ALL OF US STRUGGLE WITH SIN . Sometimes there is a vague dark thought that we immediately repulse; in other instances, God forbid, the abyss clutches us by the heel and drags us into the dark for an interminable time. John warns, “God is light; in him there is no darkness at all. If we claim to have fellowship with him and yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not live out the truth. If we claim we have not sinned, we make him out to be a liar and his word is not in us.” (1 John 1:5-10) there are other gradients of struggle between these two extremes, but contemplating John’s statement is sufficient to explore the devil’s wiles, our forms of resistance, and the principle and person by and through whom we maintain our spiritual life.
Here is an example is that of a mature disciple of Christ. This one recognizes temptation immediately for what it is, and does not just understand but employs, through long-leaning-heavenward practice, the way in which we withstand the inclination to sin. James tells us to “Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Come near to God and he will come near to you.” (James 4:7-8) In Hebrews, we hear the same applied principle, “let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, fixing our eyes on Jesus.” (Heb. 12:1-2) This is the outcome that we all strive towards. Following Jesus is a life-long process of growing to be like him as we overcome the trials of life.
A second illustration is true for far too many beginning and intermediate Christians. It is a dark time that many of us have experienced, when sin has separated us from God for so long we don’t feel that we can find our way back. Before thinking about this, let us first rest assured in our salvation. If we have made a true profession of faith, then our preservation for heaven is secure in the nature of Christ, who cannot lie, rather than our strength of will expressed in our deeds. “If you declare with your mouth, ‘Jesus is Lord,’ and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.” (Rom. 10:9)
The downward path to darkness begins this way, according to Proverbs: “There is a way that appears to be right, but in the end it leads to death.” (Prov. 14:12) James gives us insight of this way, from beginning to miserable end. “Each person is tempted when they are dragged away by their own evil desire and enticed. Then, after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, gives birth to death.” (James 1:14-15)
From first whisper of temptation to the full grasp of sin the struggle always begins deep in the heart, where the restless quest of original sin seeking fulfillment patiently awaits outer expression. The devil is like an experienced angler, who will try many different lures until the unwary fish is suddenly separated from the pool. Peter warns us: “Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour.” (1 Pet. 5:8) Paul, no stranger to the torment of sin, cries out “What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body that is subject to death?” (Rom. 7:24) Thankfully, he answers this rhetorical question out of his personal life experience, and this is reassuring to us. “Thanks be to God, who delivers me through Jesus Christ our Lord!” (Rom. 7:25a)
Let us turn away slightly from the struggle, and towards the answer to the struggle, first in these thoughts. In a concluding verse to the recount of his own struggle, Paul adds “So then, I myself in my mind am a slave to God’s law, but in my sinful nature a slave to the law of sin.” (Rom. 7:25b) Here, Paul is addressing an astounding truth about human identity. That truth is that we have two natures, and that our struggle is between those two natures. We are animate, alive, in the body of flesh we enter into at conception. We are animate also, birthed into this world, in the ‘sarq’ (Gk.), or worldly nature of fallen man—through our first-Adam DNA we are inheritors of original sin. And in this fallen world, Satan reigns. “The god of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers, so that they cannot see the light of the gospel that displays the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.” (2 Cor. 4:4) But latent within us is a different spirit, for we were originally created to be like God. “So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.” (Gen. 1:27)
In Jesus, the second Adam (cf. Rom. 5:18-19), these two natures—*orthodox theology is dogmatic that he is fully God and fully man—are made one in his perfect response to all temptations. The Hebrews author faithfully reminds us that “we do not have a high priest who is unable to empathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are—yet he did not sin.” (Heb. 4:15) Thus Jesus, unlike “The first man Adam,” has become “the last Adam, a life-giving spirit.” (1 Cor. 15:45) In the new birth of our Spirit—the latent made operative—our ‘second’ nature is quickened into neonatal life. When we are born again from above (cf. John 3:5-7), our spiritual life begins; it is not complete at this birth. This new life is replete with the strength to withstand the struggle against the first nature, but must be tended and guarded throughout the process towards maturity.
Paul’s systematic theology in Romans Chs. 5-7 is specific in instruction through this journey. Most critical to our struggles with sin are two truths found in Romans Ch. 6, which seem simple, though they are not. One is the birth truth, the other is a primary growth truth. The first needs to be resolved forever in our hearts, the second is key to our victory in our daily resistance to evil.
Regarding our beginning steps, Paul says “Don’t you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death?” (Rom. 6:3) Here we learn the first part of the birth truth, and that is the fact that Jesus did not come to fix our lives—these are the life of the first Adam, and are not redeemable. He came to give us a new life. To obtain the new life, the old life must first die. Paul continues with this second aspect of the birth truth: “We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life.” (Rom. 6:4) Our journey is from death into new life, and we make that journey only as Jesus’ death and resurrection becomes our life. We die in him, and we are raised in him, both in the now and in the hereafter.
There is much to say about this process, but the most significant point in the spiritual practices that lead maturation is this—Paul says “Count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus.” (Rom. 6:11) Paul uses ‘count’ (**logizomai – Gk.) in the context of “reckon.” The inflection is one that
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