Lesson 92: Perfected in Christ Though We Struggle with Sin – Romans 6-8
Sin is defiance of the world moral order of right and wrong established by God. Even before the Commandments were given people knew that actions such as murder, theft, adultery and a host of others, are wrong. Everyone has a basic sense of right and wrong; as written in the Scriptures, God tells us “I have written my law on their hearts so they may not sin against me”. And even though God formalized His law by giving man His Commandments, these provided no enablement to resist sin. God’s law (the Commandments), points out sin and even stimulates it, because humans by nature want to do whatever is forbidden.
Given the fallen nature of man, it is impossible for us not to sin, and the penalty for sin is death, eternal separation from God. Each of us carries a debt of sin that we cannot atone for ourselves. Any punishment God could inflict on each of us as individuals wouldn’t make us right with Him. We would only be getting what we deserve and the punishment would need to be eternal because we’ve offended an infinitely perfect and eternal God. Moreover, an eternal punishment would never purify us because our sinful nature would never change.
To satisfy God’s requirement for justice, sin must be punished. And so He allowed His Son, himself God, to live on earth as a human, like us in every way, but who never sinned in any way. Because Jesus has no personal sin debt to atone for, He is able to take the punishment due us; and because He also, with the Father, is eternal and perfect, His punishment on our behalf is able to atone for our sin debt.
The Scriptures tell us that when we receive Christ as Savior we are “buried with Him in baptism” and that we are “baptized into His death”. Here an exchange takes place whereby our sinfulness is commuted to Jesus and His righteousness is commuted to us. His sacrifice for us is sufficient to atone for our past, present and future sins; we are considered righteous in God’s sight. And Jesus’ resurrection from death is proof that the sin debt He bore for all of us has been satisfied. So now we are considered perfect in God’s sight, it is a free gift and there is nothing we can do to earn our salvation; but we are obligated to work toward becoming evermore like Jesus until our years here are ended. In identifying closely with Jesus’ death, we need to “put off the old self, which is constantly corrupting us with sinful desires, and by a change in the attitude of our minds put on the new self, growing daily in the image of Jesus.”
But it is impossible for us to live up to this expectation on our own; we’ll always struggle with our desire to sin. However, our faith in Jesus as our Savior not only makes us righteous before God, but the Scriptures tell us that “the spirit of God lives in” every believer. And so even though each of us will always have a sin nature until we die, this sin nature no longer controls us; this is the difference between one who doesn’t have the Holy Spirit and one who does. The one without the Holy Spirit is fully controlled by his sin nature. But the Holy Spirit is infinitely stronger than the sin nature. Through the Christian’s relationship with Christ he is led and controlled by the spirit and does not allow the sin nature to hold sway. When he sins, he is quick to repent and try to control himself in the future. Scriptures tell us “if we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness”. And so though we will continue to sin, we won’t be living in sin. The Christian with the Holy Spirit living in him is convicted of wrong doing by the Spirit and lives to please God for all He’s done for us.