The previous gracEmail suggested a sample prayer for use when facing temptation. The prayer is not some simplistic formula for overcoming sin. Its recitation is not magical. Its precise wording is not important. Although the gracEmail did not list numerous Scripture citations, its simple language was the practical application of solid biblical theology. Our problem, you see, is that a part of us (which the Bible refers to as "the flesh," our "sinful nature" or the "old self") enjoys sinning and wants to do so at every opportunity. Those who belong to Christ also have a new nature which … [Read more...]
OUR STRUGGLE WITH SIN (1)
A minister writes that he has struggled many years to overcome a particular sin. "I have read, prayed, confessed, wept bitterly, and even shared it with a close brother," he writes -- "all to no avail." Finally, he resigned his pulpit and found other employment. Can I offer any encouragement? * * * Jesus died for sinners. That makes me both glad and grateful, because I am one of those sinners. Because my sin grieves Jesus my Savior, I would like to avoid it and rise above it. Yet I have found it quite impossible to conquer sin by my own strength. Like quicksand, sin seems to increase its … [Read more...]
I PRONOUNCE YOU WELL
It is the second specific healing story in Mark's Gospel (Mark 1:40-45). A leper falls before Jesus, expressing faith that Jesus can restore him. Moved with compassion, Jesus does so with a touch and a word: "Be cleansed." Jesus then directs the cured man to show himself to the priest and to make an offering as Moses commanded. Jesus was referring to the ritual prescribed in Leviticus 14:1-32, an elaborate ceremony by which a healed leper was certified to be cleansed -- both from the disease and from the stigma that had isolated him from the covenant community. What a thrill it must have been … [Read more...]
SPEAKING GOD’S FORGIVENESS
A gracEmail subscriber asks if is right to confess our sins to another human being, and whether a believer who hears our confession can offer forgiveness in the name of Christ. * * * It is true that no mere mortal has power to forgive sins, as Jesus' enemies correctly observed (Mk. 2:5-7). However, Jesus authorized and empowered his people -- in ever-widening circles -- to speak forgiveness in his name, beginning with Peter, then all the Apostles, and finally the whole church (Matt. 16:18-19; John 20:21-23; Matt. 18:15-20). James later encouraged and affirmed the proper exercise of this … [Read more...]
ASKING GOD FOR FORGIVENESS
A gracEmail reader in Texas inquires, "Are we required to ask God for forgiveness? Does he wait to forgive our sin until we ask?" * * * The gospel tells us that God forgave us in Christ long before we were even born, much less before we repented and asked his forgiveness (Eph. 4:32; Col. 1:19-22). That was based on God's own eternal purpose and grace, grounded in his own divine character, not on anything we did or anything he foresaw in us (2 Tim. 1:9). However, we cannot enjoy God's forgiveness by experience until we feel a need for it and accept it by trusting God's promise (Acts 26:18; 1 … [Read more...]
SHOULD HE DO PENANCE?
A brother asks, "Is it right, after sinning and asking God for forgiveness, to do penance by denying myself some specific pleasure? Am I thinking that God couldn't do the work alone, or am I simply being serious about sin?" * * * Perhaps you are not taking sin seriously enough. At its heart, sin is the human creature's conscious decision to reject the Creator's authority, to act as if we were God ourselves instead of a dying lump of animated clay. The enormity of such rebellion is so staggering that only God himself can provide a remedy for sin and a reconciliation for sinners. Our own good … [Read more...]
SIN NOT PRACTICED HERE
After I cited First John that a person born of God does not practice sin, someone replied that God's child never commits a single sinful act. He explained: "John uses the Greek word poieo (referring to a single deed), not prasso (referring to a regular practice)." My respondent should know. "I have had three-and-a-half years of Koine Greek," he said, "and if John had meant 'practice,' he would have used prasso." * * * GracEmails usually avoid detailed talk about Greek words, but this particular assertion and the mindset behind it require an exception to the general rule. Beginning in 1962, I … [Read more...]
DOES A TRUE CHRISTIAN EVER SIN?
A gracEmail subscriber forwards a post by someone who argues that a true Christian never sins but always does what is right, quoting 1 John 2:3-4 and 3:6-10 as proof. "What about that?" my correspondent asks. * * * The message of First John is clear and convicting: if we claim to be God's children, we must "walk" in God's light and not in sin's darkness (1 John 1:5-7). Yet we are not without sin or above sin, and anyone who makes such a claim is self-deceived and makes God a liar (1 John 1:8, 10). One blessing of "walking in the light" is continual cleansing from all sin by the blood of … [Read more...]
JESUS AND TEMPTATION
A gracEmail subscriber asks whether Jesus was really tempted to sin, since the Bible says that God cannot be tempted and we say that Jesus was God in human flesh. * * * To become our Savior and high priest, Jesus "had to be made like [us] in every way" (Heb. 2:17). In that respect he both suffered and was tempted (Heb. 2:18). Jesus' ministry began with his baptism by John, immediately after which he was led by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil (Matt. 4:1-11). The night of his betrayal and arrest, he faced Satan's temptation again in the Garden of Gethsemane (Matt. … [Read more...]
DEAD IN SIN
A preacher objects to my saying that fallen human beings are dead spiritually because of sin and are unable to repent and believe without God's gracious supernatural enabling. "This is a human doctrine," he claims, which "smacks of Calvinism and is not biblical." Besides, he argues, God commands repentance and faith, so humans must be able to do them. * * * Those who do not take sin seriously will never be able to take seriously the divine grace which delivers us from sin. Until we know our own helplessness and inability to climb up to God, we will never appreciate God's coming down to us in … [Read more...]