Living in sin

[Osage Bluestem]

Is it possible for you to live a clean sin free life or are you bound to live in sin?

 

[JoshuaDaryl]

Is it possible for you to live a clean sin free life or are you bound to live in sin?

very interesting question. But I do not think it quite that simple.

To my limited hillbilly perspective living in sin would be, say for example, I was living with a woman that I was not married to, while abandoning the wife I vowed to the Lord I would cherish. Or any number of sins that you lived like that day in and day out unrepentant.

I do not think we are bound to live that way, I must confess some 16 years ago I caught myself backslidden in that position, and I could find no peace until I repented.

Now as far as incidental sin, we strive unto perfection, but the flesh is corrupt. I think if all were honest, and held there lives under the microscope of the Law, we would be shocked by how far from the mark we truly are, praise God for his son Jesus and Grace.

 

[GQ Chris]

You're bound to live in sin, but thankfully my Salvation is ultimately not dependent on my performance, but on the finished work of Christ.

This does not mean that one should just sin freely and do whatever the flesh pleases.

 

[twin1954]

Rom. 7:14-25 and Gal. 5:17 answer this question. While we live in this corrupt flesh sin is our constant plague and adversary. We battle against ourselves daily and as the writer to the Hebrews puts it sin doth so easily beset us, Heb. 12:1, so that we can't escape it in this life. The old nature called the flesh is corrupt and cannot be reformed or made better but the new creation is a different matter and it cannot sin because the seed of Christ remains in it. 1John 3:9. The old man, sin, cannot be taken to the hospital of practice and principles to be healed of its corruption it must be taken to the cross of Christ and be crucified with Him.

 

[Unix]

I guess it would be if having some kind of modest success not on other's expense, not torturing pigs or tortoises, helping orphans.

 

[gord44]

Is it possible for you to live a clean sin free life or are you bound to live in sin?

Depends if one ,as Paul says, "pray without ceasing". Prayer of the mind in heart, without ceasing can cleanse a soul of it's desire for sinful lusts. Of course it is not always easy to do that. But that is our journey as we move through this existence.

So in short, the answer cannot be black and white. One can rise to different levels above sin (or deep below it) for varying lengths of time. As we walk in the flesh we are always living under the shadow of sin. The key is to always get back on your feet and don't wallow in ones despair over their sin. Alot depends on the environment too.

 

[JM]

Have you been reading The Way of the Pilgrim?

 

[gord44]

No sir.

I have been working through 'The Art of Prayer' by a bunch of old monks from Russia though.

 

[JM]

I still have my prayer rope from Mount Athos...hanging on my Icon of Christ Pantocrator.

 

[gord44]

I still have my prayer rope from Mount Athos...hanging on my Icon of Christ Pantocrator.

Did you go to mount Athos? The Pantocrator was always my favorite icon.

I'm not 'going east'. Been there done that just found that book in my basement and remembered reading it when I was young. Seem to 'get it' a bit more this time around.

 

[JM]

Nah, ordered it online. I still don't understand how they tie those knots.

 

[abacabb3]

Amazing OP question. No one is without sin, I am sure that someone already quoted 1 John. Yet, we are dead to sin and cannot continue living in it, as Romans 6 discusses.

The only way to reconcile both passages is to assert that Christians no longer habitually sin when aware what they are doing is sin...but don't underestimate our own blindness.

I have come to the conclusion that because I have the Holy Spirit, God has given me a new heart. It is against my nature to sin, I am a new creation, my nature is to please God. However, I still battle with the flesh (Romans 7). The coexistence of both to me is a divine mystery and unanswerable.

 

[Osage Bluestem]

Amazing OP question. No one is without sin, I am sure that someone already quoted 1 John. Yet, we are dead to sin and cannot continue living in it, as Romans 6 discusses.

The only way to reconcile both passages is to assert that Christians no longer habitually sin when aware what they are doing is sin...but don't underestimate our own blindness.

I have come to the conclusion that because I have the Holy Spirit, God has given me a new heart. It is against my nature to sin, I am a new creation, my nature is to please God. However, I still battle with the flesh (Romans 7). The coexistence of both to me is a divine mystery and unanswerable.

I think sin infests every facet of my being. I never have a non sinful thought.

 

[ALoveDivine]

As long as we are in the flesh we will sin. However, the Holy Spirit dwells within us, so we come to love the Lord and hate sin. We come to increasingly bear the fruit of the Holy Spirit, which by the way concerns character and the heart rather than works.

All this being said, it is possible to fall into sin, including greivous sin, and to remain their for a season. I know because ive been there. In this condition we loose our fellowship with the Lord (NOT salvation), grieve the spirit, and bring temporal judgements and divine chastisements upon ourselves. However, a true Christian will always be brought back to repentance by the hand of God, the heart will be humbled, and fellowship will be restored, and the fruits of the spirit will once again grow within us.

From all my stumbles and falls I have learned that the KEY to this battle is to NEVER trust in yourself or your own "righteousness" but rather to trust Christ in all things and do all you do out of love for him. We ought to hear the gospel every day of our lives and never let go of our first love.

 

[abacabb3]

I think sin infests every facet of my being. I never have a non sinful thought.

Same here, but that's only half the story. Believers live by the Spirit so it is no longer us who live but Christ who lives in us.

 

[twin1954]

As believers we are new creations. That means that the old flesh is not reformed but that we are a totally new thing created by Christ and called sons of God, born again, regenerated and righteous. We now have two natures in us that do battle every day. That is what Paul is talking about in Ro. 7 and Gal. 5. The seed that is in us that John speaks of in 1John 3:9 is that new creation or holy nature in us that is perfectly righteous and cannot sin. It is also Christ in us the hope of glory, Col. 1:27.

That is why when we look at ourselves all we can see is sin, unless we are blind, deceived or self-righteous. We must not look at ourselves with the eye of natural man but with the eye of faith resting in Christ as all our hope.

 

[abacabb3]

I just want to be cautious and not say that there is no qualitative difference between the Christian and the non-Christian. Having the Holy Spirit is a qualitative difference, the fact that I can have faith in Christ which I cannot left to my own natural abilities, is a qualitative difference.

 

[gord44]

“The road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom.”

Your sin will educate you and help you rise above it. I pity the man that does not know sin up close and personal. They will be but a house of cards when the wind blows when faced with a strong desire.

 

[twin1954]

I just want to be cautious and not say that there is no qualitative difference between the Christian and the non-Christian. Having the Holy Spirit is a qualitative difference, the fact that I can have faith in Christ which I cannot left to my own natural abilities, is a qualitative difference.

It isn't a question of a qualitative difference but one of rule. Which rules you sin or the Spirit? Sin shall not have dominion over you. Rom. 6:14

 

[twin1954]

“The road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom.”

Your sin will educate you and help you rise above it. I pity the man that does not know sin up close and personal. They will be but a house of cards when the wind blows when faced with a strong desire.

The knowledge of sin will teach you to rest nowhere but in Christ. Every thought, deed and motive is still tainted with sin so that I can only hope and rest in the person and work of Christ alone. I can never be comforted that I haven't committed sin but I can be comforted that Christ has put my sin away by the sacrifice of Himself. Oh how I wish that I could live the way I want to. I want to live without sin. Every believer does.