How can we avoid having to die in ourselves for our sins?
We avoid dying in ourselves by believing the gospel and receiving Christ's death as our substitution. Although sin requires death, God provided a loophole: Christ died in our place, so the old Adam is crucified and the believer is freed from that penalty.
Les teaches that death is the first fundamental law in Scripture: the soul that sins must surely die, and all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. There is no getting around it. But God gave mankind a loophole. Yes, we have to die because we are sinners, but we do not have to die in ourselves. We can take Christ's death as our substitution. If we simply believe the gospel, then Christ's death takes our place—the substitutionary death of Christ. Paul therefore teaches that the old Adam has to be crucified, put to death, because he is a sinner, and he that is dead is freed from old Adam.