The Categories of Lust. (Taken from R. B. Thieme Jr’s doctrine of lust)

1. There are many categories of lust, all of which relate to the old sin nature.

2. When it comes to lust, all members of the human race are swimming in the same gene pool. None of us are free from lust. If you are human, normal or abnormal, you have lust problems.

3. Because of the different categories of lusts, all believers do not function under the same category.

4. The category of lust related to your modus operandi is directly related to both your personal areas of weakness and your personal areas of strength in your old sin nature.

5. All of us possess an old sin nature in the cell structure of our bodies. Therefore, all of us as humans have areas of strength and weakness. Remember that our areas of strength are very deceiving, and we often build a false self-esteem on our areas of strength. It is quickly broken down by arrogance. The only answer to these things is spiritual self-esteem.

6. This means that one person’s weakness is another person’s strength which is the basis for our arrogance, self-justification, and rationalization about inferiority and superiority. To go through life trying to prove others inferior and yourself superior is the worst concept in life. The majority of people go through life trying to compensate for inferior feelings. They inevitably destroy themselves through their area of weakness and their area of strength.

7. The lust pattern of the old sin nature includes at least seven categories.

a. Power lust is the worst of all, for almost all other lusts are related to this one, especially if you have any inferiority problems. Power lust is the most devastating force for evil in human history. It doesn’t require leadership ability or a prominent position to have power lust. You can be at the lowest echelon, rejected by all, and have a strong power lust. Power lust is one of our greatest enemies. It comes in dozens of different packages and in all flavors.

b. Approbation lust is merely one of the extensions of power lust, and it is separate because some people do want approbation without power. A beautiful woman may not desire power at all, but she certainly wants someone to tell her she’s beautiful.

c. Stimulation lust has many parts, in which we cater to the nerve centers and functions of our body in the name of pleasure. (1) Sexual lust, or lasciviousness. (2) Drunkenness. (3) Drug addiction. (4) Mental stimulation or intellectual arrogance. 2 Tim 3:4, “lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God.” Pleasure lust is a destroyer of honor, virtue, and integrity through sin and perpetual carnality. There is nothing wrong with pleasure as long as that pleasure does not involve sinful activity. Pleasure of the moment is not worth the displeasure of God.

d. Killer lust is the problem-solving device of the weak. Inferior people trying to prove they are superior often resort to violence, torture, murder. (Legitimate killing, within the confines of military function, police work, and capital punishment, is not the same as murder.) Murder often occurs within one’s own family, as with Cain. For once this lust comes, it does not discriminate between family, friends, or enemies. Some people live to kill, love to kill and lust to kill.

e. Anger lust or cruelty. Anger does not always but definitely can bring out a cruel streak. Some people are genetically mean and naturally cruel. Some people hide it well and some do not. This lust is the evil desire to hurt others, e.g., the object of one’s love, the object of one’s hatred, or anyone who causes you a problem. Some people cannot stand glitches, and when anyone opposes them, whether it is a loved one or an enemy or someone at work, cruelty lust surfaces. Some people by nature are kind; some people by nature are cruel. It starts as a genetic factor. However, both can also be developed, and can also be overcome by both believers and unbelievers. Variations in cruelty lust depend upon cosmic living.

f. Money lust is called by the Scripture the “root of all kinds of evil.” It expresses itself in all the categories of evil. (1) There is nothing wrong with having and acquiring money; that is not evil or sinful, as communist propaganda says. Marxism says people have no right to wealth; it belongs to the state. (2) The USA was founded not only by Anglo-Saxon culture but also by the Protestant work ethic, which went so far as to say that people who were wealthy were blessed by God or even spiritual. Now with the influence of Marxism, we take the opposite view. Between the two is the truth. (3) God does bless some people with money; God blesses other people in other ways. We must distinguish between the blessing of God in monetary success and the acquiring of money apart from any divine blessing. (4) One index to the soul of every person can be read loud and clear by his attitude toward money. This doesn’t mean that a person who saves is tight or stingy, nor that a big-time spender is necessarily generous. But one’s attitude toward money very clearly delineates one’s overall philosophy of life or one’s spiritual condition or lack of spiritual life. 1 Tim 6:10, “For the love for money is the root of all kinds of evil, and some by lusting for it have wandered away from doctrine and stabbed themselves with many griefs [heartaches].” (5) It is a very definite fact that love for money can distract people from Bible doctrine. Heb 13:5, “Let your life be free from the love for money, and be content [+H] with what you have. For He has said, ‘I will never leave you nor will I ever forsake you.’”

g. Crusader lust, which is Christian activism. Christian activism includes civil disobedience, criminality, paramilitary organizations, vigilante activities, social engineering, anti-Semitism, refusal to pay taxes, terrorism, utopian socialism.

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A few more points related to lust:

1. Lust destroys the motivation of the believer to execute the protocol plan of God for the Church.

2. Lust is a distraction to the modus vivendi and modus operandi of the Christian way of life.

3. Lust divorces the believer from reality, causing unrealistic expectation which eliminates understanding and using the problem-solving devices.

4. Lust destroys spiritual self-esteem and replaces it with inordinate desire related to self-gratification.

The next four paragraphs are taken from the booklet, ‘The Old Sin Nature pages 7-9 by R. B. Thieme Jr.

THE OLD SIN NATURE

FOR AS LONG AS YOU LIVE the old sin nature and God the Holy Spirit will coexist as permanent residents in your mortal body and will battle continually for control of your soul. When the Holy Spirit controls your soul, you are spiritual. When the old sin nature controls your soul, you are carnal. When you choose to sin, the old sin nature wins the conflict. You do not lose your salvation or your eternal relationship with God, but you do temporarily lose fellowship with Him.

The sin nature is the center of man’s rebellion toward God and is variously designated in Scripture as “sin” (a singular noun—Rom. 7:13), “flesh” (Gal. 5:16), and “old man” (Eph. 4:22). The old sin nature was acquired by Adam at his fall and is subsequently transmitted genetically by the male through procreation (Gen. 5:3). With the exception of the perfect humanity of Jesus Christ, it is an integral part of every human being that resides in the cell structure of the body (Rom. 6:6; 7:5, 18). At the moment of physical birth when God imputes soul life, He also imputes Adam’s original sin to the genetically formed old sin nature (Rom. 5:12). Therefore, every person is born physically alive but spiritually dead.

The sin nature is sovereign over human life (Rom. 6:12). The old sin nature is composed of an area of weakness, the source of temptation for personal sins (Heb. 12:1); an area of strength, which generates human good (Isa. 64:6; Heb. 6:1); a trend toward legalism, which is self-righteousness (Rom. 7:7), or antinomianism, which is licentiousness (Gal. 5:19–21); and a lust pattern, which is the motivation toward either trend (Eph. 2:3).

Your old sin nature is the source of temptation to sin, but your volition is the source of sin. The sin nature cannot make you sin, it can only tempt you to sin. When you choose to succumb to the sin nature, you are in carnality and you cannot live the Christian life or glorify God. However, God has placed at your command the means to insure the victory of the Holy Spirit in your life.

Romans 6:3

Or do you not know that all of us who [a correlative] have been baptized into [identified with] Christ Jesus [Current Positional Sanctification: we are in union with Christ in his life in heaven], have been baptized into His death [identified with his substitutionary spiritual death on the cross]? 

ἢ ἀγνοεῖτε ὅτι ὅσοι ἐβαπτίσθηµεν εἰς Χριστὸν Ἰησοῦν, εἰς τὸν θάνατον αὐτοῦ ἐβαπτίσθηµεν;

Positionally, (in union with Christ) we share His righteousness, heirship, priesthood, destiny, election, eternal life, royalty, sonship etc. All these making us a new spiritual species in Christ Jesus. The plural correlative hosoi (ὅσοι) means that if we were identified with Christ in heaven and we were, then also we have been identified with Christ in his substitutionary spiritual death in which he removed the power of sin nature. Thus, the sin nature should not have power over our lives.

A few more points will be noted:

1. Note that the baptism of the Holy Spirit at salvation enters the believer into union with Christ at the right hand of God the Father which union is called current positional truth.

2. This verse also mentions identification with Christ in His spiritual death on the cross which identification theologians call retroactive positional truth. Retroactive positional truth also includes identification with Christ in His physical death and burial as well.

3.  Identification with Christ in His death, then, has a two-fold connotation namely all personal sins were judged at the cross and since that is the case, God the Father is free to provide in grace, the Recovery Procedure. The second connotation is that good and evil were rejected by Jesus on the cross since good and evil are a part of Satan’s policy and plan. On the cross, Jesus relied on the proto-type spiritual life which operated under the two power options namely God’s power system.

4. So, the old sin nature’s ruling power over the Christian has been broken since all sins were judged on the cross and the Recovery Procedure has been provided. So, Retroactive Positional Truth has destroyed the sovereignty of the old sin nature over the life of the Christian.

5. Also, since Jesus rejected the good and evil policy of Satan so should the believer reject Satan’s policy of good and evil as the believer applies Retroactive Positional Truth.

Romans 6:4

Therefore, we have been buried together with Him through the identification [Baptism of the Spirit] into His death [physical], in order that just as Christ has been raised up from the dead [on Resurrection Sunday], through the glory of the Father [through the Father’s power], [So also we, the dead in Christ, will be raised from the dead by the power of the Father, and those alive at the Rapture, by the power of the Holy Spirit.] in this manner we also might walk in newness of life [Experiential sanctification should reflect our future ultimate sanctification.].

συνετάφηµεν οὖν αὐτῷ διὰ τοῦ βαπτίσµατος εἰς τὸν θάνατον, ἵνα ὥσπερ ἠγέρθη Χριστὸς ἐκ νεκρῶν διὰ τῆς δόξης τοῦ πατρός, οὕτως καὶ ἡµεῖς ἐν καινότητι ζωῆς περιπατήσωµεν.

Christ had to die physically “and Jesus having shouted clearly with a loud voice said, Father, into your hands I deposit my [human] spirit, and having said this, he exhaled” (Luke 23:46).  This last exhale caused His soul and spirit to depart from his mortal body resulting in physical death. Just as Christ had to die physically in order to obtain his resurrection body, so we must depart from our body of corruption, or mortality in order to receive our eternal body called our resurrection body.

The Newness of Life:

1. The newness of life provided through the baptism of the Spirit includes positional freedom from producing good and evil. Not only are we free from the tyranny of good and evil but we are also free from having to produce good and evil.

2. The believer has no obligation to improve the devil’s world through social action, socialism, welfare state, communism, environmentalism, or any social gospel, social action, getting involved, etc.

3. The human race is protected from Satan’s policy of good and evil through the laws of divine establishment which promote freedom instead of improvement at the cost of freedom.

4. In addition to the Laws of Divine Establishment the believer is insulated from good and evil positionally through the baptism of the Spirit.

5. Divorced from the Old Sin Nature positionally and its useless activity of human good and the function of evil, the life of the believer can be devoted to glorifying the Lord Jesus Christ through maximum knowledge and application of Bible doctrine.

Romans 6:5

For if we have become united with Him [Christ, the new husband] in the likeness of His death [the substitutionary spiritual death of Christ on the cross], and we have, and not only this, but also, we shall be [united in the likeness] of His resurrection [Current Positional Truth: in union with the resurrected Christ].

εἰ γὰρ σύµφυτοι γεγόναµεν τῷ ὁµοιώµατι τοῦ θανάτου αὐτοῦ, ἀλλὰ καὶ τῆς ἀναστάσεως ἐσόµεθα· 

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Romans 6:6

Be knowing this [through Retroactive Positional Truth], that our old man [our former husband, the sin nature dates back to the Garden] has been crucified together [with Him], in order that the [human] body, with reference to its sin nature, [the sin nature located in the body] might be rendered powerless [when we use Recovery Procedure and the two power options], that we should no longer be slaves to the sin nature.

τοῦτο γινώσκοντες, ὅτι ὁ παλαιὸς ἡµῶν ἄνθρωπος συνεσταυρώθη, ἵνα καταργηθῇ τὸ σῶµα τῆς ἁµαρτίας, τοῦ µηκέτι δουλεύειν ἡµᾶς τῇ ἁµαρτίᾳ·

“Our old man has been crucified with Him” meaning that the power of the sin nature has been broken on the cross.  Since the power of the sin nature was broken by the work of the cross, we as believers have no excuse for not executing the spiritual life. We will not be able to say to Christ at our evaluation that our sin nature was too powerful for us to execute the spiritual life.

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A few points for further clarification:

1. Retroactive positional truth is that phase of the baptism of the Holy Spirit at salvation which identifies the believer with Christ in His spiritual death, physical death and his burial.

2. In the substitutionary spiritual death of Christ on the cross all the personal sins in human history were imputed to Christ, but at the same time the other two trends of the old sin nature were not imputed for judgment.

3. Good and evil is the policy of Satan as the ruler of this world and the function of the old sin nature as the sovereign of human life. In fact, the sin nature functions as the agent of Satan.

4. Good and evil were not imputed for judgment on the cross. Hence, in the spiritual death of Christ on the cross they were rejected to remain an issue in the angelic conflict, rejected to be perpetuated in human history as an issue every believer must face, and either overcome through the intake of doctrine or be entrapped by ignorance of doctrine and therefore lose out in glorifying God in time.

5. We are identified with Christ in His spiritual death, which means that we must understand that our sins have been judged and that good and evil has been rejected.

6. It all adds up to the fact that the sovereignty of the old sin nature over human life has been made powerless through retroactive positional truth.

7. The imputation of all personal sins of the human race to Christ on the cross means that the believer through the rebound technique is instantly forgiven sins, cleansed from all wrong doing which includes Satanic good and evil, restored to fellowship and filled with the Spirit.

Romans 6:7

For we who have died [the Christian is identified with the substitutionary spiritual death of Christ: theologically called Retroactive Positional Truth] have been acquitted [positional deliverance] from [the power of] the sin nature.

ὁ γὰρ ἀποθανὼν δεδικαίωται ἀπὸ τῆς ἁµαρτίας.

A few points for further clarification:

1. A dead person is discharged from the obligations of his former sphere of life. This is why the word “death” is used in this context. It is not a literal, physical death we are discussing but identification with Christ in His death.

2. As unbelievers we were under the authority of Satan as the ruler of this world, and under the authority of the old sin nature as the sovereign of human life.

3. Both the power of Satan and the old sin nature have been abrogated through the baptism of the Holy Spirit at salvation.

4. This passage, then, emphasizes the annulling of the power and the authority of the old sin nature as the sovereign of human life.

5. Positionally, the power of the sin nature has been broken. Experientially, the old sin nature controls to the extent that we fail to understand and utilize the provision and support of logistical grace. 

Romans 6:8

Now if we have died with Christ, and we have [retroactive positional truth], we also believe that we shall live in association with Him [the instrumental of association; a reference to Current Positional Truth].

εἰ δὲ ἀπεθάνοµεν σὺν Χριστῷ, πιστεύοµεν ὅτι καὶ συζήσοµεν αὐτῷ·

In this verse, the 1st Class conditional sentence shows the relationship between Retroactive Positional Truth with Current Positional Truth. The protasis, the ‘if’ clause states the reality of Retroactive Positional Truth and the apodosis, the concluding clause states the doctrinal inference and the reality of Current Positional Truth. While Retroactive Positional Truth presents positional rejection and separation from good and evil as the policy of Satan and the function of the old sin nature, Current Positional Truth relates the believer to the function of the royal family of God. In other words, they have separate functions.

Romans 6:9

Knowing that because Christ has been raised from the dead [He received a resurrection body], no longer can He die; [physical] death is no longer a master over Him.

εἰδότες ὅτι Χριστὸς ἐγερθεὶς ἐκ νεκρῶν οὐκέτι ἀποθνῄσκει, θάνατος αὐτοῦ οὐκέτι κυριεύει.

Analysis:

1. Retroactive positional truth destroys the sovereign authority of the old sin nature over human life. Current positional truth, on the other hand, destroys the limited authority of physical death in human life.  

2. Instead of being ruled by the old sin nature located in the cells of the human body and influencing our souls toward sin, good and evil, we now have a new sovereign, the Lord Jesus Christ. We are identified with Him in His deaths, in His burial, resurrection, ascension and session.

3. Before salvation and the baptism of the Holy Spirit our lives were under the absolute rule of Satan who is the ruler of this world and under the rule of the old sin nature which is the ruler of life, and under the limited rule of physical death. All of that, of course, has been changed since salvation.

4. Now both retroactive and current positional truth have abrogated the authority and power of these former rulers. The power of Satan over our lives has been broken through identification with the rejection of good and evil namely Satan’s policy and plan and through our position in union with Christ. The power of the old sin nature is broken through retroactive positional truth and the power of physical death is broken through current positional truth.

5. Therefore, having studied these things by principle and by implication we are now ready for application, verses 12 & 13 specifically.

6. Having been positionally liberated from the sovereignty of the old sin nature as an absolute ruler, and the authority of physical death, we must recognize and apply doctrine for the experiential victory commanded in verses 11-13.

Romans 6:10

For the death [substitutionary spiritual death] which He has died, He has died once for all with reference to the sin nature; but the resurrection-life which He lives, He lives with reference to the God [the Father].

ὃ γὰρ ἀπέθανεν, τῇ ἁµαρτίᾳ ἀπέθανεν ἐφάπαξ· ὃ δὲ ζῇ, ζῇ τῷ θεῷ.

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The Substitutionary Spiritual Death of Christ on the Cross:

1. Though Jesus Christ was in hypostatic union on the cross, only His humanity was punished for our sins.

2. Jesus Christ remained in the status of trichotomy on the cross as proven by his unique death namely his human spirit went into the care of God the Father, his soul went with God the Holy Spirit to Hades and his body remained in the grave.

3. Jesus personally never died a spiritual death, rather he bore the burden of mankind’s spiritual death on the cross namely He was punished for the penalty of the sins of all mankind. In other words, Jesus died a substitutionary spiritual death while forsaken by the Father during the judgment. On the other hand, Adam suffered a real spiritual death as also his progeny at birth.

4. So, Jesus’ substitutionary spiritual death means that He died as a substitute for the sins related to our spiritual death namely the billions of sins which were committed in addition to Adam’s original sin. In other words, he paid the penalty for our sins in toto.

5. Jesus Christ was portrayed as a male lamb unblemished and spotless (no sin nature and no sin) 1 Peter 1:18-19, “knowing that you were not redeemed with perishable things like silver or gold from your futile way of life inherited from your forefathers, but with precious blood, as of a lamb unblemished and spotless, the blood of Christ.” Jesus remained impeccable while being judged for the sins of the world. “2 Corinthians 5:21, “And he [God the Father] made him who knew no sin [remained impeccable both before the cross and on the cross] to be sin [imputation and judgment of the sins of the world] as a substitute for us so that we might become the righteousness of God in him.” 

6. Jesus Christ was not a curse, but became a curse as per Galatians 3:13, “Christ redeemed us from the curse of the Law having become a curse for us, for it is written ‘Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree.’” 

7. Hebrews 12:2, “Be concentrating on Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our doctrine, who because of the happiness that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame [from being identified with all these despicable sins], and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.” Just as Jesus endured under great pressure, not reacting in bitterness, hatred, and self-pity, so we must endure under great pressure in order to achieve and preserve happiness. There is no happiness without the ability to endure under pressure.

8. The omnipotence of the Father imputed all the sins of mankind to Jesus during the last three hours on the cross, and the Justice of the Father using his omnipotence then judged the humanity of Christ on the cross, while the deity of Christ was sustaining the universe.

9. Matthew 27:46, “And about the ninth hour [3 P.M.] Jesus cried out with a loud voice, saying, “Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani?” translated [from the Aramaic into Greek], “My God, my God [addressing God the Father], why have you [in the singular] forsaken [abandoned] me?” David prophesizes the shout in Psalm 22:1a, “My God, My God why have you forsaken Me far from helping Me.” This was answered in Psalm 22:3a, “because you [Father] are holy [righteous and just].” The Father had to judge Jesus for every sin of mankind. Judgment implies abandonment and forsaking. There was no help nor fellowship during this judgment on the cross. So, this shout was prophesied in Hebrew (Psalm 22); shouted out in Aramaic and translated in Greek (Matthew 27:46).

10. Jesus understood why he had to be forsaken but shouted out this rhetorical question for our benefit. It was a Rhetorical question which had already been answered in Scripture as per Psalm 22:3a namely because the integrity of God demanded the punishment of all sins of mankind via a perfect sacrifice.

11. During the lifetime of the humanity of Christ, he was never forsaken by God the Holy Spirit whether it be before the cross or on the cross. The Holy Spirit always provided the enabling power for Jesus to execute the Father’s will during his entire life on this earth. So, from His birth to His physical death on the cross, He always had available and used the two power options namely the metabolized doctrine in his soul and the enabling power of the Spirit.

12. In this way, Jesus Christ demonstrated the power of the Proto-type Spiritual Life. This spiritual life called the Operational Type Spiritual Life, he gave to each Church Age believer.

13. Why was there a need for a substitutionary spiritual death? Adam and his wife suffered a real spiritual death when they ate from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. This involved the loss of their human spirit and acquisition of a sin nature. Hence, since the sin nature is part of the makeup of cellular genetics, all Adam’s descendance are born with the sin nature within their cells and with the imputation of Adam’s Original Sin imputed to that sin nature at birth. This means that all of mankind is helplessly located in the slave market of sin. This required someone outside of the slave market of sin to provide a ransom to free mankind. Thus, the need for an impeccable person to pay the penalty of every sin of mankind. This we call the substitutionary work of Christ on the cross. 

14. R. B. Thieme Jr. first taught this doctrine in 1986 during the teaching of the Ephesian series, a doctrine which has been buried for over 1500 years and is still unknown by most Christians since it is not known and subsequently not taught by any professor in any major theological seminary today.

Further explanation regarding this verse:

1. The spiritual death of Christ was judgment from the justice of God for all the personal sins of the human race. The justice of God imputed these sins to the humanity of Christ, then judged them.  

2. The physical death of Christ was an act of His own volition. He expelled His breath and dismissed His spirit into the presence of the Father. As His spiritual death was unique, so was His physical death.

3. At the same time of the judicial imputation of all personal sins to Christ on the cross other aspects of the trends of the old sin nature, namely good and evil, were rejected and were definitely not a part of that imputation. The rejection of good and evil by our Lord is shared by us positionally since we have been identified with Christ through the baptism of the Spirit.

4. What was begun in the past: the resurrection of Christ, His ascension and session at the right hand of the Father. It continues forever as His status quo and becomes the basis for His third category of royalty in which we share. When the Lord Jesus Christ was seated at the right hand of the Father, He was declared to be the King over kings and Lord over lords. This is the third category of royalty which belongs to Him, but when He was declared to be the King over kings and Lord over lords, the battlefield royalty of the angelic conflict, there was no royal family. Therefore, the interruption of the Jewish Age and the beginning of the Church Age.

5. In the dispensation of the Church Age, we now are His royal family, and the significance is that we have greater opportunity, greater blessing, greater everything than anyone who ever lived in the past or anyone who will ever live in the future. But it becomes a matter of being definitely briefed by Bible doctrine with regard to these things, and the maturity adjustment to the integrity of God today has far greater repercussions than at any time in history.

Romans 6:11

So also, on the one hand, all of you yourselves conclude yourselves to be dead with reference to the sin nature but, on the other hand, living with reference to God in Christ Jesus.

οὕτως καὶ ὑµεῖς λογίζεσθε ἑαυτοὺς [εἶναι] νεκροὺς µὲν τῇ ἁµαρτίᾳ ζῶντας δὲ τῷ θεῷ ἐν Χριστῷ Ἰησοῦ.

The Greek verb logizomai meaning in this context ‘to conclude’:

The present middle imperative of the verb logizomai means to calculate, to take into account, to evaluate, to estimate, to think, consider, ponder, have in mind, to be of the opinion. In the Attic Greek, logizomai connoted thought regulated by strict logical rules, and therefore meant to deliberate or to conclude or apply information non-emotionally. Plato used this verb for ‘non-emotional thinking’.

Emotion may result from thinking but emotion must never be allowed to destroy thinking. The imperative mood is an entreaty rather than a command, an entreaty which does not convey the finality of a command but has the force of urgency. It is urgent that we must begin to think in terms of doctrine, and when we have a conflict in our soul between how we feel and what the Word of God says we must always go with what the Word of God says, rather than how we feel. Emotion must never destroy our ability to reason and to think. Our highest form of emotion must come from the stimulation of thought, rather than the destruction of thought.

A few points of explanation:

1. The conclusion from positional truth, whether retroactive or current, is that the Christian must apply these doctrines to his spiritual life.

2. Anticipating Romans 7:1-4 where we have an illustration of a woman whose first husband has died freeing her to marry another. This is what actually happens to us as believers at salvation. The old sin nature is the husband up to the point of salvation, but at the moment we believe in Jesus Christ positionally the sin nature is dead, as it were, the first husband has died and we have a new husband through union with Christ. Retroactive Positional Truth removes our first husband, the sin nature whereas Current Positional Truth enters us into union with Christ, our new husband.

3. The old sin nature-husband is still around, still seeking to regain his control over his former wife, the believer. But union with the second husband, the Lord Jesus Christ, has broken the first husband’s authority over the former wife.  

Romans 6:12

Therefore, stop permitting the sin nature to rule in your mortal body, that you should obey [the same sin nature] with its lusts.

Μὴ οὖν βασιλευέτω ἡ ἁµαρτία ἐν τῷ θνητῷ ὑµῶν σώµατι εἰς τὸ ὑπακούειν ταῖς ἐπιθυµίαις αὐτοῦ,

Complete abrogation must occur. If we are going to live our lives to please the Lord, our new husband, then the rulership of the old sin nature must not only be abrogated positionally but also experientially. (We can abrogate the rulership of the sin nature, but not the sin nature itself.) The Lord Jesus Christ is not necessarily experientially your sovereign for there is a vast difference between positional victory over the old sin nature and experiential victory.

The command to stop permitting etc. indicates that we have some control over the matter, that our volition is very definitely involved. Though we may be tempted to sin via some lust from the sin nature, our volition does not need to give consent. Lust + consent = sin!

A few points for clarification:

1. Notice that this is a negative command. This is something that has to be shut down, turned off. This negative command of prohibition indicates that the believer has an option after salvation regarding the rulership of the old sin nature. 

2. As a result of the baptism of the Spirit at salvation and resultant Retroactive and Current Positional Truth the sovereignty and the authority of the old sin nature as the ruler of life has been broken positionally. This is true for every believer. The fact of the abrogation of the old sin nature’s power means that experientially there can be and should be a change.

3. The option, then, is the issue. How and where do we exercise our options? The option is related to experiential Christianity, not positional Christianity. Positional Christianity gives us the opportunity to exercise our options, but the option is exercised in the field of Christian experience.

4. We have two opportunities to exercise an option, both are continuous. One of them has to do with the use of the Recovery Procedure throughout our Christian experience, the other option is to daily grow in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord and saviour Jesus Christ.