We need to decide if Christ's cross, and our own for that matter, saves us in sin, or from sin. Either His victory is ours, or it isn't. Either we can continue to sin, or we can 't. Either we are to live holy lives, or we aren't. Either the devil is more powerful than God, or he isn't.
Of course when Jesus asked the adulteress to "go and sin no more" , He really meant 'please try a little harder next time sweetheart'.
Paul tells us “for sin shall not have dominion over you,” for ye are not under law, but under grace” Romans 6:14. Dominion is akin to a ruling power, and in sin’s case, a tyrant. So we have a promise to hold on to. Elsewhere he says “let not sin reign in your mortal body, that ye should obey it in the lusts thereof ” Romans 6:12…reign in this case is literally kingly rule. So, where once we were under the tyrannical rule of sin, the inference is that once we are crucified in Christ, buried and raised with Him in baptism, the roles are reversed. We now have dominion and rule over sin. Whether to sin or not has become a matter of choice, a matter of our will. It is through our connection with divine power …..
2 Peter 1:2 Grace and peace be multiplied unto you through the knowledge of God, and of Jesus our Lord,
3 According as his divine power hath given unto us all things that pertain unto life and godliness, through the knowledge of him that hath called us to glory and virtue:
4 Whereby are given unto us exceeding great and precious promises: that by these ye might be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust.
5 ¶ And beside this, giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue; and to virtue knowledge;
6 And to knowledge temperance; and to temperance patience; and to patience godliness;
7 And to godliness brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness charity.
8 For if these things be in you, and abound, they make you that ye shall neither be barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.
….that we have this new ability to overcome, and when we do, we are no longer “under the law”. We have a choice of masters. We can serve sin, which leads to death, or we can serve righteousness, which leads to eternal life. Obedience is the key to both. Who do we surrender to as servants to obey? And what is it that we obey? It is true doctrine, correct teaching.
“I speak after the manner of men because of the infirmity of your flesh: for as ye have yielded your members servants to uncleaness and to iniquity unto iniquity, even so now yield your members servants to righteousness unto holiness.”
What fruit had ye in those things of which ye are now ashamed? For the end of those things is death. But now being made free from sin, and become servants to God, ye have your fruit unto holiness, and the end, everlasting life.” Romans 6:19-21
