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The Daily Word of Righteousness
Are Christians Free to Sin?
I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. (Galatians 2:20—NIV)
In the Book of Galatians Paul emphasizes that we are saved by faith and not by the works of the Law of Moses. Evidently teachers of the Law had followed Paul to Galatia and were advising the Gentile believers that in order to be saved they had to be circumcised and observe the Law.
We who are Jews by birth and not "Gentile sinners" know that a man is not justified by observing the law, but by faith in Jesus Christ. So we, too, have put our faith in Christ Jesus that we may be justified by faith in Christ and not by observing the law, because by observing the law no one will be justified. (Galatians 2:15,16—NIV)
The teachers of the Law then accused Paul of living unrighteously. He was not observing the Law of Moses. Also, it was obvious that he was not perfect in character.
If, while we seek to be justified in Christ, it becomes evident that we ourselves are sinners, does that mean that Christ promotes sin? Absolutely not! (Galatians 2:17—NIV)
Since we of today do not understand Paul's explanation of the transition from the Law of Moses to the grace of Christ, we suppose that the grace of Christ permits us to continue to sin and still be righteous. This trap caused the Apostle Peter to exclaim that the complexity of Paul's teaching tempts unstable people to distort Paul's doctrine to their own destruction. This very distortion and destruction is present in the contemporary Christian view of salvation.
How does Paul explain that while seeking to be justified in Christ he still is not perfectly righteous in behavior, and yet it is not true that Christ promotes sin?
I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. (Galatians 2:20—NIV)
When it is true of us that we have been crucified with Christ and Christ is living in us, then we always are without condemnation in the sight of God. The Holy Spirit then leads us each day to victory over particular areas of sin in our life, the righteousness of the blood of the Lamb in the meanwhile compensating for those aspects of our personality not as yet brought under subjection to Christ.
Such daily victory and daily justification is a far cry from a smug, careless assurance that we are not under the Law but under grace.
The believers of today, to a great extent, are spiritual "singles." They are married neither to Moses nor to Christ. They have not been crucified with Christ and it is not true that Christ is living in them. They are not moving from victory to victory over sin because they have been taught they are going to Heaven by "grace."
We have made Jesus Christ the promoter of sin!
Will the blindness, the doctrinal chaos, that currently is true of Christian thinking ever be repaired? Maybe it will if enough of us humble ourselves, pray, seek God's face, and turn from our wicked ways.