”For if we have been planted together in the likeness of his death, we shall be also in the likeness of his resurrection, knowing this: that our old man is crucified with him, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin; for he that is dead to sin is freed from sin.”
“Now if we are dead with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with him, knowing that Christ, being raised from the dead, dies no more; death has no more dominion over him. For in that he died, he died unto sin once; but in that he lives, he lives unto God. Likewise, reckon also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord.” (KJV Romans 6:8-11)
When we are spiritually dead to God, we are cut off from God. We don’t hear God. We don’t understand God. We don’t walk in the ways of God. None of that comes easy to us. In fact it’s quite foreign.
What does come naturally are things like: “adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies, envyings, murders, drunkenness, revellings, and such like” (Galatians 5:19-21).
When Paul speaks of being dead to sin, it is for us to reverse the natural tendencies, like those listed above, and to be cut off from the ways of sin, so that we no longer walk in them. We no longer think and view things after the manner of sin. That line of reasoning is no longer a path or train of thought that we follow. We stop that kind of thinking and behavior. We don’t give heed to the ways of sin. Sin becomes dead to us because we are separated from sin and it no longer has contact with us and our way of thinking and doing things. It no longer has influence on us. It has becomes dead to us.
Another way of putting this is that Satan is bound and no longer has influence over us. He and his ways become dead to us. This form of death is a separation of us from the ways of sin and error. Rather than being spiritually dead, or being dead to God, we can be dead to sin.