Sin and the Believer

Romans 8:1
"There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus".

My last few posts have been written on the topic of sin. During these posts I have answered a few questions that have been asked about sin and in greater detail sin and the believer. One of the questions that I was asked was about the believers sin and God dealing with their sin in a different way. Today I want to expand upon the answer to that question in an entire post.

We are all sinners. As I said a few posts ago, all humans are born into a sinful world, with a sin nature, that desires to sin and self-gratify, ala bent in on one's self. When we surrender ourselves to God and call Him, Lord, we still have this sin nature, or as Paul calls it the flesh, but we also now, as believers, have the Holy Spirit inside us (God Himself) and have the ability to now do good, please God, and kill sin in the body. But the tough reality is, even as believers we still sin and as Paul says it, "we still do what we do not want to do" (Romans 7;15). So the question is, yes we now have Jesus as Lord of our life, but we still sin and in fact sin a lot, so what happens when we sin. There are 2 things we must consider when we ask this question.

First, when a believer in Jesus, someone who is in union with Christ, sins, their legal standing before God goes unchanged. I spoke much on this in my post last Thursday. This simply means, as the verse above states, once we are in union with Christ, the judgement or condemnation for that sin is already paid for by Jesus Himself on the Cross. Or so say it in more theological terms, once we are justified (declared righteous) becasue our sin payment was paid for, we can never be unjustified again. The Bible is very clear that once a person is justified they will always be justified (i.e. Romans 8:30). The Bible also teaches very clearly that once we are a child of God, we can never lose our status as a child of God. Once we are adopted into the family of God, becasue we are unified with Jesus, we can never lose that status or adoption. So the first thing to be clarified is that when a believer sins, this does not change their eternal fate, remove their salvation, or place them once more under God's wrath. Once saved, always saved. Once justified, always justified. Once adopted, always adopted. And this means that we, as a believer, will never again face the wrath or judgement of God.

Second, this truth about no longer facing the judgement of God, does not mean that sin in the life of a believer has no impact. When a believer sins, the fellowship with God is disrupted and the life of the believer is damaged. Ephesians 4:30 talks about grieving the Spirit of God in us. Hebrews 12 is a notice from God, that He disciplines those whom He loves and calls children. So sin in the life of a believer has serious consequences. We are told numerous places, very explicitly in 1 Peter 2:11, to wage war against sin in our bodies. So even though the sin a believer commits will not place them under the condemnation of God, they still must take sin serious becasue it damages the glory of God and damages the life of the believer. This is why repentance is so vital and the first fruit of a Christian. A believer not only repents of their previous life at the moment of their conversion, but they then must repent daily and even hourly as they see and recognize sin in their body. Repentance then brings us back into fellowship with God and heals the damage done in life. So when a believer sins, they must repent, if they are truly a believer to begin with. Repentance shows faith and once more gives God the glory He demands and deserves and brings the sin disruption of fellowship, back into right fellowship again.

That is what sin in the life of a believer is like; not condemnation, but a life of repentance and a continuous pursuit and war to stay in a right fellowship with God.