Sin in the Christian's Life … Part I

When a man or a woman hears the Gospel message about Jesus (how He came to seek and save sinners) and they accept Jesus as the Lord of their life and experience the new birth by having the Holy Spirit take up residence in their hearts … does this end the sin problem in their lives?

Let me ask this question another way. After a person is born again, do they still have the ability to comment sin? If the answer is "no" … then based on my life, I must not be saved.

The correct answer is … yes, of course they do. Why is that? Aren't you saved from your sin; not saved in your sin? Most of the time, our bodies of flesh causes us to sin; and why is that? It's because our flesh never gets saved. Our hearts were changed, not our flesh, so we keep on sinning; hopefully not as often, but I'm sorry to say … we still sin … don't we?

But … if all this is true, why did the Apostle John write the following in …

1st John 3:9 … "Whosoever is born of God doth not commit sin; for his seed (God's) remaineth in him: and he cannot sin, because he is born of God."

Isn't John saying that a saved, born again believer in Jesus … "cannot sin?" I see the word "cannot" in this verse. What does it mean? If the word "whosoever" wasn't used as well, I would think John must have been talking about Jesus. He was born of God and He didn't sin because He was God in the flesh.

But it does say "whosoever" which means anyone who is born again or saved, including me.

I like to turn to the Amplified Bible when I question the true meaning of difficult scriptures such as this one. It helps bring clarity sometimes. The Amplified reads this way …

"No one born (begotten) of God [deliberately, knowingly, and habitually] practices sin, for God's nature abides in him [His principle of life, the divine sperm, remains permanently within him]; and he cannot practice sinning because he is born (begotten) of God."

Okay … this makes more sense. If you are born again, God's life, light and Spirit lives in you and keeps … no that’s the wrong word … helps you not to practice sinning.

The Amplified has three words in brackets. I want to look at the first two … deliberately and knowingly. I am of the opinion that they should not have been added to this scripture. Even Christians once in a while deliberately and knowingly choose to sin for many reasons. Sometimes they just give in to the temptations of the flesh. This is a whole different situation then habitually sinning.

This third word in brackets belongs there as it goes to the main subject of this verse. "Habitually" means … "a habit of long standing, commonly practiced, a custom." Believers sin … but if I understand this verse right … sinning cannot be our lifestyle. We cannot be habitual sinners.

When John says … "Whosoever is born of God doth not commit sin" … he means it is not the constant course of his life; he does not live and walk in sin or give himself over to sin. But understand … he is not without it being in him and he is not totally free from acts of sin in his life; but even so … he does not so commit it as to be the servant of it, or a slave unto it so as to continue to live in it as he used to.

And when John said in the second half of this verse … "he cannot sin" … he is not saying that it is impossible for a Christian to sin, nor that it is even possible for such a man to live without sin. And why is it not possible to live without sin?

While it is true that we have been made "righteous" in Christ and have been given His perfection in place of ours; this perfection is not yet in our flesh. Therefore we are not yet free from sin because the sin nature, the ability to sin that has been passed down to us from Adam … is still in us even after the new birth.

But … he that is born of God; "that" which is born of God in him, the "new man" or a new born again "heart" in man … cannot habitually practice sin … his "new heart" won't allow him to, because God's seed and nature remains in him.

Every free will moral agent, that's all of us, has free will; it's called choice. Everyone who is alive, born again or not has the ability to do wrong. So again, when John says Christians cannot sin, he is not saying that it is impossible for them to do wrong in thought, word or deed, for clearly no one could seriously maintain that all of their life.

After all, we are still flesh and blood which makes us human … but that's no excuse. We will be held responsible for what our bodies do.

This is the reason Paul said something like this in 1st Corinthians 9:27 … "I keep my body under subjection … lest I myself should be a castaway." (My translation)

To be continued …


Comments welcome.