Lies we believe about sin

It's easy to listen to that voice in your head instead of the truth of Scripture. Here's three lies we may get trapped into believing, instead of the reality of being in Christ.

1. "I'm a good person". OK most Christians admit that they are a sinner, but how often is that just a technicality? Really, we see ourselves as basically upright citizens who actually do a lot of good things... Essentially we believe that we are good people just like any non-Christian who gives to charity and does his neighbour a favour every now and then. The problem with this lie is that at its heart, it's comparative. What do we base the fact that we are 'good' on, except for being able to find someone who seems 'worse'? But labelling ourselves as 'good', we are thinking about the people who are easy to label as 'bad' - the prostitutes, the swindlers. But oh wait, those guys, those 'bad' people, those real 'sinners', are the ones Jesus was always hanging out with! (see Luke 15:1-2) It's the elder brother vs the prodigal (read the rest of Luke 15). If you're not the humbled sinner coming home, you're susceptible to be the wrongly aggrieved one standing in the background with arms folded. You'll miss out on the joy of grace and the party. And this standpoint has just as much sin in it as the colourful history of the prodigal; it just looks different. As JI Packer writes in 'Respectable Sins': 'every sin that we commit, even the subtle sin we don't even think about, was laid upon Christ as He bore the curse of God in our place.' We can't start 'grading' sins. The truth is that even our 'righteousness' is as filthy rags before a holy God (Isaiah 64:6).

2. "My sin doesn't matter, I'm saved by grace." Perhaps we get flippant sometimes because we know God will forgive us. Look at what Paul writes in Romans 6:

'Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? By no means! How can we who died to sin still live in it? Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.' (Rom 6:1-4)

To wilfully keep on sinning means we haven't really understood the gospel, and we have to realise that sin has a hardening effect on our hearts. Read Hebrews 6 for a sobering reminder of the result of apostasy: being cut off from God. A true fear of God will lead us to obedience. We can have no assurance of our salvation if we live lives that are unchanged by the gospel and the power of the Holy Spirit.

3. "I can't beat this sin." Going back to Romans 6, Paul says that we are 'set free from sin' (v7). This is not to say we attain sinless perfection this side of glory, but it does mean that we now have power NOT to sin, whereas before we were sinners, in darkness, and without the power of the Holy Spirit in our lives to sanctify us. It is possible for us to say no to sin, not in human strength but by being 'strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might' (Eph 6:10). Sometimes the reason we aren't seeing victory over sin is because we haven't confessed to others and asked for prayer and accountability.

So there you have it, three lies we get duped into believing about sin. It's only the truth of Jesus in His Word that sets us free, so learn some key Scriptures which will help you fight this battle.

By Faith Alone... how important are our good works?

In thinking about the Reformation teaching of salvation by faith alone, I've been thinking about how important our 'good works' are as Christians. The following is adapted from a long email conversation with a friend on this topic.

The main idea of reformation thought is that the Bible teaches that God created man to be in perfect relationship with Him and give Him glory. The fall has severed that relationship, and when man is fallen, even his best efforts cannot please a holy God. Man's fallenness completely incapacitates him. Calvin writes: 'Therefore, since reason, by which man discerns between good and evil... is a natural gift, it could not be entirely destroyed, but... a shapeless ruin is all that remains.' He quotes from Paul's letter to the Romans to give a scriptural basis for this:

'none is righteous, no, not one (which is a quote from Ps 14)... whatever the law says it speaks to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be stopped, and the whole world held accountable to God. For by works of the law no human being will be justified in His sight, since through the law comes knowledge of sin.' (Romans 3:10, 19-20)

Paul's letter then continues with one of the great 'turning points' of the Bible:

'But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law... the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction: for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by His grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God's righteousness, because in His divine forbearance He had passed over former sins. It was to show His righteousness at the present time, so that He might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.' (Romans 3:21-26)

So the main idea here is that Christ's death was a sacrifice of atonement for sins past, present and future. His death was the great act of redemption, even greater than the deliverance of the Israelites from Egypt at Passover. He was the Passover Lamb, sacrificed to pay the price for sins. This satisfies God's justice: there must be a punishment for sin, and Christ took it.

But our justification is not just that Jesus paid the price for our sins. His perfect obedience to God, His perfect law-keeping, is credited to our account when we trust in Him. So when God looks at us, He sees the perfection of Christ. Therefore we have total assurance of our salvation, because it depends not on anything we do, but on Jesus, and Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today and forever (Heb 13:8). Heb 7:25 says that Jesus is able to save completely those who come to God through him, and this is supported by Jesus' words to the dying thief on the cross next to Him: 'Today you will be with me in paradise'. (Lk 23:43)

Now, what is our response to being justified? It is to now live in a totally different way. Before we were justified, before we came to know and trust in Christ, we were slaves to sin. We were incapable of doing good, even if we wanted to (see Romans 6). But because God has worked a miracle in our hearts to make us 'born again', that is spiritually renewed with real faith, we are now enabled to live in holiness in a way that we were not before. A non Christian has no power to resist sin. A Christian has the Holy Spirit! (See Galatians 5:16-25). We are told to 'walk by the Spirit' and not 'gratify the desires of the flesh' because they are 'against the Spirit'. If we have truly been saved and come to love God, then we will want to give our whole lives to Him to please Him. We will want to walk in purity, rather than pursuing the things that God's Word makes clear are wrong. We won't want to live selfishly anymore. I don't think someone who is a genuine Christian can at the same time not care how they live and what God thinks about their life. I don't see how someone can really understand the cross and God's grace towards them, if they basically reject everything God says in the Bible about the way we should live.

We don't obey God's Word to earn our salvation; we obey because it's right. God knows what is right and best for us, so therefore we follow His way. We uphold marriage, we don't steal, we don't lie, we try to put God first in everything (I'm roughly paraphrasing the 10 Commandments here- see Exodus 20), because this glorifies God and it's the best way to live! And God has promised to 'sanctify' us- every day, we're becoming more and more like Christ. We still fall down and stumble over our old ways of sin, but God promises that sin no longer has mastery over us (Romans 6:12-14).

So much of the New Testament is Paul or other apostles writing to young churches, telling them how important it is for them to live in a way that pleases God. Not to earn their salvation, but as the only proper response to their salvation. And also to make an impact on the world around us. Here's the opening of Paul's letter to Timothy:

'I urge, then, first of all, that requests, prayers, intercession and thanksgiving be made for everyone— 2for kings and all those in authority, that we may live peaceful and quiet lives in all godliness and holiness. 3This is good, and pleases God our Savior, 4who wants all men to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth. 5For there is one God and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, 6who gave himself as a ransom for all men—the testimony given in its proper time.'

Notice here how Paul says how important living in godliness is: it pleases God, and it leads others to know the truth and be saved themselves. But look how they must be saved: through the mediator of Christ, who gave himself as a ransom. He's not saying 'live godly lives in order to win salvation'. It is clear that salvation comes through Christ alone.

I think the major difference between Roman Catholic teaching and evangelical teaching is that we are saved by faith alone in the latter. I recently read 'By Faith Alone' by RC Sproul and found it very helpful in explaining this difference.

He highlights the key questions:

Does faith enable us to become actively righteous so that God will declare us righteous? Or does God declare us righteous before we actually become actively righteous by imputing to us the righteousness of Christ?

Sproul argues that the Bible teaches the latter, and I would definitely agree with this.

Catholicism teaches that the sacraments are the instrumental means by which we receive grace, whereas the reformers argued that faith is the instrument by which we are linked to Christ and receive the grace of justification. Sproul also writes:

For Rome the righteousness of Christ is not imputed to the believer, but infused into the believer. When the believer cooperates with this infused righteousness, the believer then possesses an inherent righteousness, which then becomes the ground of justification.

Since the infusion of Christ's righteousness is initiated by faith, Rome can say that justification is by faith. However, since the infusion of Christ's righteousness does not complete our justification immediately, we are not justified by faith alone.

...

Rome declares that sin has a 'double consequences': eternal punishment and temporal punishment. Forgiveness involves the remission of eternal punishment, but temporal punishment remains and must be purified on earth or in Purgatory.

The sacrament of penance and the doctrine of the treasury of merit (that is, Christ's merit plus the merit of Mary and the saints) cast a heavy shadow over the sufficiency of Christ's saving work. According to this doctrine the prayers and good works of Mary and the saints are added to the merit of Christ. In a broad sense the saints contribute to the redemption of others. The expiation of sin accomplished by Christ must be augmented by expiation in purgatory to satisfy temporal guilt.

...

Calvin rejected the RC distinction between mortal and venial sin. All sins are mortal in that they deserve death. No sin is mortal in the sense that it destroys the grace of justification.

I think that the Bible clearly teaches that God saves us by grace alone, but then gives us power to be righteous because we are then regenerated and made new. But the good things we do as Christians aren't really anything we can take credit for, because we are only able to do them by the grace of God working in us through His Spirit.

Let's look at some "controversial" Bible verses with regard to this teaching:

"We can be sure that we know God only by keeping his commandments. Anyone who says, ’I know him’, and does not keep his commandments, is a liar, refusing to admit the truth. But when anyone does obey what he has said, God’s love comes to perfection in him. We can be sure that we are in God only when the one who claims to be living in him is living the same kind of life as Christ lived." (1 John 2:3-6)

I think this is teaching us that we can have assurance of salvation ('by this we know') by giving ourselves an 'ethical test'- have we got a changed life? Has our behaviour been transformed? I don't think this is to save us, because 1 John 2:2 refers to Christ as the 'propitiation for our sins'- a sacrifice that bears God's wrath and turns it to favour. So our assurance of salvation comes from
1. Knowing that Christ died for us, taking God's wrath for us
2. Seeing our own lives transformed by the grace of God.

Next let's look at James 2:

21 Was not Abraham our father justified by his deed, because he offered his son Isaac on the altar?
22 So you can see that his faith was working together with his deeds; his faith became perfect by what he did.
23 In this way the scripture was fulfilled: Abraham put his faith in God, and this was considered as making him upright; and he received the name 'friend of God'.
24 You see now that it is by deeds, and not only by believing, that someone is justified.

I think it's important to see how James is writing from a different angle to Paul here. Paul is talking to legalistic law-keepers, telling them 'you are justified by Christ!' James is talking to libertines, telling them 'God cares about what you do!' James is looking at someone who professes faith but doesn't back it up with their lifestyle. He makes it clear that simply saying you believe does not result in salvation. If your life remains unchanged, then there's no use in saying you believe. Effectively, you don't.

It may seem that James is contradicting Paul. But I also think it's important to look at how they both use Abraham. Paul quotes from Gen 15:6 about Abraham's faith being 'counted to him as righteousness'. James looks at the incident in Gen 22 where Abraham was called to sacrifice Isaac. I think they are using the word 'justify' in different ways. Paul is talking about being declared righteous by God through faith, on the basis of Jesus' atoning sacrifice, whereas the primary way that James uses the word 'justify' seems to emphasise the way in which works demonstrate that someone has been justified. 'Justify' in James means to declare someone righteous because, at the final judgement, the person's works give evidence of true saving faith.

I think James is a fantastic book and definitely meant to be in the Bible! And I do think that in evangelical Christianity, we err on the side of under-emphasising the importance of how we live our lives as Christians. We are not as good as secular charities at caring for the poor. And James speaks a very relevant word for us.

Is Christianity about being good? Part 2

Having established that we are saved by God's grace through Jesus, not by anything we do ourselves, it is important to look at the place of 'being good' in the life of a Christian.

After taking that step of faith to trust in Jesus, and giving your life over to Him, the way you live as a Christian is vitally important for yourself, for others and for God's glory.

When you become a Christian, you essentially undergo a complete transformation of identity. Before, you were a sinner, trapped in darkness. After, you are perfect in God's sight through Jesus, in the light. Before, you had no power to stop sinning. After, you now have the ability to say no to temptation, with the empowering of the Holy Spirit within you.

To become a Christian involves a realisation of how awful sin is. Believing the gospel message means believing that your sin is terrible and deserves God's judgement. Therefore it makes no sense for a Christian to go back to living life the way they want it, regardless of God. As Paul writes,

'Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? By no means! How can we who died to sin still live in it?' (Romans 6:1-2)

Peter argues that we should 'make every effort to add to your faith goodness... knowledge... self-control... perseverance... godliness' (2 Peter 1:5-6). These qualities prevent us from being 'ineffective and unproductive' in our knowledge of Jesus (2 Peter 1:8). This is a crucial point: if we as Christians carry on sinning without any repentance, we are not allowing God to change us, and we are being a very poor example to others of what being a Christian really means. How can you tell people that they need God's forgiveness if you're flouting His gift of grace by deliberately rebelling against His Word? The gospel message becomes 'ineffective' in us if we refuse to let it change every aspect of our lives. We can't just give God Sundays and then use the rest of the week however we want to.

The Christian life should revolve around giving God glory. He is not glorified when we live against Him. He is glorified when we praise Him for His grace in Jesus, and when we seek to live as Jesus did.

'This is how we know we are in Him: whoever claims to live in Him must walk as Jesus did.' (1 John 2:5-6)

Notice the first part of that verse. John's basically saying that anyone can say they're a Christian. The real proof is in how they actually live life. Christians will still mess up and struggle with sin and their 'old self' (Rom 6:6, Eph 4:22), but the key word there is 'struggle'. Someone who isn't a Christian will not 'struggle' with sin. They'll just do it, without caring what God thinks.

In the light of Jesus' imminent return, we should live 'holy and godly lives' (2 Pet 3:11) to be found 'spotless, blameless and at peace with Him' (2 Pet 3:14). Imagine the embarrassment of Jesus returning and finding you doing something you shouldn't be doing!

And the key to fighting sin is really in replacing it with godly pursuits. Jesus says we should 'abide' in Him and bear fruit (John 15), so we should be seeking to use our lives to get to know Him better by reading His Word, share the good news of the gospel with others, and serve Him in everything we do by doing it whole-heartedly and for His glory, not our own.

Is Christianity about being good? Part 1

This question brings us to the heart of the gospel message. How can people be set right with God? How can people get into heaven? Is it through the things they do? Is a Christian simply a synonym for a 'good' person? Is that what Christianity is all about: loving your neighbour as you love yourself?

Well, to start with, Christianity is really all about how none of us are intrinsically 'good' as people. In fact, we're all naturally born into darkness, a spiritual ignorance and defiance of God. We want to make the rules ourselves (this is what Adam and Eve did when they took the forbidden fruit in Genesis 3). And this dislocates us from God, and puts us under His righteous judgement. You can't commit a crime and get away with it in God's universe. And the ultimate crime in God's universe is this: rejecting God as the King of that universe.

As humans our standards of goodness are very different to God's. We may define a 'good' person as someone who gives to charity, who loves their family and friends, who seeks to care for those around them. They may even devote their entire life to philanthropic work in developing countries. But, as the Bible reveals, the litmus test of true goodness is how a person responds to God. Loving the people around you but still ignoring God is like trying to live in a household where you love your siblings but ignore your parents. It's ludicrous! God wants us to love Him with our whole heart, soul and mind (Deut 6:5), and if we're honest, none of us have done that perfectly for every moment of our lives. If we're really honest, the only person we have ever loved that perfectly is ourselves.

I don't want to seem scathing of charity work and helping others -far from it!- but what I want to convey is how paltry these things are compared with God's absolute purity and holiness. Can you imagine if someone asked Obama 'Why should you be president of the US?', and he replied, 'Well, I can count to 10 and I know my ABC.' How ridiculous would that be? But that's what our 'good works' are like to God- utter childish simplicity compared with Him.

The truth is that the whole world is chained up and locked into a vicious cycle of sin and rebellion against God. Jesus said 'everyone who sins is a slave to sin' (Jn 8:34) and if you don't believe this, try going for one whole day without sinning at all. It's impossible! Even if you never rob a bank or kill someone, you probably still lie, and think corrupt thoughts, and in your heart want to rule your own life instead of worshipping God and letting Him call the shots.

The good news is that God did not just sit in heaven passively watching human history unfold. He had an action plan to bring about restoration and reconciliation between Himself and mankind. That's what the Bible is all about: Genesis shows God creating a perfect world, man rejecting God and falling into sin, and then the rest of Scripture shows what God did to 'undo' the cycle of degeneration.

God sent Jesus into the world, as His own Son, to be God-in-flesh (John 1:14). Perfectly human, perfectly divine, Jesus lived life as we never could: free from sin. He died as a pure sacrifice, taking on Himself the punishment that should have been ours, so that if we believe and trust in Him, we can be forgiven (John 3:16).

Therefore, Christianity is not primarily about being good; it's about accepting that you're NOT good in God's eyes, and that you need Jesus.