“How can I be free from sin?” is the question
that in one form or another is troubling the
heart of many a true child of God. But
before we ask “How?” the other query rises, “Can I
be free from sin?” and if not completely in this life,
“How far may I be free?”
As is to be expected, the teaching of the Word of
God on the sin question is simple, direct and unequivocal.
But there are a number of misconceptions
that have served to confuse the minds of many earnest
seekers after the truth.
One of the best tests of the truth of our view of sin
is the results in experience. It is, however, a blessed
fact that one may have an experience that is infinitely
better than the theory he holds regarding sin.
That sinning is inevitable for the Christian,—
That sinning is an accident, not the choice of a free
moral agent,—
That sinning is an incident, not a preventable
tragedy,—
That Christians may reach in this life a state in
which they cannot sin, or where they are not subject
to temptation,—
These are some of the contradictions of God’s revealed
truth which result in keeping Christians from
having complete liberty in Christ and freedom from
sinning.
Back of the question, how far may we be free from
sin is the further problem, “What is sin?” and it is in
answering this question that we may fall into a fundamental
misconception which leaves us confused when
reading the plain statements of Scripture. Many a
supposed difference among Christians regarding freedom
from sinning rests back in a difference in their
definition of “sinning.” But this is far more serious
than a mere difference in the definition of a word,
which might be passed over as unimportant. For, as
we shall see, if our use of the word “sinning” differs
from that which God means by sin, there is sure to
result a confusion which will affect our experience in
the matter of deliverance from sin.
There is substantial agreement that Christians should
be, and may be, free from dishonesty, lying, stealing,
jealousy, strife, bitterness, evil speaking, fornication,
covetousness, and a thousand other sins that might
be named. Also it is agreed that it is not for Christians
to grow out of such sins, nor to get rid of them gradually,
but to put them off as wholly inconsistent with
the Christian walk. How complete is the list of such
sins that a Christian may be free from just now? Or
to put the question in another form, how much sin
is it necessary for a Christian to have?
“But,” some one asks, “is not everything that falls
short of God’s absolute standard of perfection sin?”
Our purpose in this study is intensely practical, and so
it is not the intention to enter into a full discussion
of theological terms. It may be suggested in passing
that many who use such an expression as “God’s absolute
standard of perfection,” would find great difficulty
in explaining just what they mean. But we may here
get at the problem as it presents itself in experience.
All are agreed that there is no possibility of perfection
of attainment in this body, meaning by such
perfection an absence of all error or mistake in everything
that is done. We may go further and say that by
this standard of “perfection” every act falls short, and
every moment of life is compassed with infirmity. If
this kind of “falling short” is sin, then there can be
full agreement that there is no such thing as freedom
from sinning in this body. (It would not be entirely
accurate to say, “if this imperfection is sin,” for “perfection,”
like all words—and everything else human—is
imperfect and relative and takes its meaning from
the thought in the mind of the user.)
Is such falling short sinning? Or to reduce the
question to practical everyday experience, “Is every act
of the Christian sinful, as well as every word and
thought?”
Three Bible teachers met together on one occasion
to discuss the sin question; before they began their
conference one of them suggested that they have
prayer, and he led in petition for their guidance and
blessing. This brother, a theological professor and a
Christian noted for his holy living, contended that
everything a Christian did was of necessity tainted
with sin because it fell short of “perfection.”
“Doctor,” one of the others asked, “is there not a
difference between the sin we committed when we
prayed together at the beginning of our conference
and the sin I should commit if I were critical or bitter
against you?”
“Yes, there is a difference,” he replied (answering
according to Scripture and his common sense), “but”
(answering according to his theory) “it is a very
dangerous thing to make distinctions between sins.”
It is a disastrous thing not to make distinction between
these two things. With one stroke we would blot
out the difference between light and darkness if we
class together the act of a Christian who with a heart
full of love pours out his petition in imperfect words
for some needy one, and the act of a man who with
his heart full of hate runs a dagger through the heart
of that same needy one. There is the same infinity of
difference between this “imperfect” prayer and the
critical or unloving attitude that the praying Christian
might later fall into.
Turning from men’s reasonings regarding sin to the
Word of God, we find these plain statements:
“My little children, these things write I unto you,
that ye may not sin” (1 John 2:1).
Something had been written, then, which revealed
the secret of keeping from sin as a present, practical
experience for the child of God.
“What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin,
that grace may abound?” (Rom. 6:1.)
“What then? shall we sin, because we are not under
law, but under grace?” (Rom. 6:15.)
God’s answer to both these questions, which is just
one question put in two ways, is the same: a strong,
emphatic negative—“God forbid.”
There can be little question in the minds of any that
what John means by sinning in this first letter of his,
and what Paul means by sinning in Romans six, is
something that a Christian should not and need not do.
He may be kept from sinning, in this meaning of the
word.
It may well be asked, what other meaning of the
word is there? If we start out with the conception
of sinning that makes every act of a Christian to be
tainted with sin, do not the Scriptures become a real
puzzle in their positive statements about keeping from
sin? This supposed difficulty has given rise to an
attempted distinction between “conscious” and “unconscious”
sinning. Those who use these terms do
not always have the same distinction in mind, but
some refer to this falling short of “perfection” as
“unconscious sinning,” adding that such sin needs
cleansing but involves no guilt.
But all sin involves guilt. God cannot do other than
condemn sin, whether in the Christian or in the unbeliever.
Moreover, neither in First John, nor in
Romans six, nor anywhere in the New Testament is
there distinction made between “conscious” and “unconscious”
sinning, or “known” and “unknown” sins.
These distinctions between sins are made by men with
the implication that we may be kept free from one kind
of sinning but not from the other. Does not this make
void the word of God by our traditions? For God
says, through John, “My little children, these things
write I unto you, that ye may not sin.”
We shall avoid all such difficulties if we rid ourselves
of the notion that the sinfulness or the righteousness
of a man’s act is to be judged by some outside
standard. God’s measure is an inside standard. Sin
can never be discovered in the act, but in the motive
of the heart of the man who performs the act. Two
men go into a restaurant and hang up their overcoats.
Two other men in the restaurant take these overcoats
with them when they go out. One man has stolen an
overcoat. The other man has taken it by mistake,
thinking he had brought his own overcoat with him,
and is much distressed when he finds he has another
man’s coat. But meanwhile both men have lost their
coats. Nothing can be determined as to whether sin
is involved until you get to the heart of the men who
took the coats. One man sinned. The other man
surely came short of that perfect outward standard of
action, and he should not have been so thoughtless as
to take the coat. The experience will doubtless make
him more careful in the future in avoiding such a mistake.
But he did not sin. And if our theory makes it
necessary for us to say that he sinned, then we have
blotted out all moral distinctions, and there is an end
of urging men to come out of darkness into light.
Since sin is in the motive of the heart, it becomes
clear why a man who is out of Christ is sinning all the
time, in thought, word and deed. He may do many
moral things and live on a high plane judged by man’s
standard, but he is incapable of God’s righteousness.
Only the love of God shed abroad in the heart through
the Holy Spirit can make righteousness possible. A
natural, unsaved man cannot please God in anything
that he does. That is why he must be born again before
he is capable of goodness. When he is saved he
may love God with his whole heart, and then he can
and does please God. And let us remember that no
man can please God with sinning, whatever adjective
is prefixed.
Another fruitful source of confusion in studying the
Scripture teachings regarding sin is the taking of
Bible statements concerning man in his natural state
and applying them to the new creature in Christ Jesus.
“There is none righteous, no, not one” (Rom. 3:10).
“There is none that doeth good, no, not so much
as one” (Rom. 3:12).
“All have sinned, and fall short of the glory of
God” (Rom. 3:23).
“In thy sight no man living is righteous” (Ps.
143:2).
These statements are used in Scripture to describe
the condition of all men outside of Jesus Christ the
Saviour. To wrest these words from their connection
and apply them to saved men to prove that they are
not righteous and that they continually are coming
short of the glory of God, is to take all meaning and
significance out of the language of Scripture. It is
because this is our natural state that we need a
Saviour. When He saves us, are we left in the same
state? Some have carried this strange use of the words
of Scripture to the extent of believing (or thinking
that they believe) that Paul considered himself still
the chief of sinners after he was saved. He speaks
of himself as the chief of sinners for the very purpose
of showing the greatness of the grace of the Saviour
which availed to save the chief of sinners, and that
grace was not found vain. But what would we say
of a Saviour whose grace abounded in such a way as
still to leave Saul the chief of sinners? That is not
Paul’s Saviour, and that is not the way Christ’s grace
operates even in the lives of those true Christians who
think they believe themselves still to be unrighteous
sinners.
Perhaps the Scripture that has suffered most from
this method of lifting it out from its environment is
First John, one, eight: “If we say that we have no
sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.”
A passage which was written for the express purpose
of giving the children of God the glad tidings that they
need not sin, and pointing out God’s provision for
keeping them walking in the light, has somehow become
for many a stumbling block which keeps them in
darkness.
Now whatever John, one, eight means it must be in
accord with the later word that these things he was
writing that we may not sin. “And if any man sin, we
have an Advocate.” “If any sin.” That means there
is a possibility of not sinning, as well as the admitted
possibility of sinning. He does not say “When a Christian
sins,” which would make sin inevitable. Now if a
Christian were sinning all the time, this word of assurance
against sinning, and also the word of comfort and
assurance for the Christian who has been overtaken in
a fault would be robbed of all meaning. First John,
one, eight, therefore, cannot mean that Christians are
sinning continually, or if they are, the next verses urge
them to get out of that condition.
The literal rendering of this verse is, “If we say that
we have not sin,” or “If we say that we do not have
sin.” The negative is an adverb, not an adjective.
The ordinary renderings, “If we say that we have no
sin,” might encourage the assumption that the Apostle
was speaking of degrees of sin and warning against the
thought of being free from all sin. But sin is not something
that can be divided; if there is sin, there is sin,
and it is not here a question of more or less sin.
It will help also to remember that there is no independent
First John, one, eight in the Word. This sentence
is part of a closely woven argument running from
the fifth verse of the first chapter to the sixth verse
of the second chapter. He is talking of fellowship
with God, which is an absolute thing in the sense
that we either have perfect fellowship or we do not
have perfect fellowship, just as a man wants perfect
fellowship with his wife though the fellowship deepens
and becomes richer as the days go on. There is but
one thing that can break this fellowship with God,
John says, and that is sin. For God is light and in Him
is no darkness, and the man that has fellowship must
walk in the light. Therefore man needs to be cleansed
from sin so that he may walk in the light, having
fellowship. There were some in his day, as in ours,
who were saying that they had fellowship, though they
were walking in darkness. If we say that, we lie. But
if we admit that we cannot have fellowship and be in
darkness, and are cleansed from sin in the blood of
Christ, then we may walk in the light. If we say
that we do not have sin, and therefore do not need
this cleansing, we deceive ourselves. But if we are
not deceived in this way and confess our sins, he is
faithful and righteous to forgive us and to cleanse us
from all unrighteousness, so that we may walk in the
light. If we say, as they were saying in his day,
that we have not sinned, we make God a liar, for he
has said that all men have sinned and come short of
the glory of God, and therefore need a Saviour. John
is writing all of this for the purpose of keeping these
Christians from sinning, not for the purpose of explaining
to them that they must be sinning continually
while they are walking in the light. Sin breaks the
fellowship, and before a man sins he must step out of
that light. This is the message of the whole of First
John. He may confess and be cleansed and restored
to the fellowship, walking in the light.
But was not John referring to Christians when he
said “we”? Let us ask if John meant that he and
other Christians would say that they had fellowship
with God when they were walking in the darkness; or
would he and others say that they had not sinned, and
thus make God a liar? The “we,” of course, is used in
the same sense as, “If any one says that he has fellowship
with him.” It is the use of the first personal
pronoun that we ourselves continually make in stating
universal truths. Some have even brought consternation
to rescue mission workers by telling them never
to use First John, one, nine for sinners, because the
“we” refers to Christians, and God is “faithful and
just” to forgive Christians, because they are under
the covenant, while it is of his mercy that he forgives
sinners. But “he is the propitiation for our sins; and
not for ours only, but also for the whole world,” and
since God has given Christ to die for the world, it is of
his righteousness and justice to forgive every sinner the
instant he turns to the Saviour. This is not to say
that it is not also of his mercy, but as one has suggested
it is mercy from start to finish, for the Christian
as well as the sinner. The rescue mission workers and
other soul winners may go on using this verse with a
clear conscience, for God will honor it both for sinners,
and for Christians when they act like sinners, and need
to confess and be forgiven.
In The Sunday School Times there was published
recently a remarkable testimony of one who was saved
from Christian Science, and the verse that brought
conviction was First John, one, eight. “Why, that is
just what I have been doing,” this woman said in
amazement to herself one time when she read this
verse. “I have been saying that I have no sin, and
I am deceived. I need a Saviour.” This is the Spirit’s
use of that passage; if it refers to Christians who have
confessed their sins and have accepted the Saviour and
been cleansed from sin, there can remain in it no
convicting power for the one who has not confessed.
These brief suggestions upon this passage are given
with the thought of provoking further study, and the
reader may still feel strongly that First John, one,
eight refers to Christians, whatever their spiritual state
may be. Let us grant that it does, and the Christian
then is confessing to God and to men, “I have sin.”
Putting aside the difficulty of understanding how it is
possible for me to be without condemnation for the sin,
or how it is possible for me to walk in the light in
fellowship with God while I have this sin, let us face
this simple question, “When am I going to get rid of
this sin?”
There are at least seven theories that have been suggested
to answer this question, and to get rid of the
“root of sin” which it is supposed John is dealing with
when he says, “If we say that we have not sin, we
deceive ourselves.” All are agreed that without holiness
no man shall see God, and that this means actual
holiness; and therefore all who hold these different
theories are agreed that this root of sin referred to
by John must be gotten out, or eradicated.
The first theory is gradual eradication after death,
or gradual purification, for which a place called purgatory
is provided (by the theology, not by the Lord).
This theory of course is a matter of works from start
to finish, and perhaps no reader of these pages would
entertain it.
The second is gradual eradication during life, with
the completion of the process at death. In this theory
the process during life makes no real progress toward
the consummation at death since all equally need the
work at death, whatever the degree of eradication
during life.
The third is increasing counteraction during life,
with eradication at death. That is, the evil is not
eradicated gradually during life but is counteracted
increasingly by the power of God, while remaining till
its removal at death.
The fourth is eradication at death. That is, the
evil is unaffected during life, and awaits death for its
removal.
The fifth is eradication at the coming of Christ.
But if we die we enter into the presence of His holiness
and need purity before this event.
Few maintain this theory, except those who go the
length of identifying the root of sin with the physical
body or with the blood, thus making sin inhere in
matter. This assumption is also needed to give support
to the second, third and fourth theories, for the
only change that, takes place at death is the separation
of the spirit from the body.
The sixth is eradication before death, requiring a
second work of grace, subsequent to regeneration.
The seventh is eradication at the moment of regeneration,
which perhaps few in our day hold, though
it has been earnestly contended for in other days.
All of these eradication theories, with the exception
of the last, make necessary a second work of grace
subsequent to regeneration. They mean that God has
to do something else to free a man from sin after he
is cleansed, by faith, in the blood of Christ, and made
a new creature by the operation of the Holy Spirit.
For manifestly, if a Christian must say, “I have sin,”
he must get rid of that sin, and it must be done at
one of three times: before death, at death, or after
death. Is there a line of Scripture that gives support
to any one of these six theories of a second work of
grace, or of the theory of eradication at the first work
of grace?
All of these theories rest upon the assumption that
there is a “root of sin” in a man, in a mechanical,
material sense, and that from this root sin springs.
The Scripture testimony is that the man himself is
the root of sin. Sin springs from him. Our Lord
said that out of the heart proceed evil thoughts and
deeds that defile the man. He was not speaking of
the heart as a physical or spiritual entity in the man,
but showing the Pharisees that righteousness or evil
did not consist in the outward acts or observances,
but proceeded from the man himself. For the heart is
the man.
This natural man, who is himself the root of his sin,
must be born again. It is the man himself who is born
again, made a new creature in Christ Jesus. The
heart, that is, the man himself, is purified by faith,
through the miracle work of the Holy Spirit. This
new man, who in the moment of regeneration has the
fruit of the Spirit, his heart filled with love, continues
to have victory in Christ as he continues to abide in
Christ. “As therefore ye received Christ Jesus the
Lord, so walk in him” (Col. 2:6). This is God’s
plan. It is because Christians have not continued so
walking, or perhaps because they have not known
clearly and fully the normal New Testament experience
that should result from “receiving” Christ Jesus,
that there is need of a crisis in the life, a decision to
get back where we belong in the place of abiding.
But why is it possible for this new creature to sin
after he has so received Christ? It has been assumed
that there must be some root of sin in the Christian
that makes it possible for him to sin. It is strange
that this should be thought a necessity when we know
that Satan sinned, and Adam sinned, when they were
sinless and had never been tainted with any impurity.
If it were not possible for this new creature to sin,
he would be a machine; his very humanity would need
to be destroyed. If we accept as the alternative of this
kind of Christian a Christian who is provided with
something in him which causes the sin, we arrive at
exactly the same conclusion with this difference: we
have a machine which cannot do anything except sin.
Let it be understood clearly that if a man in this
body and in this life in the midst of temptation is not
able to sin then he is not able to be good. He can sin
for the same reason that he can be good, because he
is a free moral agent. That is the way God made
him, and it is of the essence of his humanity. Everywhere
in Scripture the Christian is appealed to as one
who is responsible to choose. The reason that a Christian
can sin is because he still has his free will. And
when he sins, it is not a root of sin in him that sins.
It is he who sins.
That first sin (which need not occur) after a man
is made a new creature in Christ, or after he has
understood and taken Christ as his Victory, is always
a tragedy. Sin should always be a tragedy. It is not
an accident nor an incident. But if the man is not
responsible, but has something in him that makes sin
necessary, then he cannot regard sin as a preventable
tragedy.
But it is not possible for God to sin, and yet he can
be good. Here we come to the heart of our confusion
regarding a Christian’s goodness. God not only can
be good, He himself is goodness. He is holy in a
way that no man ever was or ever can be. For man’s
holiness is never absolute in this sense, but always relative.
Not relative in the sense that sin must be present,
but relative because of the moment by moment relationship
with God, the Holy One. Therefore for the
Christian to be kept from sinning he must abide in
Christ, and he cannot do other than sin if left to
himself. At the root of all these eradication theories
lies the assumption that man is to be made independently
holy. But man is a dependent creature. This is
of the essence of humanity, altogether apart from sin.
Utter dependence on his creator and his Saviour (and
the Saviour is the creator of the new life) is the only
safety for the child of God. There is indeed no room
for boasting nor for looking to self when we learn
God’s wondrous plan of salvation by grace.
Two Christian workers were talking together at the
lunch table about the question of what happened to
a man when he is saved. One of the brethren pointed
to the granulated sugar in the bowl as representing
him as a lost man. He then took a spoon as representing
the divine life imparted in conversion, stuck it
into the sugar, and said: “This represents my new
nature, and the sugar is still the same corrupt nature.
But I am in Christ as the sugar is in the bowl.” In
other words Christ is enclosing a mass of corruption
with a righteous spark injected into it.
Another Christian worker, representing what Christ
did in saving him, drew his coat about him so as to
cover up his white vest, and said that in just this way
God clothes us with Christ’s righteousness, while we
remain a mass of corruption beneath.
Still another, putting these illustrations into theological
terms, said: “God imputes the righteousness
of Christ to me in exactly the same way as he imputes
my sin to Christ. So that when God looks at me he
sees the righteousness of Christ, just as when he looks
at Jesus he sees my sin.” The implication is that
righteousness touches me in just the way that sin
touches Christ, namely, it is as far from me as the
east is from the west.
These brethren are all true children of God, washed
in the precious blood of Christ. Fortunately they were
not telling the truth about themselves; more seriously
they were maligning the Saviour, and while the intellectual
confusion may not keep them from victory in
their own lives it serves to entangle many an earnest
seeker. And this sort of handling of God’s word is
what has furnished the enemies of the Gospel of grace
their chief weapons in attack. These statements, if
they are taken at their face value, constitute as complete
a denial of the God and Father of our Lord and
Saviour Jesus Christ as Mrs. Eddy’s philosophy of the
denial of sin and the Saviour.
As Luther roused the Church by the battle cry of
“Justification by Faith,” let the complete truth of the
complete Gospel be sounded to-day in the cry of “Salvation
by Faith.” For “it is of faith, that it may be
according to Grace” (Rom. 4:16). God never justifies
a sinner without saving him. That is, he does not call
a man righteous without making him righteous. If he
did, God would be in the place of the man whom James
condemns, who says to the brother or sister naked
and in need of daily food: “Go in peace, be ye warmed
and filled,” yet gives them not the things needful to
the body. “What doth it profit?” James asks. “Even
so faith, if it have not works, is dead in itself” (Jas.
2:15-17).
Even so would the calling a man righteous without
making him righteous be useless for the soul that is
naked and destitute of righteousness. Justification, in
the sense of “declaring righteous,” is dead apart from
the miracle of cleansing and regeneration which makes
righteous. And we need righteousness, just as the
naked and hungry man needs clothing and food, now
in this life. There is no hope held out for any future
provision of freeing from sin. There is still a part of
our redemption from sin and its results that is future,
but very distinctly are we told that this concerns the
redemption of our body, not the purifying of the soul.
(Using purifying in its negative meaning of cleansing
from impurity. For we must remember that there is
a positive, progressive, and increasing work in conforming
us to the likeness of Christ which is quite distinct
from this matter of cleansing, which is always
absolute; we are either cleansed or we are not cleansed
from sin.)
The works that James insists on as a proof that the
faith is real faith, are possible only for the new creature
in Christ, who is producing the fruit of the Spirit
as he abides in Christ, the fruit which is the righteousness
of Christ made real in experience, and abounding
more and more as we grow in grace (not into grace),
and the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus
Christ.
Not a half salvation of “justification by faith”
to take care of the past only of our sins, but let our
watchword be a complete salvation of “CHRIST BY
FAITH.” For it is Christ that saves from sin, who
makes a new creation with old things put away, and
who provides a way of abiding in that freedom, walking
in joy and peace and victory, just as we received
Him in freedom.
“If, therefore, the Son shall make you free, ye shall
be free indeed.”
“Being made free from sin, ye became servants of
righteousness.”
“Now being made free from sin and become servants
of God, ye have your fruit unto sanctification.”
“For freedom did Christ set us free: Stand fast
therefore, and be not entangled again in a yoke of
bondage.”