Get Busy Living or Get Busy Dying: Killing Sin and Living in Christ

• “Get busy living or get busy dying.”

This famous quote comes from the movie, The Shawshank Redemption. The movie, based on a novel, centers on two characters, Andy and Red. They are both locked away in Shawshank prison. Andy, from the moment he arrives, claims he is innocent (and he is). Seeing no justice for his wrongful imprisonment, he devises a plan to escape. He secretly digs through the concrete wall of his cell into the plumbing network and crawls out of his cell through the sewage pipes. The movie really is not about escaping prison. It’s about life in prison — how one lives, how one copes with his freedoms taken away, and the reality that the prisoners become used to their life and can’t imagine living “on the outside.”

As Andy is nearing the day of his escape, it seems his friend Red has a chance at parole. But Red is hesitant to even take the freedom. He’s not sure he knows how to live outside of the walls of prison. He’s comfortable. He understands the world of the prison, whereas the outside world has changed so much. And so, Andy, frustrated with his friend, says simply, “You either get busy living, or get busy dying.” For Andy, there are only two choices. You can either continue to rot away in prison with the limited life one can have, or you can get busy living.

Such is the case for the Christian. The Christian life is a constant pull between the prison of sin and the freedom of life “on the outside” in Christ.

The Prison of Sin

The Bible in several places calls sin “slavery.” Jesus said the one who “practices sin is a slave to sin” (John 8:34). Paul echoed that same warning in Romans 6 when he said we were saved from being “enslaved to sin” (Romans 6:6). Sin would like nothing more than to put us all in chains. Before we come to Christ, we are completely and totally under the slavery of sin.

For the Christian, sin’s entire goal is pull us back into slavery. Sin would very much like to make us like the inhabitants of Shawshank Prison, unable to imagine “life on the outside.” For many Christians, life is a pull between being comfortable in their sins and true freedom through sanctification. If sin is all we’ve ever known, which it is before our salvation, it is only natural that we would want to stay where we are at. But you either get busy living or get busy dying.

On the Outside, True Life

The prisoners of the film, as I believe is indicative of many in real life, become comfortable in their prison-life. Humans are adaptable creatures, and after some time, we adapt to our new normal. Look no further than the long period of lockdowns and isolation we all faced during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. We adapted relatively quickly to our new normal. Many characters in the film embody a fear to leave prison. The world on the outside has changed so much over the course of the decade(s) they have been in prison. But of course, life on the outside is much more free, and is true life.

The Christian is pulled between believing the lies of sin and experiencing true life on the outside. The life of sin will only ever be confined to the walls of the fake freedom that it promises. Vice leads to more vice. Sin begets further sin, hardens the heart, callouses the conscious, weakens the resolve, and imprisons those who would otherwise be free. Jesus said of the one who has come to Him, “If the son sets you free, you will be free indeed” (John 8:36). Salvation is freedom from sin’s slavery, and sanctification is daily freedom from the re-enslavement sin desires for us. Paul warned his Romans audience, “Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, to make obey its passions” (Romans 6:12). Sin would like to see the Christian willingly remain in sin. Our call is to understand that on the outside is true life.

Living on the Outside

If our lives are meant to be lived on the outside, that demands the question, “What does living on the outside look like?” What does it mean to get busy living? Life on the outside is marked by true freedom from sin which only comes by the Christian’s daily repentance and killing sin. Shawshank Redemption’s Andy puts into contemporary terminology a doctrine associated with John Owen in his famous work, The Mortification of Sin. Owen writes, “Be killing sin, or it will be killing you.” For Owen, the Christian has a choice between life or death, like Andy, and this life comes only by putting sin to death.

Owen draws heavily upon Paul’s words in Romans 8:13, “For if you live according to the flesh you will die, but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live.” Simply put, life on the outside is to be marked by killing sin. The Christian life is a pull between sin and righteousness. The Christian life is therefore meant to be a life of putting sin to death and living in righteousness. At times, we will fail to put sin to death. We will get comfortable in our sin and lock ourselves back in prison momentarily. But the Christian life will be that of recognizing the sin that is killing us slowly and then puting it to death quickly.

Conclusion

Each Christian has two choices: kill sin or be enslaved by sin. That is to say, Christians can either put sin to death or slowly let it kill them. Each one of us has particular temptations and sins that hold a place in testimonies. But those same sins and temptations come calling back to us as we strive to live in Christ’s freedom. We have a choice, to live in freedom or put ourselves back in prison. We can either get busy living or get busy dying; be killing sin or it will be killing each one of us.