It is this present deliverance from sin's dominion that is in view all the time. "Let not

sin therefore reign in your mortal body". This must necessarily be limited to the present

life. When this mortality puts on immortality, such an injunction, praise God, will be

unnecessary. It is equally so with regard to verse 8, "Now if we died with Christ, we

believe that we shall also live with Him". This is often read as though it referred to the

future resurrection life of the believer. It does, but only because the future resurrection is

involved in the present anticipation. Notice how the argument proceeds:--

Here the resurrection of the Lord is plainly taught.  Now how will the apostle

continue? Will he say, you also who have believed in Him shall in that day be raised,

too, to likewise live unto God? No, he does not. What he does say involves the

believer's present life in this mortal body, "Likewise reckon ye also yourselves to be

dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord". This is the

"living with Him" of verse 8, blessed anticipation of living with Him in the glad day that

is coming. The whole of the chapter deals with the great deliverance of the believer from

the dominion and thraldom of sin. The chapter proceeds to contrast the service of sin

with the service of God, and chapter 7: shows in what awful bondage sin and law holds

a man until delivered by the Lord. Nothing but "the law of the spirit of life in Christ

Jesus" can make us "free from the law of sin and death".

To such a blessed state of liberty the Ephesian saints had arrived. They knew that in

the death of Christ they had died to sin, and it was because they were already believers

that the apostle prayed for them, that among other things they might know what was the

exceeding greatness of His power to usward who believe, according to the inworking of

His mighty power which He wrought in Christ when He raised Him from dead ones.

Note, the prayer is not that we should know the power or process of the resurrection of

Christ personal, it is that we may know what is the exceeding greatness of His power to

USWARD, and that that power is according to, or in harmony with, the power put forth

to raise Christ from the dead and exalt Him to the right hand of God in the heavenlies far

above all. That such is the case Eph. 2: abundantly proves. If 1: 20 tells us that Christ

was raised from the dead, 2: 6 teaches us that we were "raised together"; so also, if

Christ was made to sit at the right hand of God in the heavenlies, the believers have been

made to "sit together in the heavenlies in Christ Jesus".

Not only had these believers died to sin, they were dead ones to sins. Not only did

they realize that the truth in Jesus taught that they had put off the old man, but that they

had put off the old man with his deeds, and that they had put off concerning the former

conversation the old man, and were renewed in the spirit of their minds. Not only were

they dead to sin, but to sins; not only the old man put off, but all bitterness, and wrath,

and anger, and clamour, and evil speaking, together with all malice. Nothing but the

exceeding greatness of His power to usward could accomplish such a wonderful change.