Saints and Sinners

Saints and Sinners

Sin remains in the world, and believers still sin, a fact to which I can attest through personal experience. What I DO is not always reflective of who I AM, however. I am not a sinner, and if the Spirit of Christ is in you, neither are you. When I say that you are not a sinner, I am talking about who you ARE, not about what you do.

Here’s an example from real life. You are your mother’s child. If you lived your entire life calling another woman Mom, if you celebrated her birthdays, even if you grew up with her in her house and she was the one who disciplined and raised you, your mother would still be the woman who gave birth to you. You can no more cease being her child than you can cease being human.

When you believed God and He made you a new creation, you were born again as a child of God by His Holy Spirit. You became His child by birth. This was not a physical rebirth. In John 3:6 Jesus said, “That which has been born of the flesh is flesh, and that which has been born of the Spirit is spirit.” (NASB 2020) This was a rebirth of your spirit, the core of your being, the essence of who you are.

By this operation, God made you righteous. He made you so righteous that He is able to live in you by His Spirit and you are able to live in Him without ceasing to exist. He made you the very righteousness of Himself in Christ. (see 2 Corinthians 5:21) That is who you are. Righteous, holy and blameless. (see Ephesians 1:4, Colossians 1:22, 1 Thessalonians 3:13)

You could spend your entire life committing sins (as in fact you do) yet never cease to be righteous, holy, and blameless. If you could cease being that way, God could no longer live in you, and you could no longer live in Christ. What is imperfect is incompatible with God. Nothing imperfect can exist in God or He would cease to be perfect and thus cease to be God.

Yet still, you sin and so do I. We are in the Spirit, but we sometimes choose to live as though we were still in the flesh. That’s because our minds are in need of constant renewal. We need that because our minds are bombarded with sensations from the world, with messages telling us that we want things that gratify our senses, though we no longer truly desire them. We also have to deal with lies and deceptions from the enemy of our souls.

This worldly mindset and way of dealing with life is called the flesh. It’s the earthy way of living to which we were accustomed before Christ, and which is pressed upon us from every direction as long as we continue in our role as ambassadors in the valley of the shadow of death.

To show that the New Testament refers to a believer as a sinner, many cite a passage in 1 Timothy where Paul refers to himself as the chief of sinners. Here is the passage, 1 Timothy 1:12–16 “I thank Christ Jesus our Lord, who has strengthened me, because He considered me faithful, putting me into service, even though I was previously a blasphemer and a persecutor and a violent aggressor. Yet I was shown mercy because I acted ignorantly in unbelief; and the grace of our Lord was more than abundant, with the faith and love which are found in Christ Jesus. It is a trustworthy statement, deserving full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, among whom I am foremost. Yet for this reason I found mercy, so that in me as the foremost sinner Jesus Christ might demonstrate His perfect patience as an example for those who would believe in Him for eternal life.” (NASB 2020)

It's easy to see that Paul was referring to himself before conversion. He says that he was previously a blasphemer and persecutor. In the past he had gone around blaspheming God, persecuting the Church, and approving people like those who stoned the Apostle Stephen to death. He had been a violent man who sought to hurt and damage the very thing God loved—the body of Christ. So, while in Philippians 3:6 he said that he was blameless according to the Law, here he calls himself the chief of sinners.

Some also refer to Romans 7 where Paul discusses a struggle in which he finds himself doing sinful things he does not want to do.

Romans 7 is a bit more complicated because there is strong support for two positions here. My personal opinion is that neither position is worth bleeding for. Either Paul is speaking of himself after being saved and is talking about the struggle all of us face where we sin even though we don’t want to, or Paul is speaking of himself before he was saved, and this struggle drove Him to seek God. Both positions can be argued effectively, and both have flaws. For this reason, I am not so worried about taking a strong position. I actually think there is spiritual insight to be gained either way.

Here is the text, Romans 7:14–25
14 For we know that the Law is spiritual, but I am fleshly, sold into bondage to sin.
15 For I do not understand what I am doing; for I am not practicing what I want to do, but I do the very thing I hate.
16 However, if I do the very thing I do not want to do, I agree with the Law, that the Law is good.
17 But now, no longer am I the one doing it, but sin that dwells in me.
18 For I know that good does not dwell in me, that is, in my flesh; for the willing is present in me, but the doing of the good is not.
19 For the good that I want, I do not do, but I practice the very evil that I do not want.
20 But if I do the very thing I do not want, I am no longer the one doing it, but sin that dwells in me.
21 I find then the principle that evil is present in me, the one who wants to do good.
22 For I joyfully agree with the law of God in the inner person,
23 but I see a different law in the parts of my body waging war against the law of my mind, and making me a prisoner of the law of sin, the law which is in my body’s parts.
24 Wretched man that I am! Who will set me free from the body of this death?
25 Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, on the one hand I myself with my mind am serving the law of God, but on the other, with my flesh the law of sin. (NASB 2020)

Paul is clear that in his inner self he wants to have godly attitudes and actions, but that the flesh has other ideas. If his heart’s desire is to do godly things, then something has changed because in speaking of those who are not in Christ, Jeremiah 17:9 says, “The heart is more deceitful than all else and is desperately sick; Who can understand it?” (NASB 2020)

Paul declares that there is a different law in the members of his body (GK:sarx) that wars against what he truly wants. This is key. His body parts refer to his senses. This is a reference to the flesh, or earthy mindset that chases after things that gratify our senses.

Saint, we can walk according to the spirit or according to the flesh. We can walk by sight (senses) or by faith. 2 Corinthians 5:7 talks about this. It reads, “for we walk by faith, not by sight” (NASB 2020) Romans 8:1-17 illuminates this topic in some detail.

I’ve included that text below, but verses 4 and 9 are particularly key. Verse 4 reads, “so that the requirement of the Law might be fulfilled in us who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.” (NASB 2020) Here we see that the walking is not “in”, but rather “according to” the flesh or Spirit. Then in verse 9 we read about our actual location—the truth about us rather than what we are acting like. It reads, “However, you are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you.”

Who we are is righteous, holy, and blameless children of our Father (Abba) God. That is true whether we act like it or not. We are saints, not sinners.

Romans 8:1–17
1 Therefore there is now no condemnation at all for those who are in Christ Jesus.
2 For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and of death.
3 For what the Law could not do, weak as it was through the flesh, God did: sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and as an offering for sin, He condemned sin in the flesh,
4 so that the requirement of the Law might be fulfilled in us who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.
5 For those who are in accord with the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who are in accord with the Spirit, the things of the Spirit.
6 For the mind set on the flesh is death, but the mind set on the Spirit is life and peace,
7 because the mind set on the flesh is hostile toward God; for it does not subject itself to the law of God, for it is not even able to do so,
8 and those who are in the flesh cannot please God.
9 However, 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.
10 If Christ is in you, though the body is dead because of sin, yet the spirit is alive because of righteousness.
11 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.
12 So then, brothers and sisters, we are under obligation, not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh—
13for if you are living in accord with the flesh, you are going to die; but if by the Spirit you are putting to death the deeds of the body, you will live.
14 For all who are being led by the Spirit of God, these are sons and daughters of God.
15 For you have not received a spirit of slavery leading to fear again, but you have received a spirit of adoption as sons and daughters by which we cry out, “Abba! Father!”
16 The Spirit Himself testifies with our spirit that we are children of God,
17 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. (NASB 2020)