PAST TENSE (HOLY GRAMMAR III)

 “Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creation: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new,” –2Co 5:17.

The concept of “Holy Grammar” requires that Believers should have accurate knowledge of the tenses of their reality. A major hindrance to victorious Christian living is the wrong mixture of spiritual tenses.

Today, we’ll focus on the bad grammar (spiritually speaking) of mixing our past and present tenses. As a Believer who is now in Christ Jesus, several things MUST be expressed in the past tense and spoken of as already done.

And one of the most important area is SIN. When Jesus died on the Cross, we DIED to sin with Him so that we can resurrect as the New Man in Him. This is a core message of the Apostle Paul. 

In Rom 6:6 (CEV)  he says “We know that the persons we used to be WERE nailed to the cross with Jesus. This was done, SO THAT our sinful bodies would no longer be the slaves of sin.” And in Gal 5:24 he says “Those who belong to Christ Jesus have CRUCIFIED {past tense} their corrupt nature along with its passions and desires” (GW).

So, as long as one has accepted Jesus into their heart, it is not PROPER GRAMMAR to ask God to help you crucify your sinful desires. You ALREADY did that at the point of salvation (people don’t read the ‘fine print’ of contracts, even if their lives depended on it).

This explains why Paul finds it incredible, even scandalous, that Believers could still allow sin to rule over them. “God forbid”, he exclaims in Rom 6:2, “How shall we, that are dead to sin, live any longer in it?”

That is also why he repeatedly asks us to “KILL every desire” or “put to death the deeds of your flesh” (Rom 8:13; Col 3:5; etc.); but not we ourselves, because we are ALREADY dead through the Cross.

Now, to a Believer currently battling with a particular sin, saying that the SIN problem is in the PAST may sound like “there is no spoon” philosophy, or even a belittling of their struggle. But this is biblical, holy grammar.

Like bogus “ancestral curses”, Sin will always try to act as if nothing changed when you went to the Cross. Working through the memory of the flesh and mind, it will always try to perpetuate its dominance in us. But Our victory begins the day we tell it that we’re more educated than that.

AMEN.

More Blessings await you today; you’ll not miss them in Jesus’ Name.

GREG ELKAN