted Christ, and then that's it! There is a justification; There is a sanctification; There's ultimately a glorification, and though there are three parts, they are all part of the whole, and you cannot separate them. In order for you to qualify for the award, you have to get into the race, you have to stay in the race, and you have to finish the race. If you want to win, you have to run to the end; and winning in the Christian life is everything, because if you lose—if you don't finish—you lose everything—you lose your SOUL. And so, the Christian race is the life of faith that begins, is run, and is finished when we cross over into Heaven!” [emphasis added] —Dr. Steve Pettit (“What Does It Mean To Run 'The Race'?” - 11:34)

Dr. Pettit woefully corrupts the gospel of free grace, by applying living the Christian life (the race as he calls it) to the gift of eternal life. He says if you don't finish the race, you lose your soul and go to Hell. Dr. Pettit says more junk theology, like this statement:

“For the real reality of the genuineness of your faith is that you are faithful to run the race!” [emphasis added] —Dr. Steve Pettit (“What Does It Mean To Run 'The Race'?” - 22:44)

“God's people HAVE TO continue in the faith! They MUST PERSEVERE, because perseverance is the testimony of the reality of your faith!” [emphasis added] —Dr. Steve Pettit (“What Does It Mean To Run 'The Race'?” - 25:13) 

The preceding statements by Steve Pettit are Satanic doctrines of devil, not sound Bible teaching. Living the Christian life is not proof that we are saved. The Bible doesn't teach that we “have to” or “must persevere” in holiness to get to Heaven! These are the ungodly heretical teachings of Pastor John MacArthur, to whom Steve Pettit, Sam Horn, Marty Herron, Harvest Baptist Church on Guam, and the rest of the BJU spiritual chicken ranch bid Godspeed to. Without further ado, what saith the Scripture? ...

Romans 6:10-15, “For in that he died, he died unto sin once: but in that he liveth, he liveth unto God. Likewise reckon [think] ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord. Let not [a choice, freewill] sin therefore reign in your mortal body, that ye should obey [not must or will, but should] it in the lusts thereof. Neither yield ye [a choice, freewill] your members [your body] as instruments of unrighteousness unto sin: but yield yourselves unto God, as those that are alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness unto God. For sin shall not have dominion over you: for ye are not under the law, but under grace. What then? shall we sin [a choice, freewill], because we are not under the law, but under grace? God forbid. Know ye not, that to whom ye yield yourselves servants to obey [a choice, freewill], his servants ye are to whom ye obey; whether of sin unto death, or of obedience unto righteousness?”

Boy, I sure love these simple verses! There are two keys of law and grace. Dear friend, before you and I were saved, we were shut up by the key of God's law, trapped under condemnation in the prisonhouse of sin. But grace is the precious key that unlocked the law's door, and set us free from bondage, through faith alone in the precious Savior! Hallelujah! In Romans 6:14-15 we see the beautiful doctrine of eternal security. Sin shall not have dominion over any believer! It just ain't gonna happen friend!!! You can choose to sin morning, noon and night, but sin will never have dominion over you again, because we as believers are forever under God's saving grace. It is possible for a believer to choose to be the servant of sin, but it is not God's will for anyone. It is important to understand that the Christian believer has eternal life dwelling in them, which is Christ, and nothing can ever jeopardize that...

Romans 5:20-21, “Moreover the law entered, that the offence might abound. But where sin abounded, grace did much more abound: That as sin hath reigned unto death, even so might grace reign through righteousness unto eternal life by Jesus Christ our Lord.”

When someone like Dr. Steve Pettit and Harvest Baptist Church on Guam come along preaching that you MUST persevere in holiness and Christian service, or else you're not really saved, they are preaching another gospel. Harvest broadcasts all of Steve Pettit's chapel sermons from Bob Jones University on the island of Guam, poisoning the Micronesian islands with their demonic heresy. I preach THE TRUTH because I care about people!!! You get saved by getting out of the way, ceasing from your own self-righteous efforts, and simply resting in what Jesus did on the cross to pay for your sins (Hebrews 4:10-11). It's not what you did, it's what Jesus did! God doesn't save anyone who is trying to be saved, He only saves those who are trusting to be saved. 

Please beware of these ungodly ecumenicals and the Lordship Salvation garbage theology, who talk of faith and grace, while telling you that you must persevere to run the race if you want to make it to Heaven someday! Run from those devils!!! I love you enough to tell you the truth, and unlike Steve Pettit who gets paid a 6-digit salary each year, I've never made a single penny since I began preaching online in 2002. To God alone be the glory, great things He hath done (and is doing. Praise God!