Colossians 3:3 & 5

"For you died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God.
Therefore put to death your members which are on the earth: fornication, uncleanness, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry."

Death sure is a common theme in the New Testament. If it's not literal, it's certainly metaphorical, and even when metaphorical it's literal toward abstractions. Mortifying sin is one of the more consistent directives, and it's not passive, but active. For example, when Jesus tells me that I must die to myself (cf. Luke 9:23; John 12:24-25), there's a certain passive release of things that I love over and above Him. But when I'm told by Paul to "put to death" my "members which are on earth", then he's commanding that I commit active acts of murder. Both have the same result, and both are extremely difficult to accomplish with full complicity, but one is 1st degree premeditated and the other is 3rd degree. It's also telling to note here that because I've died, I must put to death. How do dead people live to kill?

My thoughts: When Christ saved me He killed me. My sins hung on the cross with Him. (cf. Galatians 2:20) All that I did, all that I am, all that I will be that could possibly separate me from Him because His righteousness cannot tolerate unrighteousness, died that day on Calvary. This happened long before I ever was, even though I was already in God's eyes (a strange thought). Still, what died was my already hard and lifeless heart and the sin that indwelled there, but what remains are the remnants of the poison that's being neutralized in my blood through sanctification (or my liver, if you will). It will never be fully purified until I die my physical death. So, through sanctification I commit premeditated killings against those blood cells to ensure my life is holier. This I do by the power of the gospel and the power of my Savior's intervention on my behalf.

I've died and I'm dying, but I live and I'm living. One to lose, the other to gain, although in the losing there's no loss, and in the gaining there's pure gain.