In a classic scene from The Pink Panther Strikes Again, Inspector Clouseau walks into a German hotel and notices a small dog by the counter.
“Does your dog bite?” he asks the hotelier.
“No,” the old man answers.
When Clouseau goes to pet the dog, it viciously attacks him and tries to chew off his hand!
“I thought you said your dog does not bite!” Clouseau says.
To which the old man says, “That is not my dog.”
The power of sin wants to bite us.
But Christ took the bite out of sin by his death on the cross, and in Romans 6:6 we see how He did this for us.
I have put together a literal and expanded translation based on the original language on this very important verse:
“We are to make sure we understand this, that our old man (our spiritually dead human spirit, all we used to be connected with Adam) was nailed to the cross with Him, in order that our body, which is the instrument of sin, would lose its power over us, so we should no longer live as slaves to the power of sin as we did in our unsaved life.”
Although we are still capable of sinning, we are no longer enslaved by it.
The power of sin no longer holds power over us. It still is very much alive and it wants to bite us.
The way to take the bite out of the power of sin’s temptations begins with an act of faith.
We read this in Romans 6:11:
“So you also should consider yourselves to be dead to the power of sin and alive to God through Christ Jesus.”
Sin is not dead, but we are dead to sin.
This means we do not have to respond to sin’s temptations because of our death with Christ and our resurrection with Him.
We are not only dead to sin’s power; we are alive to Christ’s resurrection power in us.
His power gives us the victory over sin.
When sin rears its ugly head, we are to believe we are dead to it and trust in Christ’s power through us to have victory over it.
This is taking the bite out of the power of sin!
Blessings!
Pastor Ken Keeler, Director of Church Ministries