Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, 2 through whom also we have access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God (Romans 5:1-2).
Man, I love the word justified. Whenever I hear it, I think of “Just as if I’d never sinned.” Notice how the scripture says that we have peace with God. The only way we can have peace with God is if there is no sin. Sin came into the world, and God’s wrath followed.
The only way for us to have peace with God is if we are sinless.
For if by the one man’s offense death reigned through the one, much more those who receive abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness will reign in life through the One, Jesus Christ.) 18 Therefore, as through one man’s offense judgment came to all men, resulting in condemnation, even so through one Man’s righteous act the free gift came to all men, resulting in justification of life. 19 For as by one man’s disobedience many were made sinners, so also by one Man’s obedience many will be made righteous (Romans 5:17-19).
Your individual sins do not make you a sinner. Because Adam sinned, you were born with a sinful nature, making you a sinner. Adam is the father of all of us. The moment he and Eve dropped the ball in the Garden, sin entered the world, and death reigned through that sin.
Adam caused all of us to be born into sin. God gave Adam authority to resist the Devil, but he didn’t, and because of it, we all had to suffer the reign of sin and death. It’s not the individual acts of sin that make someone a sinner. That’s a radical statement. Because we are first born into Adam’s family, we are born into sin.
If that is true, so is this: Your acts of holiness do not make you righteous. Just like you are born into sin because of Adam’s unrighteousness, you are born (again) into holiness because of Jesus’ righteousness. This is why Jesus says, “You must be born again” (John 3:3).
To make this as simple as possible, we are all born into the nature of sin (Adam), giving us a sinful nature from birth (Romans 3:23). And unless we are born again into a righteous nature (Jesus), we will continue to live and die with that sin nature. Once we are born again into this new righteous nature, we are given a righteous, holy nature, and the sinful nature is dead and gone (2 Corinthians 5:17).
To make this even more radical for the religious people, the only sin that God will impute against you is not knowing Jesus as your Savior. That’s it.
Nevertheless I tell you the truth. It is to your advantage that I go away; for if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you; but if I depart, I will send Him to you. 8 And when He has come, He will convict the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment: 9 of sin, because they do not believe in Me (John 16:7-9).
God isn’t imputing homosexuality, murder, envy, lust, lying, or any other sin onto mankind. It says in John that the Holy Spirit will come to convict the world of sin, righteousness, and judgment. Then it says, “of sin, because they do not believe in Me (Jesus).” The only sin that the Holy Spirit will convict you of is the sin of not knowing Jesus.
We often feel “convicted of sin,” but that conviction isn’t from the Holy Spirit. It’s from your intuitive knowledge of right and wrong–good and evil. In Romans 1, Paul explains how every human being intuitively knows God and right and wrong.
1 Timothy 4 talks about how people will have a seared conscience with a hot iron in the last days. It’s possible that someone who once had a conviction in their conscience about a certain sin no longer feels convicted because they have seared their conscience. This is why the LGBT community, baby killers, BLM community, and every other progressive movement are pressing so hard for people to tolerate them and accept them as normal. They want everyone’s approval because, deep down, they know that they are wrong.
The truth is, even though they are all wrong and are living in sin, God still loves them. How can a righteous and holy God love people like that? Again, God isn’t looking at their individual sins. This should be good news to some people, but God isn’t looking at the LGBT community and condemning them for being gay and transgender. If they have not accepted Jesus as their Savior, He sees that.
It’s black and white with God. If you accept Jesus, you’re His child. If you haven’t, then you belong to the world. There’s no in-between. He doesn’t see someone with a little sin compared to someone with a lot of sin. Keep reading before you get offended.
This is the message which we have heard from Him and declare to you, that God is light and in Him is no darkness at all. 6 If we say that we have fellowship with Him, and walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth. 7 But if we walk in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses us from all sin. 8 If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. 9 If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. 10 If we say that we have not sinned, we make Him a liar, and His word is not in us (1 John 1:5-10).
Returning to the original discussion of whether we are sinners, we need to look carefully at the words in scripture. It will be reflected in our lives if we genuinely fellowship with God. This is not to say that we will be sinless in our flesh.
The next chapter talks about Christians sinning (1 John 2:1-2). Christians can still sin, and some more than others. But this contradicts the Gnostics of John’s day, who claimed to have superior knowledge and understanding of God, yet their lives were a mess.
They didn’t have any evidence of a relationship with the Lord. John was stating that knowing God changes a person’s actions. The degree to which their actions change depends on several things. But anyone who professes to know the Lord and has no evidence of it in their actions is a liar.
My little children, these things I write to you, so that you may not sin. And if anyone sins, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. 2 And He Himself is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the whole world (1 John 2:1-2).
So, do we have sin, or do we not have sin? First, it says that He has cleansed us from all sin. Then it says if we say we don’t have sin, we are deceived. Lastly, it tells us not to sin.
To understand this passage of scripture, we need to look in the spirit and flesh. In our spirit, we are just like Jesus, sinless (1 John 4:17). But in our flesh, we still sin (John 6:63).
John is saying that the blood of Jesus cleanses our spirit from all sin. But in our flesh, if we say we do not sin, we are deceived because all have sinned. So, just because our spirit is cleansed, it doesn’t mean our flesh is free from sin.
Why You Shouldn’t Sin
People who deliberately keep living a life of sin after they have been redeemed are people who are deceived. Sin doesn’t separate us from God anymore because Jesus became the “propitiation,” meaning we have been freed from our overwhelming debt/sin.
Even though sin doesn’t affect God’s relationship with us, it still affects our relationship with Him. Read that again. God doesn’t distance Himself from us when we sin, but we begin to distance ourselves from Him.
And because lawlessness will abound, the love of many will grow cold (Matthew 24:12).
Some translate lawlessness to iniquity: contempt and violation of law, iniquity, wickedness. Because of the willingness to sin in people’s lives, love will “wax” cold. This is a long process of repeated actions.
The more and more people allow sin in their lives, the harder and harder their hearts become for the things of God until they eventually rebel altogether.
Once saved, always saved, or born again-again? Neither.
God will not force you to become saved, and He will not force you to stay saved. I believe there is nothing you can do for God not to love you, but I also believe that you can go down a road of sin to the point where you no longer want God in your life.
God doesn’t play a role in either choice. Either you sin your way to harden your heart and leave, or you commit to living a holy life and stay. God won’t choose for you.
Some people believe you can never willingly and unwillingly lose your salvation. That’s against the nature of God because it violates free will. It’s like when a child wants to get emancipated. Emancipation is a legal document. Once a child becomes emancipated and it’s recorded, the parents can do nothing. That child is independent of them because of choice. Legally, they are no longer tied. Regardless of blood, they have no relationship.
I know countless people who are related by blood yet have no relationship. The same is true with our relationship with God. We are His children by the blood of Jesus. However, the moment we choose to “emancipate” ourselves from Him, it’s a legally bound contract.
Sin is not our nature.
What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound? 2 Certainly not! How shall we who died to sin live any longer in it? 3 Or do you not know that as many of us as were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death? 4 Therefore we were buried with Him through baptism into death, that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life (Romans 6:1-4).
Ephesians 2:1 says we were dead in sin, and Romans says we are dead to sin! Your spirit cannot sin. We are raised up to walk in the newness of life. Why would you want to go back to the old ways of death? How dumb can you get and still breathe?
Sin gives Satan access to our lives.
Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body, that you should obey it in its lusts. 13 And do not present your members as instruments of unrighteousness to sin, but present yourselves to God as being alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness to God. 14 For sin shall not have dominion over you, for you are not under law but under grace. 15 What then? Shall we sin because we are not under law but under grace? Certainly not! 16 Do you not know that to whom you present yourselves slaves to obey, you are that one’s slaves whom you obey, whether of sin leading to death, or of obedience leading to righteousness? 17 But God be thanked that though you were slaves of sin, yet you obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine to which you were delivered. 18 And having been set free from sin, you became slaves of righteousness (Romans 6:12-18).
Paul had to answer the question 3 times in the book of Romans. If you don’t get this question when you talk about grace, you aren’t talking about the same grace Paul was.
Even though God is not imputing our sins against us anymore, Satan is. When we sin, we give Satan an inroad into our lives. Our actions either release the power of God or the power of Satan into our lives.
When you sin in your flesh, you become a slave to the author of sin, the Devil. When you live holy, you become a slave to the author of true holiness, God.
This sinning isn’t referring to accidentally messing up because we all will. But those who are “Christians” and don’t care that they are living a sinful life have abandoned themselves to sin and become slaves to the enemy, while those truly seeking God and obeying righteousness are becoming slaves to the Lord.
In life, you’re going to be a slave. You get to choose your master. Sin, which leads to death, or righteousness, which leads to life and peace.
Now the works of the flesh are evident, which are: adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lewdness, 20 idolatry, sorcery, hatred, contentions, jealousies, outbursts of wrath, selfish ambitions, dissensions, heresies, 21 envy, murders, drunkenness, revelries, and the like; of which I tell you beforehand, just as I also told you in time past, that those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God (Galatians 5:19-21).
These are characteristics of unsaved people. If you are born again and commit any of these things, that is not your identity or nature. But if you are born again, and you identify as any of these (“this is just who I am”), you haven’t understood grace, the new life you’ve been given, or the love of God, and I would reevaluate if you truly committed your life to Christ.
Live in the victory.
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