Death of a Christian

In John 10:10, Jesus said, "I have come that they might have life and have it to the full."  Counterintuitively, however, this life begins after, not before death.

In the physical world, the one into which we are born, death comes after life.  In the spiritual world, the one into which we are born again, death comes before life.

Jesus gives an analogy in John 12:24 using a seed that must "fall tto the ground and die" or it remains a lifeless seed.  When it is buried and goes through the death of germination, it comes to life and a plant bearing new seed and fruit of that seed emerges.  So it is with the child of God.

In Romans 6:1ff., Paul talks about the death of the disciple or, more precisely, the two deaths.  The disciple dies "to  sin" (v. 2) and "with Christ" (v. 8).  It is the dying with Christ in baptism that empowers us to die to sins in our daily walk.

To the degree we die with Christ, we are dead to sin.  In dying with Christ, temptation to sin begins to die.  Sin's power over one who has fully died with Christ has no more power over the Christian than temptation over a corpse.

This dying with Christ is therefore not a one time death and  burial in baptism in which we rise beyond the control of sin for "all sin and fall short of the glory of God" (Rom 3:23).  Instead, it is a daily dying, beginning when we are buried with Christ, reduces the control of sin and releases us from its power, progressively, day by day.  We are saved at the Cross but we are sanctified in the crossing, that daily walk in which we follow Him home.  Jus' Sayn.