After your born again do you think you will never sin again?

[SirJamsalot]

I see a great deal of equivocation over the word sin in this thread. Sin is “any want of conformity unto, or transgression of, the law of God.” It includes both doing what God forbids and failing to do what God commands.


We must also distinguish Adam’s guilt from the corruption inherited through the fall. Adam, as our federal head, represented humanity in his transgression (Romans 5:12-19). Those who are united to Christ no longer bear Adam’s guilt or condemnation, but the effects of the fall remain within us. We still do what we do not want to do, and fail to do what we ought.


Sanctification is the continuing work of the Holy Spirit by which the Christian is increasingly freed from the power of sin and enabled to obey God. A Christian can resist and overcome particular sins, but no Christian attains sinless perfection in this life. The remaining corruption of our nature is finally removed when we are glorified and raised with Christ.


So, can a Christian stop committing a particular sin? Yes. Can a Christian become entirely free from all sin in this life, including sinful desires, actions, and failures to fulfill God’s law perfectly? No.

I would add one further distinction concerning why Christians continue to commit sin after being born again.

Romans 5 gives us the larger framework. Adam acted as the federal head of humanity. Through his disobedience, guilt was imputed to those whom he represented, and a corrupted nature was conveyed to his descendants. We do not become sinners only after committing our first deliberate act of sin. We commit sins because we are already fallen in Adam, possessing minds, desires, and wills corrupted by the fall.

Christ came as the second Adam to reverse what Adam brought upon us. Through Christ’s obedience, believers are justified and counted righteous. Through the work of the Holy Spirit, our corrupted nature is progressively renewed. Justification removes our guilt and condemnation immediately. Sanctification increasingly delivers us from the remaining corruption of sin. Glorification finally removes that corruption altogether.

This is why Scripture distinguishes between sin reigning and sin remaining. Paul says that sin shall no longer have dominion over the Christian (Romans 6:14). He does not say that sin has ceased to exist within the Christian.

Galatians 5:16-17 makes this especially clear:

“Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfil the lust of the flesh. For the flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh: and these are contrary the one to the other.”

Paul is writing to churches, to people who have received the Holy Spirit. Yet he tells these Spirit-indwelt believers that the flesh continues to oppose the Spirit. The presence of conflict does not prove the absence of regeneration. The conflict exists precisely because the Holy Spirit has created new desires that oppose the remaining corruption of the flesh.

The New Testament repeatedly speaks this way to believers:

“If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves.”
1 John 1:8

John includes himself and writes to those he calls his “little children.” He then says:

“If any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous.”
1 John 2:1

James likewise writes:

“For in many things we offend all.”
James 3:2

Peter addresses Christians as “dearly beloved” and warns them to abstain from fleshly lusts “which war against the soul” (1 Peter 2:11). Paul tells believers to put to death the deeds of the body by the Spirit (Romans 8:13). Christ even teaches His disciples to pray continually, “Forgive us our debts.”

These statements were written to believers because repentance, confession, mortification, and dependence upon Christ continue throughout the Christian life.

The born-again Christian therefore has a changed relationship to sin. He can no longer live comfortably beneath its dominion. He hates it, fights it, confesses it, and increasingly overcomes it through the Spirit. Yet the necessity of fighting demonstrates that an enemy remains.

The gospel gives us neither permission to make peace with sin nor reason to claim that its presence has already been eradicated. In Adam we received guilt and corruption. In Christ our guilt is removed, our corruption is progressively healed, and at the resurrection we will finally be made perfectly holy.

Until then, the Christian life is one of genuine victory through genuine warfare.

In His Grip
S.J.

 

[amigo de christo]

I remember when I was married to my abusive husband (only time in my life I've been punched in the face!) and I would be in town and see a handsome, and seemingly kind man, I would shake my head real fast, rattling by brains to kill approaching thoughts in their tracks. And willfully think about something else. That worked for me. This was during a latter time in my life where suffering caused a new level of obedience. He finally divorced me for the wife of his best friend, but he is still the last man I kissed as he divorced me "without cause." Matthew 19. I moved from Arizona to Tennessee. They married in 2002, but I still wear my wedding band. But now I'm married to Jesus. Isa. 54:5

you ever wonder WHY i remained single for well over twenty years now .
Cause for me to remarry IS ADULTERY . try telling that to this generation of chrisrtnedom .
THEY remarry and remarry and mock and judge those who actually FOLLOW JESUS .

 

[amigo de christo]

I remember when I was married to my abusive husband (only time in my life I've been punched in the face!) and I would be in town and see a handsome, and seemingly kind man, I would shake my head real fast, rattling by brains to kill approaching thoughts in their tracks. And willfully think about something else. That worked for me. This was during a latter time in my life where suffering caused a new level of obedience. He finally divorced me for the wife of his best friend, but he is still the last man I kissed as he divorced me "without cause." Matthew 19. I moved from Arizona to Tennessee. They married in 2002, but I still wear my wedding band. But now I'm married to Jesus. Isa. 54:5

that be the very example i am talking about . WHEN the evil thought popped into your head
THE SPIRIT was right there to cease them thoughts . BINGO .
Now as for me i put away my wife and oh yeah i had commited adultery against her .
IT was before i truly knew JESUS . But when , by grace i came to CHRIST ,
i learned real fast for me to remarry IS and would be ADULTERY . SO single i remain . AND I got THE JOY OF THE LORD .
FOR HAPPY IS THE ONE who keeps my sayings .

 

[1stCenturyLady]

And now instead of asking God for forgiveness she thinks that her intentional multiple lies were not sins when she could of avoided it by simply refusing to answer a question and not resort to lies.

I didn't think her delusion could be worse but it is even greater than I thought it was.

God please forgive this person's sins, arrogance, stubbornness and pride.

What would you say during the second world war and you lived in Germany and were hiding Jews. If an SS officer came to your door and asked you if you were hiding Jews, would you lie and say NO! Would you say, yes, come right in and take them. Or how about the advice I've been given and say to the officer, it is none of your business and I don't wish to answer? Would the officer leave you alone?

I weighed the outcome and my privacy. It was not giving an evil person the truth to use against me. Still, I was so used to telling the truth that it hurt me deeply to be forced lie. That is part of being born again. You hate lying so don't. Then someone comes along that is so evil, and you are forced to keep your privacy and not give them lethal ammunition.

 

[marks]

Adam acted as the federal head of humanity. Through his disobedience, guilt was imputed to those whom he represented, and a corrupted nature was conveyed to his descendants.

I'd like to suggest to you that Adam was more than representing humanity, that when God created Adam, He created all who would ever live in Adam. That God created Humanity as a single thing.

We tend to think of humanity as being a collection of individuals who self-replicate, producing more individuals.

The Bible tells us, for instance, that Levi paid tithes to Melchesidek "being in the loins of Abraham". Not that Levi would be someone born in some future time, but that Levi was already in Abraham, and humanity is not a collection of individuals, but a single thing, unfolding over the centuries.

The Revelation speaks of those whose name remain written in the book of life from the foundation of the world. Rather than adding a name to the book of life when someone is born, and rather than adding someone's name to the book of life when they are saved, God wrote all the names of those created in Adam, all who would live at "the foundation of the world".

"In Adam all die." Humanity died that day.

"The soul that sins, that one I will blot from My book". Their names do not remain.

Just some food for thought.

Much love!

 

[Armour of God]

What would you say during the second world war and you lived in Germany and were hiding Jews. If an SS officer came to your door and asked you if you were hiding Jews, would you lie and say NO! Would you say, yes, come right in and take them. Or how about the advice I've been given and say to the officer, it is none of your business and I don't wish to answer? Would the officer leave you alone?

I weighed the outcome and my privacy. It was not giving an evil person the truth to use against me. Still, I was so used to telling the truth that it hurt me deeply to be forced lie. That is part of being born again. You hate lying so don't. Then someone comes along that is so evil, and you are forced to keep your privacy and not give them lethal ammunition.

Sister, I pray for you