A Beautiful Death: Dead to one thing, alive to another
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In his best-selling book Radical, David Platt shares the account of a particular Christian in India who, as men skinned him alive because of his faith, told his torturers, “I thank you for this. Tear off my old garment, for I will soon put on Christ’s garment of righteousness.” The great irony is that, with a response like that, our persecuted brother seems like he already had. He had already joined the likes of the Apostle Paul, who counted everything he had “as loss for the sake of Christ” (Philippians 3:7). Because of his life in Christ, his death in the world did not mean much to him. I want think that way.
When we are alive to one thing, being dead to everything else is easy.
The Bible calls all followers of Jesus to personally identify with Jesus’ death and resurrection. Jesus commanded each disciple to “deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me. For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it” (Matthew 16:24-25). The apostle Paul applied this principle with the claim, “I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me” (Galatians 2:20). I apply it with the motto, “I am a servant, and I am already dead.”
The word “death” is strong, and largely figurative even in our everyday language. Something that doesn’t work is “dead,” such as, “My battery is dead.” Something that is over is “dead,” as in, “Their relationship is dead.” Death - whether figurative or literal — is a separation from something. I’ve been exploring the idea of dying to self for a while now. But what about life?
Life is much better than death in a way. Death refers to what you don’t get. If I’m dead to anger, I don’t get to yell at people. If I’m dead to addictions, I don’t get to run to an easy feel-good solution. One addiction I used to struggle with was pornography. If I’m dead to porn, I don’t get to look at things on the internet to which my biology is strongly predisposed. If I’m dead to serving myself, I don’t get to chase after my own self-interest.
But if I’m dead to God, I don’t get to enjoy the “abundant life” that the author of life claimed to come to provide (John 10:10).
In the biblical paradigm, though, each death to one thing includes life to another. So, consider the life that we can enjoy with the kinds of death I’ve listed. Death to anger means life to peace. I get to enjoy relationship with people no matter what they do. Death to addiction means life to freedom. I don’t have to run to deceptive feel-good solutions that used to enslave me. Death to porn means life to sexual health. I get to enjoy a healthy physical relationship with my life.
Romans 6:11 urges believers to “consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.” That means we should consider ourselves dead to the way this world works and alive to God’s kingdom. We should consider ourselves dead to self and alive to others. We should consider ourselves dead to sin and alive to Christ. And isn’t Jesus Christ himself better than our own junk?
Another way to look at this concept is as a suit of clothes. Ephesians 4:22-24 urges believers “to put off your old self, which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires, and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and to put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness.” Take of your old robe of sin and selfishness and put on your new robe of righteousness from Jesus.
Change the way you think about yourself. To do this myself, I adopted a motto that I repeat to myself, “I am a servant, and I am already dead.” By living this out, I find myself more alive to Christ. I pray the same for you. Let us take of our old flesh and put on the garment of Christ even if no one is ever kind enough to do it for us literally.