Yes, this is the crux of our differences. Sin.
What we agree on is that Jesus died for our sin.
However, you didn't tell me HOW we are to "work" to overcome sin from your last post. After you answer that I think I'll be able to continue.
Hello C.L.
I wonder whether this extract from a series of articles that I wrote on the New Birth will be helpful to you.
The born-again Christian does not have a
legal righteousness- that is, a pharisaic righteousness that comes from a slavish outward obedience to the law, whether it be the Mosaic Law or any other code of regulations. Such a righteousness is unavailable in any case because no one can keep God’s laws perfectly in his own strength (Acts 15:10; Rom 3:9, 23). Rather he has an
evangelical righteousness; he seeks to keep the commandments of Christ out of love for the One who has loved him so much (John 14:15) and he does so by the power of the Holy Spirit (Gal. 5:16). I find the 1646 Baptist Confession very helpful when it states (Art XXIX),
‘All believers are a holy and sanctified people, and that sanctification is a spiritual grace of the new covenant, and an effect of the love of God manifested in the soul, whereby the believer presseth after a heavenly and evangelical obedience to all the commands, which Christ as head and king in His new covenant hath prescribed to them.’ Those who try to be justified by keeping the law in their own strength find it impossible and cry out,
“Who then can be saved?” (Mark 10:26), but they who have been justified by faith find that
‘His commandments are not burdensome’ (1John 5:3) for there is really only one command for the Christian, the commandment of love (Rom. 13:8-10) and we love because He first loved us.
Perhaps someone might ask what purpose there is for the law if believers are no longer subject to it. Paul gives us two answers in Galatians 3; firstly,
‘it was added because of transgressions’(v19). Any law is introduced to restrict wrongdoing by the threat of punishment, but of course it is never completely effective because people’s sinful nature inevitably leads them into law-breaking. The Israelites could not keep the laws of Moses and were regularly punished by God, for the nature of the law is to demand obedience and to punish disobedience. Nevertheless, the law regulated Israel’s behaviour to some degree until the coming of Christ. The law also has another purpose;
‘The law was our tutor to bring us to Christ’ (v24). No one ever becomes a Christian until he has seen himself as a sinner. By revealing to us in the law His righteousness and our own sinfulness, God uses the law to drive us to Christ for salvation. Paul writes,
‘I would not have known sin except through the law. For I would not have known covetousness unless the law had said, “You shall not covet”’ (Rom 7:7).
So if we are Christians, does the law still have anything to say to us? Can we now forget all about it since we are under grace? Has our old tutor, having served his purpose, been pensioned off for good? Surely not! If that were the case then we would have to cut Psalm 119 from the Bible, since we could no longer say with the Psalmist,
‘Oh, how I love your law! It is my meditation all the day’ (v97). Those of us who had really good tutors or schoolmasters when we were young have not forgotten their wise instruction just because they are no longer in authority over us. For instance, we are no longer under the obligation to tithe as the Israelites were (eg. Deut. 14:22ff; 1Cor 9:7), but if we want to know how much we should be looking to give to the Lord’s work then where else should we look but to the Old Testament where God’s heart is so clearly revealed? But of course, we are free as Christians to give even more than a tithe if the Lord has prospered us (1Cor. 16:2). In every part of our Christian lives, we will find in God’s law wise teaching and wholesome advice. If we feel that we can do without it, then we had better be quite sure that we are Christians at all.
So what about the Ten Commandments, written by the very finger of God on Mount Horeb (Deut 5:22)? Do these still apply to the born-again believer? These commandments were written on the hearts of Adam and Eve in the garden*, and are still on the hearts of all men, though defaced and obscured by the Fall (Rom 2:14-15). These Commandments, written on stone tablets for Israel under the Old Covenant, are written anew on the hearts of all believers in the New (2Cor 3:3; Heb 10:16). So we can say with the Psalmist,
‘I delight to do Your will, O my God, and Your law is within my heart’ (Psalm 40:8)**. What law is within our hearts? The one previously written upon stone tablets; the Ten Commandments. Those who try to make out that the fourth Commandment has somehow become detached along the way are mistaken. To be sure there are difficulties with the application of the Sabbath to today’s society, and I do not intend to address them here, but if the reader will carefully consider the texts quoted above, he will see that the law written on our hearts is the same as that which was formerly written on stone.
And the stones contained ten commandments, not nine.
* A moment’s thought will confirm this. Suppose Adam had strangled Eve, or had erected an altar to the Sun in the garden of Eden. Would God have said, “That’s alright, Adam! Just so long as you don’t eat that apple!” The very idea is ridiculous.
** The Christian is in the position of the freed slave in Exodus 21:5-6. He has been freed from his old master, sin, but loves his new Master, Christ and does not wish to be freed from Him. So our ear is pierced (cf. Psalm 40:6, NIV) showing that although he has been made free, he still serves the master he loves (Rom 6:15-18).
You can read the whole article here
New Birth (8). The Results of the New Birth. as well as getting access to my other articles if you wish. But I hope you get the message: just because believers are no longer under the law as something that condemns them, that doesn't mean that they are free to sin as much as they like. God forbid! We are not saved by the things we do, but if anyone claims to have trusted in Christ, but there is no change whatsoever in his life, he is deceiving himself. He is saying that,
‘That which is born of the Spirit’ can still be flesh.