Dealing With Sin Under the New Covenant

I knew better than to argue with people who can read the Old Testament in its original Hebrew. These Laws were real. Blessings came for obedience and punishments came for disobedience. However, as I grew in my faith in Jesus Christ, I came to understand that "all the Law and the Prophets" were beautiful shadows and pictures of the Person and work of Jesus Christ Luke I came to see that "Jesus fulfilled the Law - every jot and tittle of it" for me Matthew 5: Through Christ's active obedience to the Law in His life and through Christ's passive obedience to the Law in His death dying in my place , "I am justified" i.

God takes my faith and "credits it to me as righteousness" Romans 4: He fulfilled the Law and then "set it aside for a new agreement" Hebrews 8: That New Covenant in His blood is a promise that those who "kiss the Son" through faith have the full pleasure of God. The Law and its observance became obsolete and abandoned through the destruction of the Temple in A. I rest in the fact that God's love for me is freely and forever mine through my faith in Jesus Christ. Free from the Law—oh, happy condition! Jesus hath bled, and there is remission; Cursed by the law and bruised by the fall, Christ hath redeemed us once for all.

So, with all that said, what is "sin" as a Christian? How do I "define it" or how do I "describe it? For example, you rarely hear a message on the sin of "eating-too-much" or "speaking-too-much" or "thinking-too-much-of -yourself" because those are the things preachers do! But it's sure easy to speak against "homosexuality" and "adultery" and "gambling" and "drinking" because those are things that preachers don't do!

The problem is the creation of a list. The Law of Israel is gone - fulfilled in Christ. The lists change according to the denomination and the preacher-in-charge like the one to whom I was listening , but the lists are there. There is a great difference between the righteous behavior that results from our placing our faith in Christ and living in the Spirit of God, and adherence to the numerous commandments and statutes of the Law of Moses.

We no longer are under the authority of the Law of Moses if we have died with Christ on the cross. But if we do not follow the Spirit of God to the point our behavior is becoming righteous, then, according to the Apostle Paul, we shall not inherit the Kingdom of God.

I think it will help our understanding if we take the following three verses from Romans and suggest two different ways of interpreting them. The first way pretty much follows current Christian thinking. The second way is the one we think more closely follows the Bible. Let's see what you believe to be the correct interpretation. Thanks be to God—through Jesus Christ our Lord!

Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, Because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit of life set me free from the law of sin and death. Paul is stating that the individual is a slave in his mind to the Law of Moses while in his sinful nature he is a slave to the law of sin dwelling in the members of his body. Paul explains that through Christ the law of the Spirit of life has set us free from the law of sin and death. The law of sin and death is the interaction of the Law of Moses and the law of sin that resides in the human personality.

The first way is as follows: We may be a devout person and very upset about not being able to fulfill all of God's laws, which we love and are in slavery to, so to speak. However the sin principle in our body dictates that we indeed shall keep on sinning. God, recognizing our slavery to sin, acknowledging that if we could we would do His will, keeps on forgiving our sinning so we remain without condemnation.

The law of the Spirit of life, operating through Christ, sets us free from the law of sin and death by giving us a clear conscience. We know we are sinning but since we are under grace and not under the Law of Moses we are free from all condemnation. Would you agree that I have just set forth an approximation of what is currently believed and often verbalized by the ministry? The second interpretation is as follows: Paul is not speaking of the Christian life but of the dilemma faced by the righteous Jew under the Law of Moses.

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In the Jew's mind he is in slavery to God but in his sinful nature he is a slave to sin. Remember, the first Christian church was composed of five thousand Jews who had received Jesus Christ as Christ but were keeping the Law of Moses with all diligence. When they heard this, they praised God. Then they said to Paul: Chapter Seven is inserted to reason with the Jews concerning the inability of the Law of Moses to satisfy their desire for righteousness.

This is not the victorious Christian life. Paul's next proclamation, that there is no condemnation resting on those who are in Christ Jesus, is assuring the Jewish believer that if he is abiding in Christ he does not have to worry about the fact that his behavior is not according to the Law of Moses.

He is free from the authority of the Law so he can rejoice in Christ. He is not caught in the dilemma where what he is directed to do and what he is able to do are hopelessly and forever opposed. Because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit of life set me free from the law of sin and death. Everything depends on how we interpret the above verse. We can interpret it to mean that although we are condemned to keep on sinning, we need not worry because the "law of the Spirit of life set me free" is a way of saying even though we sin God keeps on ascribing the righteousness of the Law of Moses to us.

Or, we can interpret the verse to mean we no longer are under the Law of Moses so we can forget about the condemnation resulting from our inability to observe the Law. We now are under a new law, the law of the Spirit of life. The law of the Spirit of life leads us from victory to victory over our sins, giving us the wisdom and power to break every chain of sin that binds us.

As long as we are following the Spirit of God the blood of the Lamb of God is making an atonement for us and the righteousness of Him who perfectly obeyed the Law of Moses is being imputed to us. Can you see the uncrossable chasm between the two interpretations of the three verses?

The first is fatalistic, condemning us to a life of bondage to sin. It is the current viewpoint and accounts for the eternal babyhood of the believers. They have been taught that Christ has power only to forgive our sins, not to deliver us from sin. If we are willing to accept the forgiveness we will go to Heaven when we die. In addition, the implication of the first interpretation is that there is no law that governs the Christian. Christians often resent the suggestion that they are under any kind of law, and sometimes will declare "There is no law but the law of love!

It is quite unscriptural. The second interpretation of the three verses brings us into slavery to the Spirit of God. The Spirit of God takes the place of the Law of Moses. This is extremely important to understand. We are not without law, we have passed from the Law of Moses to the law of the Spirit. The Holy Spirit is our law under the new covenant.

The second interpretation of the three verses produces victorious saints. They understand the blood is cleansing them from all sin only as they are obeying the Spirit of God, only as they are walking in the light of God's will.

Lesson 11: Defining Sin in the New Covenant

All Christians believe righteous behavior is desirable. The issue is joined over the question of what takes place if we do not behave righteously. Numerous preachers of our day claim and teach that even though we keep living in our sinful nature we are without condemnation and will go to Heaven when we die, with many stating no Christian need have any fear of the Judgment Seat of Christ.

This truly is a dreadful wrenching of the Scripture! Christ and His Apostles, however, taught that if we keep living in our sinful nature we will die spiritually, we will not inherit the Kingdom of God. It is our point of view that the first interpretation of the three verses destroys the Kingdom of God. The only safe way to decide between the two interpretations is to see what other passages have to say. Since we are working with three verses from the Apostle Paul's writings, let us examine whether Paul in other passages supports the idea that we are condemned to continue in sin and Christ's salvation results only in our perpetual forgiveness, or if through the Lord Jesus Christ we can and must cease sinning if we are to live spiritually.

Shall we sin because we are not under law but under grace? Paul understood that people could misunderstand and already were misunderstanding what he had written in Chapters Three through Five. So he immediately issues a disclaimer, stating he was not saying we could keep on sinning even though we are not under the Law of Moses. Paul is speaking to Christians who have been baptized in water. He is saying if they continue as slaves to sin they will die spiritually. This verse alone smashes into irrecoverable pieces current Christian teaching that there are no serious consequences if the believer continues to behave according to his or her sinful nature.

But thanks be to God that, though you used to be slaves to sin, you wholeheartedly obeyed the form of teaching to which you were entrusted. We used to be slaves to sin. We are not slaves to sin now. This indicates that Romans 7: The current stance in so many cases is that God does not expect us to obey the commandments given by Christ and His Apostles.

They are present in the New Testament only to show us our need of a Savior. How do we escape bondage to sin and become slaves to righteousness? Certainly not by claiming it does not matter whether we sin because under the new covenant God does not recognize we are sinning. This is what is taught currently.

We escape bondage to sin and become slaves to righteousness by the power of the Spirit of God. As we live in the Spirit He gives us the wisdom and power grace to overcome sin. So I say, live by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the sinful nature. I put this in human terms because you are weak in your natural selves. Just as you used to offer the parts of your body in slavery to impurity and to ever-increasing wickedness, so now offer them in slavery to righteousness leading to holiness.

Which of the two interpretations of Romans 7: Is it saying we are doomed to be in slavery to our sinful nature, or is it inviting us to live in slavery to righteousness? The last verse in the sixth chapter of Romans, a verse often preached to the unsaved but has little to do with the unsaved, tells us that as Christians if we choose to be the slave of God and righteousness we will gain eternal life; but if we choose to be the slave of sin, spiritual death will be our wages. But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves to God, the benefit you reap leads to holiness, and the result is eternal life.

The gift of eternal life is actually the gift of the opportunity to attain life by choosing to be the slave of righteousness. This the unsaved cannot possibly do, and so Romans 6: The subject of the present brief essay is the manner in which we are to deal with sin under the new covenant. In order to explain how we are to deal with sin we first had to provide the scriptural background for our position as people under the new covenant. We are not doomed to keep sinning.

What was the Old Covenant law for? Does it apply in the New Covenant?

This is not the way of the new covenant. Rather the new covenant, unlike the Law of Moses, provides not only the forgiveness of our sins but also the breaking of the chains of sin that reside in our sinful nature. There are two issues here. First, precisely what is sin under the new covenant? How is sin defined? Second, how do we obtain release from the sins dwelling in our personality?

Sin under the new covenant is defined as "the works of the flesh. The acts of the sinful nature are obvious: I warn you, as I did before, that those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God. We know immorality is sinful. We know strife and rage are sinful. We know drunkenness and witchcraft are sinful.

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There is no question. These behaviors are sin. Nor should there be obscenity, foolish talk or coarse joking, which are out of place, but rather thanksgiving.

For of this you can be sure: No immoral, impure or greedy person—such a man is an idolater—has any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God. Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural relations for unnatural ones.

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In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed indecent acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their perversion. Furthermore, since they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, he gave them over to a depraved mind, to do what ought not to be done.

They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice. They are gossips, slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil; they disobey their parents; They are senseless, faithless, heartless, ruthless.

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The above definitions of sin sound like America of today. In fact, many of these behaviors are found in the churches, such as gossip and slander.