An area of the New Testament's teaching that is greatly misunderstood is the place of sin in the life of a Christian. You will commonly hear Christians today say that a Christian cannot help but sin, that sin is part of what it is to be human.
In some senses of the word "sin," this sentiment is true. We will never be absolutely perfect in what we do. Take sins of omission, for example, most if not all of us from time to time will unintentionally fail to do things we should have done. Or take sins of ignorance: most if not all of us will unintentionally wrong others or fail to give God His due at some point or another. The Old Testament considers these kinds of wrongdoing sin and requires their atonement.
But for the most part, the New Testament is not referring to these types of sin when it ascribes blame. The New Testament almost exclusively is thinking of willful, intentional wrongdoing when it speaks of sin. I can honestly say that there is not a single passage in the New Testament that teaches a Christian cannot help but sin intentionally. The New Testament teaches that all have sinned (Rom. 3:23; 1 John 1:10) and thus that all of us have sin that we need Christ to cleanse (1 John 1:8). But it does not teach that Christians cannot help but do sin.
While the New Testament does not use the word "salvation" in reference to the power of sin, part of being in Christ is being saved from the power of sin over our lives, the power that makes it impossible to "do the good" we might want to do. One of the most important respects in which we can be saved today literally is being saved from the death grip of sin over our lives and the way we live. Paul puts it in this way:
"What will we say? Should we remain in sin so that grace might abound? Certainly not! How will we who have died to sin still live in it?" (Rom. 6:1).
And again,
"For when you were slaves of sin, you were free to righteousness..., but now that you have been set free from sin and enslaved to God, you have your fruit in holiness and the end result of it is eternal life" (Rom. 6:20, 22).
"For when we were in the flesh, the passions of sins aroused through the Law used to work in our members, so that we bore fruit to death, but now because we have died [with Christ] we have been released from the Law by which we used to be held so that we might serve in the newness of the Spirit..." (Rom. 7:5-6).
"There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, for the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and death" (Rom. 8:1-2).
"A wretched human am I! Who will rescue me from this body of death? Praise be to God! Through Jesus Christ our Lord" (Rom. 7:24-25).
Some will notice that I have given Paul's words both before and after a famous passage that is often quoted to say that Paul did not believe a Christian could ever keep from sinning. The broader context in Romans makes this popular reading impossible. When Paul says "the Law is spiritual, but I am fleshly, sold under sin" (Rom. 7:14), he cannot be talking about his current experience without contradicting his entire train of thought in Romans 6-8. He has already made it powerfully clear that Christians--including himself--are no longer "slaves of sin" but "have been freed" (Rom. 6:20, 22 above).
It is an atrocious and violent misreading of Paul to see Romans 7:13-24 as a testimony to Paul's failure at keeping the Law. If we read these verses in context rather than ripping them out of Romans, they are Paul explaining why a person under the Law is unable to do good even if he or she wants to.
But in Paul's thought, a Christian is no longer under the Law. These verses in Romans 7 thus depict a person who might want to do good, but who does not have the Spirit to enable them actually to do it. Such a person in Paul's thought is still "in the flesh," under the power of sin over human flesh. Such a person might say, "I find a rule in me--the one who wants to do the good--that bad is present in me" (Rom. 7:21).
It is a beginner's understanding of language that thinks the present tense always means present time. Let's say I am wanting to talk about what it is like to want to do good but not be able to do it. Although I try to do good, I can't because of the power sin has over me. This last sentence is in the present tense, but I was not talking about my current experience. I was talking in vivid terms about the person who is "in the flesh" rather than in the Spirit.
But Paul pleads for us to read on.
"Those who are in the flesh cannot please God" (Rom. 8:8).
This is a somewhat difficult passage for us to get our minds around. Did Paul not write these words while he was in his body? The flesh for Paul must have something to do with our "mortal bodies" or else it is a strange word to use. We can think of the flesh for Paul as our bodies under the power of sin. To be under the power of sin for Paul primarily meant that we found ourselves helpless against tempation, we could not help but give into it and sin.
To be freed from the power of sin is thus to do the right, to "fulfill the righteous requirement of the law" (Rom. 8:4). Paul and other New Testament authors sum up the essence of the law as loving of our neighbors and enemies (e.g., Matt. 5:44, 48; 22:34-40; Rom. 13:8-10; James 2:8). Or in another place, Paul tells us that the fruit of the Spirit is "love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, meekness, self-control" (Gal. 5:22-23).
In contrast the kinds of things that a Christian can be victorious over include: "sexual immorality, uncleanness, indecency, idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, strife, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambitions, divisiveness, factionalism, envy, drunkenness, carousing, and things that are similar to these" (Gal. 5:19-21). Paul calls these the deeds of the flesh, and strongly affirms that if a person will "walk by the Spirit and you will never follow through with the desire of the flesh" (Gal. 5:16).
We find similar passages elsewhere in the New Testament that make it clear that a Christian should be victorious over temptation and not sin intentionally:
"No temptation has overtaken you that is not common to humanity. And God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted above what you are capable. But He will make with the temptation a way of escape so you are able to bear it" (1 Corinthians 10:13).
"Everyone who has been born of God does not practice sin, because God's seed remains in him. And he is not able to be sinning because he has been born of God" (1 John 3:9).
The New Testament authors thus taught that the norm for a Christian was to beat any temptation to sin that comes your way. Many debates have arisen over the particulars of this claim. Some have simply reinterpreted the words to mean something else--surely Paul could not have meant such a thing. Others have systematized and internalized Paul's words in ways that take them well beyond anything he was thinking. While we expect Christian thinkers to expand and re-appropriate the New Testament's teaching in our categories, we should remember the simple aspects of the New Testament's way of thinking.
Thus these authors were not talking about feelings or, really, even about attitudes or orientations as we conceptualize them. We have become very introspective in modern culture, and we think a lot about things that go on in our heads that never express themselves in concrete action or even become clear intentions. Feelings in themselves are neither good or bad; they just are. It's what we do with them that relates to sin--and whether they are moving in a certain direction over time.
But the power of sin for Paul referred to concrete action or concrete intention. He would not recognize our debates about whether God eradicates or suppresses a fleshly, carnal nature inside us. If we are victorious over sin, then we are freed from sin in his mind.
To be sure, we can sin intentionally and concretely in our heads as well. Thus the Sermon on the Mount indicts not just the person who has an affair, but the person who plans one out in his or her head. But Jesus was not likely referring to passing thoughts or feelings. The ancient mind just wasn't wired to focus in on such detail about our internal eddies of thought and emotion. As one contemporary proverb says, "You can't keep a bird from flying over your head, but you can keep it from making a nest in your hair."
Therefore, in theory, all Christians should be consistently victorious over temptation and should not sin intentionally and willfully.
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