I always thought that dying in this context meant that we are dead to sin. But we are not; I go on sinning. Everyone around me goes on sinning. Where is this death? This cannot be a literal thing, for sin is prevalent around me. Not only am I not dead to sin, but why does verse 5 tell me to put various things to death? If I am dead to it, how can I possibly kill it again and again and again? My observation is that I am not dead to it. I am thinking quite literally here, maybe there is another underlying meaning that escapes me. In my minds eye, if you kill something (or if you die), it only happens once. If you must do it again and again, it is not really dead. If I put to death an ant, I only have to do it once. There may be thousands of ants, and I may have to kill each one individually (actually, I prefer to spray), but only once.

 

This concept bleeds over into Romans 7, for clearly Paul battled with this very thing. He, like everyone of us, struggled with a sinful nature that was not yet dead (cue Month Python's "I'm not dead yet"), especially shown in verses 21-23.

 

In laymen, simple way of thinking of things, I see the Christian walk as one of discipline. Paul compares such a life to an athlete training, or a farming raising crops. Going back to the first verse of this chapter in Colossians, we are told to "look up", as Pastor Shannon put it. My point in mentioning this is while I am initially cyncially (due to the text making it sound so easy and trivial), it makes a ton more sense to me when put into the context of keeping ones eyes on the finish line, of keeping the big picture in mind. Like marriage, it is fortunate that our way of life is not a house of cards, a construct that comes tumbling down at the slightest mishap.

 

I still wonder, though, why Paul uses the analogy of death in the context of our relationship to sin. I feel that, in a general sense, any one of us could provide ample evidence that we are not, in fact, dead to sin.