CAN MAN BE FREE FROM SIN?
“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.”