The Biblicist,
Correct...that is why we are commanded to mortify;
3 For ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God.
4 When Christ, who is our life, shall appear, then shall ye also appear with him in glory.
5 Mortify therefore your members which are upon the earth; fornication, uncleanness, inordinate affection, evil concupiscence, and covetousness, which is idolatry:
6 For which things' sake the wrath of God cometh on the children of disobedience:
In Romans 7 "members" is used as synononymous with "this body" and "the flesh" and therefore to moritfy, which means to put to death refers to "this body" "members" "the flesh" all of which refer to the vehicle and sphere where the "law of sin" continues to reside and still has dominion or which both Paul and Peter in later writings combine the two (members plus law of sin) as "the flesh" that is in war with the "soul" of the believer. The believer can "walk AFTER the flesh" even though he is no longer "in the flesh" that is in the natural unregenerate condition as he came into this world. he still has an UNREGNERATE aspect to his Person as it was not his body that was born again.
However, in a following comment where I simply state that this aorist tense act of putting to death (mortify) the law of indwelling sin in the members is a repetitive act you say:
NO...here is where we differ....Paul does not have to "repeat" the old man dying......HE IS TO RECKON IT TO BE A FACT AND LIVE IN LIGHT OF IT.
But you have a real problem here. If what you are saying is true then we are to mortify the "new man" as we have no remnant of an "old man" at all as he does not exist but is not merely dead with regard to his dominion over our regenerate spirit but is dead with regard to his dominion over our body. You have Christians as real schizophrenics because according to your theory it is all in their mind without any reality of an actual abiding law of sin in their members - they just THINK there is and need only to adjust their false mental state.
That is not what the scripture teaches when it says "reckon it so" or "yeild not" but "yeild". Paul is not speaking of a figment of imagination that merely needs mental adjustment. He is speaking of an actual experiential abiding principle of sin that is still alive and active within the unregenerate aspect of our human nature that has not been removed by regeneration, that is presently and experientially ALIVE and WELL and ACTIVE. It is only "dead" judicially and regeneratively but it is not dead, it is not non-existence, it is not non-active in our unregenerate body. It is something we constantly are at war with and it is constantly something we must repeatedly PUT TO DEATH as you CANNOT PUT TO DEATH SOMETHING ALREADY DEAD BUT THAT IS WHAT YOUR POSITION TEACHES. There is no spiritual union with our flesh and God and won't be until glorification. Spiritual union exists in the sphere of our human "spirit" which is a DEAD zone for the law of sin. Our soul (conscious experiential self) may become a DEAD zone for the law of sin IF we put on the new man in our soul by reckoning ourselves dead through DEPENDENCY upon the Spirit's power, but our soul becomes a LIVING ZONE for the old man = law of sin whenever we do not yeild to the Spirit consciously by faith. The soul is the battle zone between what is in spiritual union with God and what is in union with the law of sin and both are REALITIES not figments of imagination.
According to your view(Loyd-Jones/MacArthur) the old man (law of sin) is merely a figment of imagination carried over by habits rather than any actual abiding substance beyond new birth. That is really a schizophrenic doctrine and false. The truth you have refers only to what is actually in spiritual union with God but YOUR BODY IS NOT IN SPIRITUAL UNION WITH GOD but in SPIRITUAL UNION WITH SIN and will be until the day you die and the only possible victory or relief NOW is for your soul to daily PUT TO DEATH the old man (unregenerate body under dominion of the law of sin) by the power of the indwelling Spirit of God.
Your problem is that you are confusion the dominion of God over the spirit of man with dominion over the body of man. Sin no longer reigns in our control center (the spirit) but it actively reigns in our "members" and that is why it must be PUT TO DEATH repeatedly until we die. Romans 7:25 is our reality with regard to our current unglorified state and with regard to our OWN ABILITY. That is where we STAY unless we PUT TO DEATH the old man who still resides in our flesh and you can't put to death what is already dead - the old man still lives in our flesh, still active and one must be delusional to imagine otherwise. With regard to what aspect of our human nature is in spiritual union with God the reign of death is finished, it is a DEAD zone and we have complete victory. We have complete LEGAL victory as the old man is DEAD legally but we do not have completed victory with regard to the aspect of our nature that is not in spiritual union with God where the law of sin still LIVES and REIGNS and that life and reign is being manifested every day IN YOU and IN ME unless we put it to death, and again, you cannot put to death what is already dead.
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