ices had to be presented to God slain. Now, if
our sins are put to death, it is not meant that we are to live in
them.

39. Therefore, the saving doctrine of remission of sins and of
Christ's grace cannot be so construed as to admit of our continuing in
the old life and following our own desires. According to Paul (Rom 6,
1-8), enjoying grace and remission of sins does not give license to
live in sin. How shall we who are dead to sin live any longer therein?
The very fact that we may be reckoned dead unto sins means they may no
longer live and reign in us. In Christ's holy body were they throttled
and slain expressly that they might also be slain in us.

40. Be careful, then, what you believe and how you live, that the
efficacy of Christ's sufferings may be manifestly fulfilled in you.
If, through faith, you have rightly apprehended his sacrifice, its
virtue will be indicated in the subduing and mortifying of your sins,
even as they are already slain and dead through his death on the
cross. But if you continue to live in sins, you cannot say they are
dead in you. You but deceive yourself, and your own evidence is false
when you boast of Christ in whom all sins are put to death, if sin
remains vigorous in you. We naturally conclude it is inconsistent for
sin to be dead in us and yet alive; for us to be free from sin and yet
captive or fast therein. This fact has already been sufficiently
pointed out.

41. It is ours, Peter says, not only to believe that Christ has,
through the sacrifice of his own body, put to death sin and liberated
us therefrom--a thing the combined sacrifices of all mortal bodies
could never have effected--but, sin being put to death by him, to
endeavor to become ever more and more free from sin's sway in our
bodies, and to live henceforth unto righteousness, until we shall be
completely and finally released from sin through death. Therefore, if
before you believed on Christ you were an adulterer, a miser, a
coveter, a maligner, you ought now to regard all these sins as dead,
throttled through Christ; the benefit is yours through faith in his
sacrifice, and your sins should henceforth cease to reign in you. If
you have not so received the sacrifice, you cannot boast of Christ and
faith. Though Christ has died for you, though your sins have been put
upon him and reckoned dead, still you are not rid of those sins if you
do not desire to be, if you do not, through faith, apprehend Christ
and his bles