Lesson 7: Sin Capacity Co-crucified with Christ
 
 We were born slaves to sin. We could not of our own ability please God in any way. This, in the Bible, is called a sin nature. When we accepted God’s gift of salvation, this sin nature was crucified with Christ on His cross. This means God judged our sin nature, and the verdict was death. Christ paid the price of death for us. This does not mean our sin nature no longer has any effect on our life, as we can read the Apostle Paul’s testimony in Romans 7. We live with two distinct natures in us – the sin nature with which we were born, and the new nature that was created in us at the moment we accepted salvation – see 2 Corinthians 5:17. Just as Paul describes in Romans 7, we also have a battle going on in us.

The difference, however, is we are no longer a slave to sin. We are now free to choose whether to sin or not. We now have a promise in 1 Corinthians 10:13 that we do not have to sin when temptation comes, God has made a way for us to escape temptation and all we need to do is run to Him to let Him show us the way of escape.

By accepting the gift of salvation we have also given God the right to judge the sin nature that remains in us, and in the Bible this is called “the flesh.” God will work in our hearts as long as we allow Him to do so to remove those areas in our life where we are allowing our old nature to rule us.