In the Bible “death” actually means separation. It is by our death with Christ and our ultimate rapture to heaven in our new incorruptible bodies that we are finally fully separated from the sinful flesh body and the Sin nature that we inherited from our parents and Adam.

Yet, there are those Christians who, with good motive to be sure, strive to achieve the eradication of the old Sin nature in the flesh while living in this life on earth. Such people are still deceived and don’t help, but hinder, their attainment of true spirituality. They try to improve the nature of the flesh, which as we’ve seen is impossible.

The erroneous doctrine of eradication, far from taking a truly serious view of Sin, is a very shallow, superficial view of the scope of “Sin in the flesh” (Rom 8:3). Those who teach it suppose that if we could get rid of the sins we should be perfect, but actually, at our very best, we are fallen due to the ‘Sin nature’ that is in our flesh body.

 “For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh:” (Romans 8:3 (KJV)

Thus, we constantly “come [present tense] short of the glory of God” (Rom. 3:23). We will continue to “come short of it” until we are “changed” to be “like Him”; and we have a promise of just that.

“Who shall change our vile (sinful) body, that it may be fashioned like unto his glorious body, according to the working whereby he is able even to subdue all things unto himself.” (Philippians 3:21)  

“We, through the Spirit, WAIT for the hope of [perfect, personal] righteousness by faith” (Gal. 5:5).

Concerning those who feel that Sin nature is gone or went out at salvation, or think they have achieved the eradication of the old Sin nature, the fact is that others around you know and can testify that you have not achieved such sinless perfection. Generally, those who claim to be without sin are guilty of one of the greatest of all sins—spiritual pride.

Certainly these false doctrines of expulsion and eradication of the sin nature are a flat out contradictions to Scripture. Paul’s words in Romans 7:18-23, and John here emphatically declares the truth.

“If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us” (I John 1:8).

“If we say that we have not sinned, we make Him a liar, and His Word is not in us” (I John 1:10).

Paul also writes of “the law of sin which is in my (body) members” (Rom. 7:23) and urges constant reliance upon “the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus” (Rom 8:2a) for power to overcome temptation (cf. Rom. 8:11-13; Gal. 5:16, 25). If the false doctrines of expulsions and eradication were Scripturally sound there would be no reason for Paul to instruct all believers to deal with their old Sin-nature “in the flesh” in such terms as: “reckon (count) yourself dead,” “neither yield… to sin” (Rom 6:13), “put off the old man” (Col 3:9) and “mortify the deeds of the body” (Rom 8:13, cf. Col 3:5), etc.

But let us suppose for the moment that the Sin-nature is gone at salvation, or that it were possible to achieve the eradication of Sinful flesh; would that also dispose of our other enemy, “the God of this world, which is of the devil (2Cor 4:4)? Certainly not!

If we have gotten rid of “Sin (the sin-nature) in the flesh,” the fallen nature of Adam, we would only be as Adam was before the fall, still subject to temptation from without as he was, and we would as surely fall. The Scriptures clearly teach that we all fell once in Adam, but we are now alive by Christ’s “Spirit of life.”

“by one man (Adam) sin entered into ‘the world,’ and death by sin…” (Rom. 5:12).

“For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive.” (1 Corinthians 15:22 (KJV)

It is quite an achievement that Satan can convinced some that he as their enemy is gone from them, when all the time he is still indwelling their flesh, and still actively working against them, their understanding of the truth of the cross, and their very life. This should be of no surprise as he is called “the father of lies” and the believers defense is to be ‘girded with truth.’  “Stand therefore, having your loins girt about with truth, and having on the breastplate of righteousness;” (Ephesians 6:14 (KJV)