John 8:3–11The scribes and the Pharisees brought a woman caught in adultery, and having set her in the center of the court, they said to Him, “Teacher, this woman has been caught in adultery, in the very act. “Now in the Law Moses commanded us to stone such women; what then do You say?” They were saying this, testing Him, so that they might have grounds for accusing Him. But Jesus stooped down and with His finger wrote on the ground. But when they persisted in asking Him, He straightened up, and said to them, “He who is without sin among you, let him be the first to throw a stone at her.” Again He stooped down and wrote on the ground. When they heard it, they began to go out one by one, beginning with the older ones, and He was left alone, and the woman, where she was, in the center of the court. Straightening up, Jesus said to her, “Woman, where are they? Did no one condemn you?” She said, “No one, Lord.” And Jesus said, “I do not condemn you, either. Go. From now on sin no more.”
Through the sacrifice of the blood of Jesus Christ, we have been declared “Not guilty”; we have been freed from the guilt of our sin.
No human being (with the exception of Jesus Christ) will ever be able to stand before God on the merits of his or her own righteousness, for none possess righteousness on his or her own. If that were the case, then there would have been no need for Christ’s atonement.
Isaiah 64:6For all of us have become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous deeds are like a filthy garment; and all of us wither like a leaf, and our iniquities, like the wind, take us away.
Born-again Christians sin between the time they are saved and the time they die but upon death, they do not and can not enter the presence of God spotted and mired with that sin. God does not somehow look the other way or ignore that sin. One must be sinless to enter the presence of God and the one and only way to that purity is through the imputation of Christ’s pure righteousness.
Born-again Christians, true believers, no longer posses a sin nature. Ezekiel prophesied that God would replace our heart (the center of a person’s nature. Jeremiah 17:9 “The heart is more deceitful than all else and is desperately sick; who can understand it?”) of stone with a heart of flesh.
Ezekiel 36:26–27Moreover, I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; and I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes, and you will be careful to observe My ordinances.
God’s Word is very clear that the old sin nature died on the cross with Christ and that a new creature now lives in Christ.
Galatians 2:20I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself up for me.
2 Corinthians 5:17Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature; the old things passed away; behold, new things have come.
1 Peter 2:9–10But you are a chosen race, A royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for God’s own possession, so that you may proclaim the excellencies of Him who has called you out of darkness into His marvelous light; for you once were not a people, but now you are the people of God; you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.
Romans 8:9–17However, you are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you. But if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Him. If Christ is in you, though the body is dead because of sin, yet the spirit is alive because of righteousness. But if the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit who dwells in you. So then, brethren, we are under obligation, not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh—for if you are living according to the flesh, you must die; but if by the Spirit you are putting to death the deeds of the body, you will live. For all who are being led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God. For you have not received a spirit of slavery leading to fear again, but you have received a spirit of adoption as sons by which we cry out, “Abba! Father!” The Spirit Himself testifies with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, heirs also, heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with Him so that we may also be glorified with Him.
Sin, however, still exists in the world and it is a very powerful temptation. Sin is desirable, at times very desirable, if it wasn’t, it wouldn’t be a temptation. My kids are never tempted to sneak a brussels sprout or piece of red bell pepper from the refrigerator, but if there is an open cookie jar on the counter, well that’s a different story!
Prior to the cross, we were enslaved to sin. Sin was our master and we obeyed our master. Christ’s victory on the cross defeated Satan and stripped him of his power to hold us captive and to enslave us to sin.
Prior to the Emancipation Proclamation, certain individuals and groups of individuals were regarded as property in this country. They were enslaved to their masters and were forced to obey their masters. The law of the land protected the rights of the masters to do whatever they wanted to with their slaves, and forced the slaves to obey. The Emancipation Proclamation set these slaves free. They were freed from the power of their former masters. The masters, however, did not let go so easily. They tried to hold on to their power over their former slaves. Many former slaves knew no other way of life; they were not taught and indoctrinated into the new life that the Emancipation Proclamation provided. Therefore, even though these former slaves were no longer legally bound to their masters, they were still enslaved by ignorance and helplessness, and ended up continuing in their life of slavery by their own choice. The Emancipation Proclamation removed the legal power that masters had over slaves, but it did not remove the masters themselves or their desire to captivate their former slaves, nor did it empower the former slaves to resist their former masters.
Like the Emancipation Proclamation, Christ freed us from our former master. We are now free! Satan, sin, and the temptation to sin, however, all still exist. Unlike the Emancipation Proclamation, God has provided each believer power, through the Holy Spirit, to resist and turn away from our former master. We are not ignorant and helpless when faced with sin. We have an advocate who is greater and stronger than our former master.
Through Christ’s blood, our sins are forgiven, but forgiveness is not the full extent of the power of the cross. God does not merely forgive us and then leave us spiritually unchanged. If that were the case, we would continue living in and repeating the same sins we did according to our old nature. We are changed; we are new creatures. This new creature possesses the ability to choose not to sin. The old creature (our sin nature) died with Christ on the cross and no longer controls us. The power of what Christ accomplished on the cross has a transforming influence on our lives that begins with forgiveness and then carries us further into the death that Christ died. We experience His death ourselves. He died for our sins and we die with Him to sin. Do we sin? Yes, of course. We have the inertia of our old life that tempts us to return. We have the enemy who is constantly tempting us to follow him. But we are not enslaved to sin, as the “old man” was. When we die to sin, our old relationship to sin is broken. We experience sin differently from before our salvation.
Before we were born again, we sinned by nature. After the new birth, when we sin we sin against our nature. There is not an old man and a new man living within each believer. I was the old man. Now I am the new man. The new man is not perfect, but he is actually new.
We are now free from the guilt of sin, but also free from the power of sin. Because of the blood of Jesus Christ; because of what He accomplished on the cross, God, through His Holy Spirit, gives us the power to resist and turn away from sin. When Christ died on the cross for our sins, He became the conduit through which the Holy Spirit liberates us from the power of sin. When we are saved we become sharers in God’s own nature. We do not in any sense become God or gods, but we share in His holiness and righteousness. We are changed at a core level; our very nature is change so that we are able to share real fellowship with God who is holy.
2 Peter 1:4For by these He has granted to us His precious and magnificent promises, so that by them you may become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world by lust.
If we walk with Christ, we (hopefully) are sinning less and less as we mature and grow in Him. We will never achieve perfection on our own, but when we are saved, we are empowered by the Holy Spirit through the atoning blood of our Savior to strive for it and to perform the good works for which God has predestined us. God has freed us from the bondage of sin; we are no longer bound to sin; the Holy Spirit who dwells within us empowers us to turn away from sinful acts.
We will never be able to enter into the presence of our Holy God on our own merits, but only through the atoning blood of our Savior. We will never be able to serve God apart from the Holy Spirit enabling us, which was accomplished on the cross.
If you are a believer, then taste of the forgiveness of your sins and feel the freedom from the power of sin.
If you are not a believer; if you do not know Jesus Christ as your savior, then acknowledge your sinfulness and recognize Jesus Christ as the only deliverer from your bondage and slavery to sin. Moreover, in the words of our Lord, “Go and sin no more!”
—David S. Spaggiari
