For sin shall not have dominion over you…
(Romans 6:14a)
How often have you heard that well intended expression, “you will always be sinning a little every day”? Is it true? Do you have to keep sinning? Is there no chance for victory over sin in this life? What about “whom the Son sets free is free indeed”, or “this is the victory that overcomes the world, even our faith”? On and on and on we could go. Don’t these verses mean something? Do you have to sin a little every day?
Well, it depends on what you mean. In one sense, yes, you will never “not sin” on this side of eternity. Our text here does not say that “sin will not be present in you at all,” or “you never have to sin again” because that will only be fulfilled when we are glorified. However, it does promise that sin will not have dominion over us because of the great work Jesus did in us when we were born again. Because of our justification, we can see real, experiential sanctification in this life. Not just in our eternal position, but in our everyday condition. We are not talking about sinless perfection; we are talking about overcoming particular sins, an advance in the war on sin.
Again, it depends on what you mean. What I want to correct here is this mistaken idea that we must continue in the same sorts of sin every day. We give people the wrong impression when we say you will sin a little every day no matter what. That is a problem, a serious one, but one that can be cleared up if understood correctly. It is not that we won’t sin at all, but that we don’t have to keep doing the same sin. Are you marching forward in the battle claiming Christ’s victory and participating in it, or are you staying put and surrendering to sin?
We will never fully “be there”, as in totally without sin in this life, but we can overcome, totally, real sins. We can be being led to other sins that the Lord will tackle instead of just sinning a little of the same old sin every day. There is a huge difference between the two. You can have real victory over real sin and make real progress in your sanctification, where you go from one victory to the next, sometimes falling back or struggling, but advancing nonetheless. Count on your justification, as the basis for your sanctification, and you will be well on the road to continual victory. You will never finish but you will be overcoming those obstacles placed in front of you, instead of having to keep sinning a little every day.
14 comments:
I believe that Romans seven pictures the very "bondage to sin" that we (here and now) have been set free from in Christ.
Likewise, I regard victory over sin as being paralleled in the account of Israel in the promised land - that is, we have as much "rest" as our faith appropriates. For some, they simply cross the Jordan and camp there until they die. They don't understand that they must go and appropriate the land - that God will drive out the enemies before them -as- they go and take it. So they sit there and wonder why the land doesn't become theirs until one day they give up the ghost in defeat.
That is, I believe that one enters into as much rest as they appropriate, though I believe that one can appropriate the entirely of the promise - the "whole land" if you will.
By that I don't suggest that a person never sins again - but rather that if one preseveres unto a full victory, and gives no ground to the enemy - then no (known) sin will exercise dominion in the life of that believer. That isn't to suggest that the believer cannot lose ground, or that they never sin again - but rather that they refuse to "knowingly" sin.
I think the problem we run into today is that whenever everyone speaks about victory over sin they immediately qualify what they mean with a placating phrase that more or less says, "you never stop sinning."
I think you -can- stop sinning, at least as a matter of conscious rebellion. You will certainly be blind to your own sin in some areas - and there will be compromises that you don't recognize as such - but whenever the Holy Spirit reveals sin in your life - you will deal with it until you are victorious.
I should add - this isn't supressionism either. I am not saying that you get good at supressing the desire to sin. I am saying that when God gives you victory over sin - it removes the enslavement to that sin - such that the compelling desire to commit that sin is extinguished. The flesh will still be flesh - but it won't have the same power.
I look forward to the meta for this post.
Me too, Daniel, and thanks for those comments. As we have seen time and again, you and I are in essential agreement on this.
Now, what might others be thinking...
I think the lesson taught by the Hebrews entering the promised land and the subsequent failure to completely conquer it's inhabitants is not that we should expect anything different in our lives. Granted, we should, in every way possible, work to avoid and overcome sin. But, to claim that anyone can truly overcome sin whether known or unknown isn't Biblical. Our ability to overcome sin (or move mountains) is a direct function of our own faith in Jesus. But, it is not logical to then assume that anyone has or ever will have that much faith. If that were true, I certainly think I would have noticed a mountain being moved.
Good post, Evan.
An interesting thought Evan. Would you say that Jesus was 50/50 man and God, or 100/100 man and God.
I ask because most people will say 100/100 when they really preach 50/50.
You see, if Jesus did anything in the power of his own divinity, he wasn't living 100% as a human because he would have been drawing from a resource that no human has. If however Jesus operated 100% as a human - that is, if everything miraculous that Jesus ever did was done in the power of the Holy Spirit (as scripture teaches) - then we no longer have the excuse of saying - yeah, well... that was Jesus - I am just a sinner.
When a man gets a hold of the idea that although Jesus was God, the second person of the Trinity - yet he became -really- human, and lived as a real human, and not as a mixture of humanity and deity; I say, when a man gets a hold of this, it puts him in a right perspective to appreciate what a man is capable of.
Addendum to my last comment:
To me more succinct, - it puts him in a right perspective to appreciate what the Holy Spirit can do in a man.
Boy oh boy, do I have some things to talk about here, but alas, I must go for now..I'll be back asap...
till then...
Daniel--
When a man gets a hold of the idea that although Jesus was God, the second person of the Trinity - yet he became -really- human, and lived as a real human, and not as a mixture of humanity and deity; I say, when a man gets a hold of this, it puts him in a right perspective to appreciate what a man is capable of.
Agreed. As Athanasius once brilliantly said, "God became human so that humans might become God." This doctrine of theosis, while difficult for many evangelicals to get their minds around (or, should I say, let off of their presupposed conceptions of anthropology), is a thoroughly biblical concept that has occupied considerable force within the life of the church from its earliest days.
exist,
yes, apotheosis still has a prominent place in EO thought, and I would wonder how you might see this in relation to the concept of "enire sanctification" as taught in Weslyan circles...
My understanding of this is somewhat different, in that I do not believe that we can achieve these (apotheosis or ES) things, but that we can overcome actual sins in a real, tangible way, and move on to the next thing (sin type).
I guess the difference would be that I see us as always on the road, never getting there until after death, while others would see us as on the road and there already.
I guess it might be clarified as progress and process, if that makes any sense to anybody.
I say we never "arrive" but that we can leave where we were, and keep going forward.
even so--
yes, apotheosis still has a prominent place in EO thought, and I would wonder how you might see this in relation to the concept of "enire sanctification" as taught in Weslyan circles...
Well, I think the correlation could be very explicit; fundamentally, they both have very much in common, i.e., locating the work of sanctification in the notion of being made perfect in love with God, others and self. Unfortunately, very early in its history Wesleyanism's concept of "entire sanctification" was co-opted by a thoroughgoing legalism that specifically linked "sanctification" with what one does (rather than who one is and who one is becoming in Christ). This is one reason why the teaching of entire sanctification is very dead within Wesleyanism today, except within holiness denominations that tend to fall into the more legalistic strands of the movement.
My understanding of this is somewhat different, in that I do not believe that we can achieve these (apotheosis or ES) things, but that we can overcome actual sins in a real, tangible way, and move on to the next thing (sin type).
But the way I see what you're talking about is that you are defining sanctification in a negative sense---that is, it is simply getting past one sin so that another can be engaged. In my understanding, this does not very well capture the biblical picture of freedom and victory that the Scriptures speak about in relation to the sanctifying work of the Spirit. Rather than defining sanctification on the basis of the negative (sin), we should define it on the basis of love and relationship. This is what theosis and deification accomplish in my understanding. Instead of progressing from one sin to the next, we rather engage more and more fully in proper relationship with God, others and self. As the very definition of sin is dysfunctional relationship with God, we are not overcoming one dysfunction to engage another, but are rather pursuing the infinite depth and fulfilled-ness that comes from relationship with God.
I guess the difference would be that I see us as always on the road, never getting there until after death, while others would see us as on the road and there already.
Even death will not bring us into the fulness of God's love, for to constantly pursue and be engaged in the infinite depths of God's love is the very definition of eternal life. It is like in Lewis' Great Divorce: we will incessantly climb the mountain of God. Although we will never reach the top (the deepest depths of the love of God), the journey in and of itself is fulfillment.
exist said,
Instead of progressing from one sin to the next, we rather engage more and more fully in proper relationship with God, others and self.
Yeah, I see what you are saying, but I guess I would say that this looks like, or works out as, a relationship that is being involved in less ansd less sin. As we engage more and more fully, we sin less and less. I think we are very close here to each other, and hopefully, to Christ as he would have us to understand these issues.
It is like in Lewis' Great Divorce: we will incessantly climb the mountain of God.
As my bio says, one of my favorite books ever...I see the mountain as our sanctification as well as our continual, eternal growing in our understanding of God (yes I believe we will continue to learn in heaven). On the other side we will grow without error, praise the Lord, but on this side, our climbing is impaired by our own selves.
I am saying that we can make tremendous progress, but not perfect progress, as we will in heaven. We have somehting to lok forward to, not only in what we will learn, but in how we will learn.
I still don't understand the point of defining sanctification as "less and less sin." What of the freedom of Christ? Why must we qualify it from, "you are free in Christ," to "you are less and less enslaved to sin?" To me, that seems like a defeatist attitude, not the life of victory, freedom and rejoicing to which we are called as followers of Christ.
Now obviously, the freedom we have in Christ does not mean we will be "perfect." However, as sinfulness has very little to do with not being perfect, this is a non-issue.
What of the freedom of Christ? Why must we qualify it from, "you are free in Christ," to "you are less and less enslaved to sin?"
Because, you are free from sin (Romans 6:13-18, John 8:32ff, many others). You are free to not sin.
You are free from sin's penalty (justification), power (sanctification), and eventually its presence (glorfication).
Sanctification is growing in grace, with its axiomatic and concommitant manifestation of less sin.
An interesting conversation. Thanks guys for interacting, so I can just be intellectually lazy and come along for the ride.
Blessings, and peace.
No problem, feel free to ride along, and give a comment or two if we need to clarify something...
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