The Only Answer to Sin
Copyright 2012 by Shea Oakley
All rights reserved
We can only progress in our sanctification if we trust Christ to bring it about. This may seem like a spiritual “no-brainer” but it has become somewhat of a revelation in my life of late. After over twenty years in the faith I finally feel like I am coming to the point of viscerally knowing something which I have been “preaching” for a long time: that Jesus is not only the center of our Salvation but the center of our Sanctification as well.
There is perhaps no greater temptation in the daily walk of faith than to put that faith in ourselves and call it faith in God. We do this without knowing it, or perhaps it would be more accurate to say that we do it without wanting to know it. But regardless of whether spiritual self-reliance is subconscious, conscious, or a little of both it is anathema to any genuine progress in the Christian life. We cannot overcome the flesh with the flesh. It is the essence of futility and the reason that not a few professing Christians become so frustrated and discouraged that they make a shipwreck of their faith, at least as far as real sanctification is concerned.
The fulcrum of failure in working to attain to Christ-likeness in our own strength is found in our patent inability to overcome sin. We try not to sin. We sin anyway. These two statements might seem like a Pauline truth about the believer’s walk but they leave out the Pauline solution to repetitive sin: Jesus Christ Himself. The answer to losing our remaining sin nature, our “old man”, is to reckon it crucified with Christ. Just as the resurrection of Christ made our transformation into “new creatures” possible His death on the cross makes possible the realized death of our sin nature. Part of our baptism is identification with Jesus in His death. Our sin nature died with Him. It has been crucified with Him. The answer to our ongoing sin problem is to reckon ourselves dead to sin because it is part of that within us which died before we were raised, with the Son of God, to new and enduring life.
The only responsibility we have as Christians is to viscerally accept the fact that our old transgressing nature has been truly crucified with Christ. It is in coming to stand on this truth that we will finally find the power not to sin. Yes, we must will ourselves to believe it, but the power itself is a function of the presence of the crucified and risen Savior dwelling in our hearts. As we progressively reckon our remaining “old man” as dead through the realization of our crucifixion with Jesus we will begin to know true victory over sin.
As with so many core truths pertaining to the Christian walk this one will not be completely owned by us in some kind of “flash-epiphany“ that renders us completely unable to sin. Our whole earthly life will likely be spent living more and more in the realized death of our flesh-nature. It seems no one can be as utterly sinless in deed as Jesus was in this life. That said we can come to know a growing personal holiness that will include a radically reduced tendency towards moral failure. This is part of the “re-birthright” of the Children of God, even in the here and now.
I hope all you who read these words will be encouraged by the same revelation that is beginning to possess my heart. We need not fight a futile war against sin in our own strength and know only defeat after defeat. It is in Christ and Christ alone that our sanctification has been obtained for us. We need only to progressively believe and surrender to this truth.
The Spirit of Christ within us will do the rest.