One of the great aims of the Christian life that seems to be somewhat neglected in the church today is the necessity of eliminating sin in our lives (Romans 8:13). This is done not by our own strength, but by the strength of God himself as He works in us through the power of His Holy Spirit. Yet at some level there is a great effort on the part of we small, earthly Christians in this doing away with the flesh. Please note that I say that this elimination of sin is one of the “great aims” and not the main or essential aim. To make it our main goal is to go against the core of Christianity. Our main and essential aim is that of seeking the knowledge of God, thereby glorifying God by becoming more and more conformed to the image of Christ, who is the bodily image of deity (reference). It is in and through this growing in knowledge and conformity that our sin is eliminated. As Ezekiel says, “I will put my spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees.” (36:27)
Those are truths that I have known, at least in part, for the majority of my life. Perhaps not as succinctly or blatantly stated, but I have known them. Yet despite that knowledge it seems that the way God has worked out the realization of the elimination of sin is far from how I had expected. I’d always had the idea that as I came to a larger and better understanding of Christ and God, that understanding would transfer into love (for who can truly know God and not love Him?) and out of that love would flow the obedience (1 John 5:3), which is abstaining from sin. But that is quite different than how my Christian walk thus far has gone. Different from, but not contrary to, mind you.
Instead of my knowledge of God transferring to the ability to more and more defeat the sin and temptation that is brought against me, much like the weight lifter who gains more and more strength and as he does so it becomes easier and easier to lift the weight he began with, my gaining that knowledge has resulted in something rather odd. Sin does seem to be becoming less and less of an attraction in my life, but over and 
above the elimination of sin I am seeing God teach me to cling to His promises by faith, despite the fact that they may not seem like an immediate reality. Take for instance the sins in our lives that we return to time and time again, each time returning sheepishly to repent and wait for God to forgive us. Whatever form that may take in your life, be it over eating, pornography, drugs, gossip, lying, or any other shortcoming, we all find such things in our lives. In my own experience I have found that as I sin over and over I come readily enough before God to beg His forgiveness for the sin itself, but am somewhat loathe to move on from the sin and truly believe that I am and have already been completely and utterly forgiven. There is something in me that demands that I spend perhaps an hour or two sitting in prayer or reading the Word until I feel forgiven; until I feel that I have been accepted into the presence of God and have sufficiently atoned for my sin through my contrition and begging forgiveness.
Over the last month or two I have become more and more convinced, through several avenues, that that mode of sinning and falling down in slavish begging is far from the life that God has called his children (1 John 3:1) to. In Jeremiah 15, God tells his people, “If you repent, I will restore you that you may serve me.” Note the definitive and immediacy of that declaration. I will restore you. There is no questioning of whether or not the person repenting gains the restoration they seek. It is an absolute restoration into immediate service, and note also the fact that the repentance is so that you may serve. That is a key part of the problem with the way that we tend to seek a feeling of restoration; our seeking restoration keeps us from the service of our Lord. I think of one morning in particular late this past spring with snow deep upon the ground when I awoke feeling the weight of my own sin heavy upon my shoulders and consequently feeling terribly distant from God. I spent what must have been two and a half, perhaps three, hours that morning sitting and pouring over my Bible and asking over and over again that God would “restore to me the joy of salvation” (Psalm 51:12). Eventually other things in the day called me away into the rush of life and shortly after I began going about the things that were on my schedule I began to feel what I had been seeking futile for so long. How often do we waste time, be it much or little, in our own self pity over the sin we commit? God’s call is far higher than having his children be slaves who come before him terrified that they will be cast away because of their sin.
God, our Father and Savior, knows and has always known full well the sins we have and will commit and has long since covered them with the blood of Christ. From where we stand in time it was over two thousand years ago that God declared His children justified in his sight (Romans 3:24, 5:1, 5:9, 8:30). It is at best a lack of understanding that keeps us so doubtful of the promises of God. If Romans 5:1, which declares, “if we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ” is true, then it is our faith that brings us into communion and salvation to God. By faith, not by works, or lack thereof.
What, then, is faith? Again, in Romans Paul writes, “hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what he already has? But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently.” After reading that passage a number of weeks ago in connection with several others the idea entered my mind that, as I wrote in my journal, “faith is a believing of God’s promises in the face of the fact that there may be no immediate, tangible realization of them.” If we have died to sin and can live in it no longer and have been united with Christ in His death and it is true that anyone who has died is freed from sin (Romans 6:2-7), yet it is also true that we are slaves to sin in the body and continue to do the evil that we hate to do (Romans 8:14-24). If that is the case, then is not faith believing that we are free from sin despite the fact that it does not seem a reality; taking God at His word when He says we have died to sin and owe it nothing, in the face of the reality that shouts something completely opposite.
Isn’t that what we are called to do? To believe that God and His word is a higher reality than what we can see, touch, or feel? I am convinced so.
Here I must insert a key piece of clarification. It is true that we are decisively, emphatically freed from sin. However, as is easily seen in this world, we Christians still sin time and again. Our freedom from sin, though decisively bought and guaranteed (so much so that we may at the present be completely assed of the promises fulfillment), it is only IN CHRIST that that freedom is here realized. Our bodies are captive to this tendency to sin until the point where we finally lay them down, but Christ, who has already died and risen free from sin, now lives perfectly “to God” (Romans 6:10). We are to take upon ourselves, through faith by grace, the life of Christ and thereby be continually growing in freedom from sin, “putting to death the deeds of the body by the Spirit” (Romans 8:13). Do not be discouraged, believer, when you sin for the seven thousandth time. Instead, rejoice that you are clothed with the righteousness of Christ and that He is the one who God sees, not you. “There is therefore no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.” It is through, in, and by Christ that we have faith. It is through Christ’s death and resurrection that we are justified. In Christ’s death and life we are identified by faith and seen as completely pure in Christ by the eyes of the Father. By Christ’s seating at the right hand of God we are also seated in the heavenlies (Ephesians 2:6).
And that, I suppose, is exactly where I went wrong in my thinking early in my life. I thought that in some way God would free me from sin distinct of Christ; that it was Christ’s death that bought me an entrance into salvation, but sanctification was something separate of Him. Oh, how wrong I was! God has chosen to give all glory and honor to His son (Revelation 5), so from Him and through Him we receive all things that are ours. Sanctification, the loosing sin’s bonds upon our bodies, minds, hearts, and souls, is found only in the workings of Christ upon the cross. All is held in Christ, whether it be justification, sanctification, glorification, or any other good thing, for in Him all the promises of God are “yes and amen” (2 Corinthians 1:20) Sin is not put to death separate of the work of the Son. It is through our connection with and identification in the death, life, and intercession of Christ that we grow in faith and thereby overcome the flesh. There is no other way. As Christ himself said, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” (John 14:6). It is not as if we come through Christ in a moment of faith and then walk the rest of that narrow path to heaven on our own or even solely in the power of the Holy Spirit. No! It is a constant and eternal “in Christ alone” that will carry us into complete salvation.
So, brothers and sisters in the faith, do not hesitate to return to God! Detest and mourn your sin, yes, but know full well the fact that we are clothed in Christ and have been “chosen in him from before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight.” (Ephesians 1:4) Do not let your sin keep you from doing the works that God has set before you. Do not be crippled by your own inadequacy. Instead, rejoice all the more in Christ’s complete and utter fulfillment of the law on our behalf. It is as we trust more and more in the complete atonement and salvation in our savior that the sin – the fleshliness – that is left in us will be thrown aside. Hold fast to the promises of God by faith, my dear friends, in face of the fact that they seem infinitely distant from being brought to full realization. As His word says, he is faithful to complete the works that He has begun. If God has begun any good work in you, and Christian, in you he most certainly has begun an infinitely wonderful and glorious work, he WILL complete it though it take a lifetime to do. God is faithful to us in Christ. Rejoice and rest in that fact.
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