Get the appSin: What Is It And Where Does It Come From?Sample
SLAVERY TO SIN
Many believers find it challenging to reconcile the biblical idea of “free will” with the doctrine of “indwelling sin.” This is anything but a theological rabbit trail. The ongoing, inward struggle against sin is a thoroughly practical problem. It has important implications not only for daily living but also for our view of ourselves and our relationship with God.
When we fall prey to temptation and sin, it’s a serious mistake to say “the devil made me do it.” The “sin nature” to which we’re referring isn’t an outside power that takes us captive by force. On the contrary, it’s actually the direct result of our own willful choices.
God has given mankind free will. But the Bible also teaches that when our relationship with God was broken, mankind’s moral freedom was seriously damaged. Because of the fall, unredeemed man is dead in sin and unable to choose good. As the Westminster Confession of Faith puts it,
Man by his fall into a state of sin hath wholly lost all ability of will to any spiritual good accompanying salvation; so as a natural man, being altogether averse from that good, and dead in sin, is not able, by his own strength, to convert himself, or to prepare himself thereto. (Chapter IX, section 3)
Paul expounds this principle in a number of his epistles. In every case, his point is the same: man, in his fallen state, is inherently driven away from the light of God and toward the darkness of his own perverse desires. It’s why man so desperately needs a Savior.
It’s important to add that this problem can’t be resolved overnight. Not only can an unredeemed man not please God in his own strength, even the regenerate – those who have been born again and raised to new life in Christ – will continue to battle the “sin nature” as long as they live. That’s because the process of salvation and sanctification will not be complete until the believer is resurrected bodily as well as spiritually.
Here again Paul summarizes the matter in Romans 7:24-25: “O wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? I thank God – through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, with the mind I myself serve the law of God, but with the flesh the law of sin.”
Many believers find it challenging to reconcile the biblical idea of “free will” with the doctrine of “indwelling sin.” This is anything but a theological rabbit trail. The ongoing, inward struggle against sin is a thoroughly practical problem. It has important implications not only for daily living but also for our view of ourselves and our relationship with God.
When we fall prey to temptation and sin, it’s a serious mistake to say “the devil made me do it.” The “sin nature” to which we’re referring isn’t an outside power that takes us captive by force. On the contrary, it’s actually the direct result of our own willful choices.
God has given mankind free will. But the Bible also teaches that when our relationship with God was broken, mankind’s moral freedom was seriously damaged. Because of the fall, unredeemed man is dead in sin and unable to choose good. As the Westminster Confession of Faith puts it,
Man by his fall into a state of sin hath wholly lost all ability of will to any spiritual good accompanying salvation; so as a natural man, being altogether averse from that good, and dead in sin, is not able, by his own strength, to convert himself, or to prepare himself thereto. (Chapter IX, section 3)
Paul expounds this principle in a number of his epistles. In every case, his point is the same: man, in his fallen state, is inherently driven away from the light of God and toward the darkness of his own perverse desires. It’s why man so desperately needs a Savior.
It’s important to add that this problem can’t be resolved overnight. Not only can an unredeemed man not please God in his own strength, even the regenerate – those who have been born again and raised to new life in Christ – will continue to battle the “sin nature” as long as they live. That’s because the process of salvation and sanctification will not be complete until the believer is resurrected bodily as well as spiritually.
Here again Paul summarizes the matter in Romans 7:24-25: “O wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? I thank God – through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, with the mind I myself serve the law of God, but with the flesh the law of sin.”
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About this Plan
Sexual sin is a specific entanglement within the broader problem of sin. So in this study, we’ll answer the question: What is sin? Like a cracked mirror, sin distorts the beauty of God’s image within us. If we downplay the seriousness of that distorted beauty, we minimize the desperateness of the human situation. And if we minimize the desperateness of the human situation, Christ’s death and Resurrection are rendered meaningless.
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