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The Nature Of Sin In The Flesh

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“Did that which is good, then, become death to me? By no means! Nevertheless, in order that sin might be recognized as sin, it used what is good to bring about my death, so that through the commandment sin might become utterly sinful.”
– Romans 7:13

Sin is a natural part of our life in the flesh – the same as hunger and exhaustion – inherited from our fall in Eden. There are no moral implications about sin in the flesh because it just is. Now that may cause a bit of a stir or give rise to objections, but what we would like to share is a better understanding of sin as it affects every one of us so that we can better realize who we are in Christ.  Many of us struggle in bondage to our guilt and never seem to fulfill our purposes in Christ.  Our heart too often gets defeated within us because we believe so strongly in our sinfulness and how terrible we are.

So again we say, there are no moral implications about sin in the flesh because it just is.  Where the moral implications come into play is in our responses and subsequent choices to the urges and demands it places on us.

“It is out of the heart that evil thoughts come, as well as murder, adultery, sexual immorality, stealing, false testimony, and slander.”
– Matthew 15:19

When Adam disbelieved and disobeyed God and ate from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, he from that moment was separated from God.  His thoughts were his alone without the influence of God within as one Spirit.  His thoughts were those of a flesh and blood human being.  If he hurt himself his response would be, “ow”.  If he became tired his response would be to nap.  If he was confronted and accused his response would be to lie.  We have that fallen nature, and before Christ came into our lives we responded in the same manner.  We would act contrary to God’s ways as easily as we would sneeze from dust.  Without God we lived in accordance to our flesh.

So why did God have a problem with sin if it was just what it was?  For the same reason that darkness cannot continue to exist when the light is turned on, our sinful nature could not exist in the presence of God.  We would cease to be, and He didn’t want us to not exist.

“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.”
– John 3:16

What we’re saying so far is that our sinful nature is not something we can take to ourselves, to enlarge it or reduce it.  It just is, and it is why we are separated from God and why we would have no hope without Him.  None of us is more sinful than another, and none of us is less sinful, “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” – Romans 3:23.  Many of us berate ourselves and put ourselves down because we moan over our sinful nature like it was something we had a say in.  We don’t.  It is a condition, a terminal condition with no cure and we are destined for death and destruction because of it.

there are no moral implications about sin in the flesh because it just is

Kind of makes moaning about our sinfulness seem useless, don’t you think?  And it’s good that it does because as long as we waste time considering that we have a say in our sinful nature, we can never fully understand or realize the gift of grace from our Father and our Lord Jesus.  What we should realize instead is our need for rescue.  We need to be rescued from this body of sin because there are no other options that we can implement.  We need the grace and salvation of God.

“remember that you were at that time separated from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world.  But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ.”
– Ephesians 2:12-13

Once this is realized we can then better and more fully understand the love and mercy of our Father in Jesus Christ the Lord.  We are not just the recipients of forgiveness for all the contrary and wayward things we have done – we are the recipients of a life giving cure for our terminal disease of sinful flesh – in spite of all the contrary and wayward things we have done!  

“…whoever has been forgiven little loves little.” – Luke 7:47b.

Being forgiven all our acts of sin and wickedness has a quantity assigned to it.  We measure how bad we are by the things we’ve done, and the level of our love for our Lord demonstrates that, but being saved from our terminal, sinful nature covers everything!  There is now no limit to the love God can stir within our hearts through His Gift in Jesus!  God Himself is our cure by dwelling in us through His Spirit and Son, thinking His thoughts within our minds and inspiring His will within our hearts.  The sins we have committed in our ignorance before we knew Him are forgiven, and the sins we may have committed since we knew Him are forgiven, and the sins we may commit in the future are forgiven.  His Grace covers it all!  What love and gratitude and willingness that must stir up within the heart that sees this!  What an amazing God we serve Who chose to cure us of our fatal disease rather than let us die – even though we were so contrary to all He created and ungrateful for all He intended!

There is now no limit to the love God can stir within our hearts through His Gift in Jesus!

Now this may be mistaken as a license to sin doctrine but it certainly is not, so let’s look at where the moral implications do come to bear.  What is our responsibility in the nature of sin?  We are responsible in what we choose.

When our flesh demands we leer at a pretty woman or a handsome man, we are inclined to do so, except now we also know it is contrary to the will of our Father.  We can choose to not look with lust, or we can hate it if we do and wish we never did, or we can not look but struggle afterwards with recurring flesh-minded imaginations.  We want God’s way regardless of what our flesh tries to force upon us, but the flesh is still flesh and subject to the sinful nature.  Although it no longer has the power to kill us it still reacts and interacts in our flesh.  It still just is, and it will trip us up at times, but we choose God because He dwells in us and inspires us always to choose Him.  If we fail, we regret because our minds are for Him.  If we overcome we rejoice because our minds are for Him.  In every way it’s always Him.

IMPORTANT! The moral implications of sin come into play when we choose to follow the demands of the flesh, and continue in them, to practice them and make excuses for why they’re okay.  We have Christ dwelling in us so we have no excuse if we were to continue a life of practiced sin.  May it never happen to any of us!  If we turn from this wonderful, saving Grace and give preference to the demands of our flesh – if we do so willfully and without any remorse, we have rejected His Gift and have chosen death and separation instead.

“It would be better if they had never known the way to righteousness than to know it and then reject the command they were given to live a holy life.”
– 2 Peter 2:21

Again, may it never happen to any of us!  And it will not because we have God the Father and Lord Jesus the Son dwelling inside us through their Spirit, ever reminding us of His will and ways.  And we have one another to encourage each other and exhort each other to keep our minds on Jesus.  We strive daily to keep our minds focused on our Lord and to hear His thoughts and respond to His inspirations.  And sin, though it may cause trouble at times, will not rule over us and it cannot kill us.

“You will keep in perfect peace those whose minds are steadfast, because they trust in you.”
– Isaiah 26:3

Settle it in the truth that you are cured from your very nature of sinfulness – all of it – and there is no more counting and measuring the extent of it.  We are all forgiven – and we are all forgiven much!  Let us begin to love much to the glory of Jesus.

we have God the Father and Lord Jesus the Son dwelling inside us through their Spirit, ever reminding us of His will and ways.  And we have one another to encourage us and exhort us to keep our minds on Jesus.

Being The Unforgivable Sinner

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“So let us come boldly to the throne of our gracious God. There we will receive his mercy, and we will find grace to help us when we need it most.”
– Hebrews 4:16

We have all heard talk and teachings about the unforgivable sin, but the unforgivable sinner is rarely spoken of.  We don’t talk about sinners not being forgiven because as Christians our entire faith is built upon the belief of forgiveness for all who ask.  And because as Christians we know that we ourselves are forgiven … aren’t we?

The truth is, yes, we are fully forgiven in Christ.  Yet a sad fact is many of us live our new lives as if we were still without forgiveness.  We conduct our days from confession to confession, ever seeking God’s mercy on us for who we are and what we’ve done.  Our mood is marked by a sense of apology and contrition as we seek mercy for ourselves, not understanding that we are being rendered ineffective in the service of our King.

We fail to come boldly to the throne of His grace.

a sad fact is many of us live our new lives as if we were still without forgiveness

To gain a better understanding of this, consider someone in your life who you respect and who has authority in your life.  Maybe a parent or grandparent, a teacher, an older sibling – someone whose opinion really matters to you.  Now imagine you did something against them, perhaps you stole money or a possession of theirs, and you were discovered.  Your first thought might be to try and make an excuse or to justify it, but inside you know there really is no excuse so you eventually confess to them your guilt, and you try to tell them how sorry you are for what you did to them.  You offer to restore or make up for what you’ve cost them because you can feel your own heart breaking for what you’ve done to them.

Now imagine they smiled, gave you a big hug and said not to worry about it.  They tell you that you are completely forgiven and ask you to stay for supper.  During supper they laugh with you about funny times you’ve shared with them in the past and it is as if you never stole from them.  You are happy with them just like before.

The next morning you wake up and begin to think again about what you had done to them when you stole.  When the phone rings you don’t answer because you can see on call display it’s them.  When they come to the door you keep quiet and don’t answer, pretending that no one is home.  When you accidentally bump into them in the afternoon you quickly make an excuse why you weren’t at home – even though you were there – and nervously laugh when they ask how you’re doing and make up another excuse of having to be somewhere soon.  You start to believe in your own guilt again, and you feel ashamed to be around them.  You find every reason you can to avoid them from then on.

But let’s look at another option:

The next morning you wake up and begin to think again about what you had done to them when you stole.  When the phone rings, this time you answer it and talk with them.  You tell them how you’re still feeling bad about what you’ve done, and they begin to assure you it’s all good.  You’re forgiven.  And after a little while you begin to feel as happy and accepted as you did the night before.  You go on with your day, confident because that dark weight is not on your shoulders.  You don’t avoid phone calls or meeting people and you are useful for many things throughout that day.  And you aren’t afraid to go visit them or to give them a call because you are reminded by their attitude that what you did will never be brought up by them again – it’s as if you never stole from them at all.  You can boldly approach them just like before.

You’re forgiven.

And it’s the same with our forgiveness in Christ.  The more time we spend with Him in prayer and in His word, the more we grow in being convinced of our forgiveness and the bolder we can be to approach Him at any time – for any reason.  It is as if we never sinned in His eyes.  He will never bring those things up again.

“And he has taken our sins as far away from us as the east is from the west.”
– Psalms 103:12
“I, I am he who blots out your transgressions for my own sake, and I will not remember your sins.”
– Isaiah 43:25

Unfortunately, so many of us get distracted and caught up in our day to day lives and we let go of that communication with our Lord.  And as that assurance He provides diminishes it gets replaced with the old guilt – that same guilt that leads us to find excuses to not pray or read His word.  Then as that guilt builds we eventually turn to Him and agonize about how bad we are and how sorry we are, and we beg Him to forgive us, and then we return to our distractions once again only to repeat that cycle – over and over and over again.

But shouldn’t our turning to Him cleanse us and give us a fresh start?  Not in the way we might think.  If, as a Christian, we told a lie or stole, that is an act that would cause us guilt and one that we would turn to Him for.  He in His faithfulness would tell us that He forgave us ALL our sin – past, present, and future – and He would assure us of our value and worth.  We would go forward from there confident and assured – boldly.  So in that case, yes, He picks us up and inspires in us that fresh start feeling of going forward and not looking back.  But, the guilt that renders us useless is not related to an act of sin but an ongoing state of sin.  We come to believe in how unworthy we are and we act worthless as a result.  Christ cleansed us and made us new creations, but that state of guilt is seeking forgiveness for something that no longer exists.  We’re bringing up the things He said He will no longer remember.

we beg Him to forgive us, and then we return to our distractions once again only to repeat that cycle – over and over and over again

Jesus certainly does not want us stuck in such a cycle.  He desires our hearts to be good ground that bears fruit to the glory of our Father.  And that good ground is a heart that believes Him, and believes in His righteousness.  Believing Him is the easier of the two.  James wrote in chapter 2, verse 19, “You say you have faith, for you believe that there is one God. Good for you! Even the demons believe this, and they tremble in terror.”  What is harder for many of us to believe is His righteousness.  Did you know that righteousness and justice are the same word used in the Greek and the same word in the Hebrew?  They define as equitable, fair, without prejudice.  And that means what Scripture already tells us – God does not get influenced by the status or state of any person, but is good to all without variance.  That means if He forgives one who turns to Him, He forgives all.  There is no one who turns to Him where He would say, “Not this one.”  There is no unforgivable sinner.

And because we are blessed to share in His righteousness then we, too, learn to not be influenced by the status or state of any person.  And we do not say, “Not this one.”  And we do not say, “Not me.”  But we all must – must – continue daily with our Lord, speaking with Him and listening to His word.  He is the encouragement that reminds us of our forgiveness and acceptance, and our confidence to boldly approach Him and to serve Him usefully.  Without His influence we are left to the ways of a sinful world, of flesh, and of the devil.  And they do not understand God’s righteousness and so our ears and hearts are not reminded of our forgiveness – only about how bad we are.  We need God daily.

There is no unforgivable sinner.

A forgiven person dares to ask Jesus to heal another.  They dare to help the elderly and the young with their strength.  They dare to ask help from their Father for their needs.  They dare to intercede on behalf of another’s needs.  They dare to give freely and with joy.  They are useful to our Master and His service because they are reminded daily how loved and accepted they are by the Lord Himself.

An unforgiven person sits often alone, lamenting their shame and begging forgiveness.  They try to serve but joy often escapes them.  They neglect fellowship with Jesus and His children and only hear the words of condemnation that the world and the devil reinforce daily.  They cannot usefully serve the Master.

Settle it in  the truth then.  You are forgiven, and you must to be reminded of this daily through your abiding in Christ and in His word and in His fellowship.  Then boldly go forth – fully forgiven and fully useful in His service 🙂