Part 10 – What About Sin?

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The Bible simplifies sin when it makes the bare bones statement that everything not of faith is sin (Rom. 14:23). Or to put it another way, all unbelief is sin. (Unbelief means that we do not believe what God says about us–that as Christians we are joined to Christ, and He is one spirit with us). In view of this fact, the first thing Satan must accomplish in his effort to get any believer to commit a sinful deed is to tempt him and get him to believe he is an independent self-operating self. In other words, to see himself as an “alone I” or “just me.”

When/if Satan is able to lure us by this lie into the sin of unbelief, he gains the power to boss us on the soul/body level and lead us into any sin deed he chooses. Our union with Christ is not broken; however, our sin temporarily blocks the Holy Spirit from living through us. Confession and repentance on our part is the only way we can receive God’s grace and forgiveness and once again walk in the light–in actual fact, have Christ live through us.

The good news is that we can avoid the Satan sin trap by simply remembering and, if necessary, stating the truth that thoughts and feelings are not the real us. They are factual but not real in the eternal Spirit sense. This is the way the Bible says it: The things that are seen are temporal [fleeting] and the things that are not seen are eternal [everlasting] (2 Cor. 4:18). I am not saying that we are to ignore our thoughts and feelings. To the contrary, it is very important that we look at them honestly, and if necessary, talk about them to someone, but as quickly as possible, move past them and begin to reflect on who we are in our spirit center–we joined to Christ rather than how we feel.

Paul uses the marriage analogy in Romans 7 to help clarify this issue. He says in this passage that we must consciously enter into the reality of not only our cut-off from our old husband Satan, but also our marriage to our new husband Jesus Christ. Until we do this, we will remain under the illusion that we are independent. This puts us, unknowingly, under the outer control of our old husband Satan. And as a result, defeat and guilt are our lot.

For do you not know, brethren (for I speak to those who know the law), that the law has dominion over a man as long as he lives? For the woman who has a husband is bound by the law to her husband as long as he lives. But if the husband dies, she is released from the law of her husband. So then if, while her husband lives, she marries another man, she will be called an adulteress; but if her husband dies, she is free from that law, so that she is no adulteress, though she has married another man. Therefore, my brethren, you also have become dead to the law through the body of Christ, that you may be married to another–to Him who was raised from the dead, that we should bear fruit to God (Romans 7:1-4).