“Now hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit who was given to us.” Romans 5:5
When we see Christ as all in all, He then becomes not only our relationship with all things, but He also becomes the new realm we live in. Thus, the way we experience death to sin is not by trying to be dead to it in ourselves. It is by staying in the realm of resurrection. The realm of resurrection is the realm of the Spirit and life (1 Cor. 15:45). In this realm we are automatically freed from sin. The power of sin is broken in our lives by what one servant of the Lord has called “the expulsive power of a new affection.” This new affection is in the realm of the Spirit. It is the love of God poured out in my heart by the Holy Spirit that enables me to put to death the practices of my body (Rom. 5:5; 8:13).
Dealing with sin is not achieved in a process of trying to overcome it. Rather, it is by drawing from the life-power of Christ in the realm of resurrection. Instead of interacting with sin as though it was my responsibility to overcome it in myself, I interact with Christ, who is my relationship with sin. In that relationship, sin is a dead thing to me. Because I can exercise my spirit where I am alive to God in Christ, I come under the expulsive power of a new affection for God and the things of God (Rom. 8:5-6). It is this affection that immobilizes the force of sin in my life. In the realm of the Spirit, indwelling sin forever remains a dead thing to me, because I died and my new me is now hidden with Christ in God (Col. 3:3-4).