Legally Dead

    There was an interesting story in the news last week about a living man who was declared legally dead. He wasn’t comatose. He wasn’t brain dead. He wasn’t even “mostly” dead. He was alive, talking, walking and sitting in the courtroom in front of the judge who declared him to be legally dead.
    Donald Miller disappeared in 1986 and after family, police, and private investigators could find no trace of him, he was declared legally dead in 1994. He later reemerged in 2005. After reapplying for a drivers license, he learned that he was not eligible because he was supposedly dead. It took him a while before his attorney was able to petition the state of Ohio to have the ruling of his death overturned.
    But then Judge Allen Davis, presiding over the matter in Hancock County, Ohio, discovered that the law in Ohio did not make allowances for a man declared dead to then be declared alive. Just this last week, with Mr. Miller sitting before him in good health and answering questions, the judge said, “I don't know where that leaves you, but you're still deceased as far as the law is concerned.”
    If you are a follower of Jesus, that’s true of you as well.
    Paul the Apostle wrote this in Romans 6:5-8, “For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his. We know that our old self was crucified with him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing, so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin. For one who has died has been set free from sin. Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him.”
    In other words, Paul was saying that when we believe on Jesus with saving faith, our old nature, our sin nature, is united with Jesus’ death on the cross (see also Galatians 2:22). Paul concludes, “So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus” (Romans 6:11).
    From God’s perspective, because of Jesus’ vicarious death, if you have put your faith in him for forgiveness and salvation, your old self, your sinful nature, has been declared by God himself to be legally dead. So he says we should live like it. It should be apparent to others that we are not living with the sins of our past. Our new life is totally different, changed by the death of our old selves and the new life of Christ within us.
    This is not a morbid thought. Our old sin nature was leading us to eternal death. Putting it to death was necessary for us to receive the life of Christ. This is something to rejoice in!
    And that perspective helps us to see everything in life in a different way. Look at what Paul said about this in Colossians 3:1–3 “Since, then, you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things. For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God” (NIV).
    You’ve been declared dead. As ironic as it sounds, live like it!