"Are You Dead?"

A. T. Jones

“He who has died has been freed from sin” (Rom. 6:7).

Are you freed from sin? If not, do you not see exactly where the difficulty lies?

There stands the truth of God, that “he who has died has been freed from sin.” Then if you are not freed from sin, the only cause of it is that you are not dead.

Jesus says, “unless a grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it produces much grain” (John 12:24).

Again He says, “By this my Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit” (John 15:8).

As the Father is glorified in your bearing much fruit, and as it is only “if it dies,” that it “produces much grain,” it certainly follows that herein is the Father glorified, that you die.

Are you dead? Are you freed from sin? Will you glorify the Lord by bearing much fruit? Will you die?

“Unless a grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it remains alone.”

Do you want forever to remain alone? “Without me you can do nothing.”

Without Him you can do nothing; without Him you remain alone: “unless it . . . dies, it remains alone;” except you die, you can do nothing.

But, bless the Lord, “if it dies, it brings forth much (grain) fruit.”

In being dead, then, there is freedom from sin; there is abiding with the Lord; there is the bearing of much fruit to the glory of God; and the end, eternal life.

In not being dead, there is bondage to sin; there is remaining alone; and the end, eternal death.

Thus, he that will save his life shall lose it; but he that will lose his life for Christ’s sake shall keep it unto life eternal.

Will you lose your life and save it? or will you save your life and lose it?

“It is appointed for men to die once” (Heb. 9:27). And in the gospel, God has fixed it so that every man can die that “once,” so as to live forevermore.

Unless it dies, it remains alone; but when we choose to die that we may bring forth much fruit, He does not leave us alone, nor ask us to die alone. He only asks us to die with Him. Bless His name!

“Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him” (Rom. 6:8). He does not live in sin and living with Him, we shall not live in sin.

Are you freed from sin? Are you dead? Are you dead with Christ, so that you live with Christ?

The Advent Review and Sabbath Herald, May 3, 1898