Skip to content

Add your phone number?

Optional. Nothing is sent unless you choose it.
The Historic Faith
Sign in

Jumpstarter 8 of 10

Ideas to help restart your discussion
Romans Commentary Chapters 1-8  /  Romans 8:6-13 to Be Carnally Minded is Death  /  Discussion Questions
All Questions
Question 8
The lesson claims early Christians read Romans 8:10 as “the body is dead to sin,” not “dead because of sin,” and says our bodies should be like “a corpse…with respect to the working of sin”; what concrete practices and boundaries would make that claim believable in areas like sexuality, speech, entertainment, spending, and anger?
Another way to ask: If Romans 8:10 means your body should be “dead to sin,” what practical rules and habits would make that believable in sexuality, speech, entertainment, spending, and anger? What boundaries would you actually put in place?

Direct Answer The transcript’s point is that a Christian’s body, though physically alive, must be “dead to sin”—as unresponsive to sinful impulses as a corpse—because the Spirit in us is for righteousness. Concrete boundaries would be whatever keeps your members from being “yielded” to sin and instead yields them to God.

Support from Transcript:

  • Bercot argues early Christians read Romans 8:10 as: “the body is dead to sin,” not continuing to sin in the body.
  • Origen: if the body is dead to sin, the Spirit “lives to do righteousness… [and] does not serve sin.”
  • Theodoret: Paul condemns “sin,” and “commands the body to be dead to sin, that is, not to commit sin.”
  • Chrysostom: with respect to sin’s working, the body should not differ “from a corpse that lies in a coffin.”
  • Romans 6 is used as concrete direction: “Do not yield your members as weapons of unrighteousness to sin, but yield yourselves to God.”
Discussion Follow-ups Which “members” (eyes, tongue, hands, appetite) most often become “weapons” in your week, and what boundaries would stop that?

Jumpstarter 8 of 10
Back Questions Next