“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who HATH blessed us with all spiritual blessings in HEAVENLY PLACES in Christ: According as he hath chosen us in him BEFORE the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love: Having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will, To the praise of the glory of his grace, wherein HE HATH MADE US accepted in the beloved.” (Ephesians 1:3-6 KJV)
Take a close look at what is being said in this Scripture and it will surely bless you greatly and make you love God even more than you may already do. It is not saying anything about what we humans have done to make ourselves Holy and accepted by God as a son or daughter in Heavenly places. Instead it is saying that it is all, 100% the work of God to save us and keep us.
There is no condemnation being taught here by the Holy Spirit within a believer. It says it is Jesus Christ who has BLESSED US with EVERY spiritual gift and that these are already in the Heavenly places. That we are ALREADY Holy and WITHOUT BLAME before God in Heaven . That God already MADE US acceptable in the Beloved of God, that is within the family of God forever.
The question comes to mind, ‘How is that possible? I am still here in Earth and I am not in heaven in my new resurrected body. Well again the answer to that is also found in the above Scripture where it states, ” just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world”. We humans have a limited view because we are here stuck in time and space. From our viewpoint we are here traveling through time in a forward motion and all these things promised by God for the believer are all ‘in the future’ for us. But here we see that from the very beginning, when God created the Earth, from BEFORE God created the Earth, the animals, plants and human beings. Before Christ went and nailed our sins on the cross even.
From way back then, God who is outside time and space sees everything as ‘NOW’. God says He declares the end from the beginning (Isaiah 46:10). He foreknew EVERYTHING that will ever happen as if it already happened. He foreknew who would accept Christ’s atonement for their sins from before time started. And so He also foreknew and predestined those that will accept Christ who at the very moment of their repentance and in their belief of their eternal Salvation would be saved, and sealed them with the Holy Spirit of God and placed them in Heaven with Him at the appointed time of the Rapture. God sees us as who we will be after the Rapture. He seen us from the very beginning of the Universe as those who we will be in Heaven, Holy, Righteous and redeemed! God is a spirit and He is outside of time because He created time! He is everywhere at all times and that includes our future. That is why God told Moses His name was “I am that I am”. God is the great I AM. God is already there in Heaven with us believers, in our future! It is amazing to think about the truth like this. It gives me a great hope and expectation. How about you?
We Have ALL Of The Holy Spirit From The Moment of Our Salvation
Believers have ALL of the Holy Spirit living and dwelling within them. Christ has truly given us ‘all things’.
“He that spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him also freely give us all things?” (Romans 8:32 KJV)
Believers in the redemption through Christ’s atonement for sins on the cross are, from the very moment of their Salvation, both filled with the Holy Spirit and also sealed in Salvation.
“For all the promises of God in him are yea, and in him Amen, unto the glory of God by us. Now he which stablisheth us with you in Christ, and hath anointed us, is God; Who hath also sealed us, and given the earnest of the Spirit in our hearts.” (2 Corinthians 1:20-22 KJV)
The Holy Spirit now forever resides with the believer and is our earnest (earnest: in Greek means ‘guaranteed down payment’) that we are forever to be with God in Heaven. The believer is a newly created being in the Spirit – never to lose their eternal righteousness of God, in Christ. Jesus describes this relationship of the believer with God like this,
“Neither pray I for these alone, but for them also which shall believe on me through their word; That they all may be one; as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us: that the world may believe that thou hast sent me. And the glory which thou gavest me I have given them; that they may be one, even as we are one:” (John 17:20-22 KJV)
Oh my, what a promise! It is hard for us to believe in our fleshy bodies just how much God has given us through Christ! How deep and great is the unconditional love of God towards us? Absolutely AMAZING!
But What About The Sins Of The Flesh That We Commit After Our Salvation? Does That Disqualify Us From Our Eternal Security In Christ?
“But ye are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you. Now if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his.” (Romans 8:9 KJV)
That is pretty clear right? Believers are no longer in the Flesh but in the spirit. That is the Holy Spirit now dwells within us and we are now IN CHRIST. We are a newly created spirit being at our very core.
“Herein is our love made perfect, that we may have boldness in the day of judgment: because as he is, so are we in this world.” (1 John 4:17 KJV)
The debt of sins has been paid for in Christ on the cross. God is no longer mad about our sins. God is completely satisfied with the penalty for our sins when He placed it on Christ and nailed Christ to the cross, as our sin (2 Corinthians 5:21).
What is the result of the New Covenant in Christ? Accepting the forgiveness of our sins through Christ and after the Holy Spirit dwells inside a believer. But what about their sins committed after the moment of Salvation? They too were all paid in Christ on the cross. Remember that when Christ died on the cross for you, all your sins were in the future tense, you were not even born yet right?
“I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.” (Galatians 2:20 KJV)
“If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” (1 John 1:9 KJV)
“Looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ; Who gave himself for us, that he might redeem us from all iniquity, and purify unto himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works.” (Titus 2:13-14 KJV)
ALL means ALL. EVERY means EVERY. Right? God knew every sin we would commit in our entire life, BEFORE He even created us right? All of a believers sins are 100% completely forgiven in the New Covenant through Christ Jesus. But how does our sinning affect God after our moment of Salvation? What is God’s view of our sinning in the flesh afterwards?
“For I will be merciful to their unrighteousness, and their sins and their iniquities will I remember no more. In that he saith, A new covenant, he hath made the first old. Now that which decayeth and waxeth old is ready to vanish away.” (Hebrews 8:12-13 KJV)
I can hear some of you already.. ‘Wait just a minute here, Christians still sin. Doesn’t that mean we still have the old fleshly sin nature within? Don’t we still have a ‘sin nature’ within us? We have the Holy Spirit but we also have the Flesh and we still sin?’
Yes, we still do sin but that is because we do not yet have our new bodies that are not corrupt in the flesh. We still have the flesh, our bodies and our mind. But our REAL being since the moment of our Salvation is not the fleshy body, it is the inward Spirit. We were made a NEW CREATION from that moment. And the Bible is clear that in the Spirit we have been MADE Holy, Righteous and redeemed by and through Christ.
Some get confused by what I am trying to convey because many teachers (I once did too) are calling the flesh as a ‘sin spirit nature’ within us, as if it were a second nature to the new creation in the spirit. There is not two Spirit natures in a believer. One sinful and the other perfect. It is not two Spirits warring against each other that Paul spoke about in Romans 7. That is, our ONE true self in the spirit is not TWO opposites. Our inner man is now the Newly Created Spirit. It is the ‘New Us’. But if that is the case, why do we still have urges to sin? That is the bodily FLESH nature which has not been changed yet. We need to understand this properly or all kinds of teaching can be off and not correct. It is the FLESH nature that sins, not the newly created Spirit of God within you.
That is why the Rapture to come is needed. In the Spirit we are already with God. He and Christ are one and we are one with Christ and so are now one with God. But we cannot be with God in our fleshly sinful bodies in Heaven.
When a believer dies he is immediately in the presence of the Lord. Is their body? NO. In the our spirit, YES! Our fleshly part stays behind at our death. Our inner spirit being has been recreated and is without sin and able to go to Heaven, a perfect place without sin. But our flesh and body has not yet been recreated and that needs to happen before we can enter God’s eternal Kingdom in a physical form.
“So also is the resurrection of the dead. It is sown in corruption; it is raised in incorruption: It is sown in dishonour; it is raised in glory: it is sown in weakness; it is raised in power: It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body. There is a natural body, and there is a spiritual body. And so it is written, The first man Adam was made a living soul; the last Adam was made a quickening spirit. Howbeit that was not first which is spiritual, but that which is natural; and afterward that which is spiritual. The first man is of the earth, earthy; the second man is the Lord from heaven. As is the earthy, such are they also that are earthy: and as is the heavenly, such are they also that are heavenly. And as we have borne the image of the earthy, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly. Now this I say, brethren, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God; neither doth corruption inherit incorruption. Behold, I shew you a mystery; We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed. For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality.” (1 Corinthians 15:42-53 KJV)
Paul made it very clear to the Corinthians, and you and me, that our Spirit has been made new and is righteous in the God’s eyes. That is why when we die our Spirit goes to be with the Lord. It is Holy, Righteous and Redeemed because it is IN CHRIST.
Our fleshly bodies however is another matter. When we die our fleshy body goes in the ground, 6 feet under actually. It remains here on this sin filled Earth. That is what Paul is saying when He writes, “Now this I say, brethren, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God; neither doth corruption inherit incorruption.”
The Bible makes it clear that Gods goal is not to keep us in our spirit for all Eternity. Heaven is not some spirit realm where we will reside forever. We do not become angels when we die neither!
That is NOT what the Bible teaches! Just the opposite. Jesus said He is going to prepare a PLACE for us. A place with REAL 3D dimensions. 1500L x 1500W x 1500H miles! A real physical place in the universe. (see my other article on the New Jerusalem here)
“In my Father’s house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare A PLACE for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also.” John 14:2-3 KJV)
At the Rapture event Jesus comes back to Earth in the clouds and the spirits of dead Christians are coming with Him. Their PHYSICAL BODIES will be resurrected into NEW IMMORTAL and incorruptible physical bodies. Bodies without the fleshly sin nature we now have. Bodies that will be just like Jesus’ body! Imagine that! wow!
After our Salvation and acceptance of the atonement of Christ for our sins we can choose to walk in the Spirit or walk in the flesh. To be truthful, we usually are doing one or the other depending on life circumstances because we have to make decisions in life as it goes right? We still have the SIN NATURE in the FLESH and it has a bent towards sinning. There is a struggle ongoing between walking in The Spirit or walking in The Flesh. The struggle does not have to do with us losing our Salvation. That was accomplished and we were sealed with the Holy Spirit at our moment of Salvation. Your Salvation cannot be lost. But there are consequences for when we are tempted and then DECIDE to walk in the flesh and sin. We still have free will after Salvation.
This following verse of Scripture makes it clearer that it is The Flesh that causes us to sin, not our newly created Spirit, that is already with God. I have some comments in brackets that are mine to help you see it more clear. They expand based on what is trying to be conveyed with understanding about the Two Natures of the believer that Apostle Paul taught in Romans 7. The comments are my own thoughts on this, yet Let the Scriptures be the truth. I am just trying to get you to see what I have been writing about. But once you start looking at other Scriptures it just becomes clearer and clearer.
“For we know that if our earthly house of this tabernacle (Comment: our flesh body is our Spirit’s tent [a tabernacle is a tent], a temporary place our spirit resides.) were dissolved, we have a building of God, an house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. (Comment: this is the newly created Spirit of God within us from the moment of Salvation. Not created by human means in reproduction. Because the Holy Spirit is dwelling within us, we also are already eternal in the heavens.)
For in this we groan, earnestly desiring to be clothed upon with our house which is from heaven: If so be that being clothed we shall not be found naked. (Comment: if we have the Holy Spirit indwelling us, through Salvation in Christ) For we that are in this tabernacle do groan, being burdened: not for that we would be unclothed, but clothed upon, that mortality might be swallowed up of life. (Comment: Not because we want to die physically. But that, we want our body to be made whole with the Spirit of God, without the sinful desires of The Flesh body. We have the Spirit but we want our body to match up to the Spirit and be perfect as Jesus is perfect.)
Now he that hath wrought us for the selfsame thing is God, who also hath given unto us the earnest of the Spirit. (Comment: God wants us to have a physical body to inhabit the New Jerusalem and the New Earth but it needs to be without the fleshly sinful desires. He will create this for us in our future and God has prepared us for that by giving us the Spirit dwelling within each believer as a guarantee that He will accomplish this at the appointed time of the Rapture! And God’s timing is perfect.)
Therefore we are always confident, knowing that, whilst we are at home in the body, we are absent from the Lord: (Comment: Our body is physically not present with the Lord in Heaven like our new Spirit is. Yet we are confident that God will make that possible for us because we have the down payment, the Holy Spirit of God living within us.)
(For we walk by faith, not by sight:) (Comment: We walk by the Spirit of God in faith, believing not by what we see we are doing in the physical flesh which is sinful desires but by the promise of God.)
We are confident, I say, and willing rather to be absent from the body, and to be present with the Lord. (Comment: We want to get rid of this body that sins and has this bet toward sinning. The struggle is very hard. One day we will be bodily resurrected just as Christ was. Yet if we die we have faith in God’s promise that we will be united with a new glorified body at the appointed time of the Rapture.)”
(2 Corinthians 5:5-8 KJV)
God’s ultimate goal is for us to be both Spirit and Physical body in the universe God created, both completely sanctified and Holy enough to be with God for all eternity in the New Jerusalem (Heaven), a perfect place with perfect people, where there is no sin. So from now until the Rapture and our bodily resurrection to an immortal body, Christ through the Holy Spirit within us is sanctifying us and renewing our mind to see things from God’s world view and not from the current world view. Until one day, ZAP!.. we have new bodies without the fleshly sinful nature. Then we will be as Christ is. Physical body yet Spirit; complete finally. It is all God’s work in us. Such a promise! Such a hope! A hope that makes anything negative that we go through in life, completely PALE in comparison.
“Jesus tells the Apostles and to each of us plainly and truthfully, “These things I have spoken unto you, that in me ye might have peace. In the world ye shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world.” (John 16:33 KJV)
“And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.” (Romans 8:28 KJV)
The Holy Spirit Continually Sanctifies Us Until The Rapture
From the very moment of a person’s Salvation, the Holy Spirit within a believer now starts the process of sanctification and the renewing of our mind. The Holy Spirit starts from within the heart of a person, from within our newly created Spirit that is already completely filled and sealed as Perfectly Holy. And the Holy Spirit starts the renewing in our minds. You see our Spirit is newly created already. Our body will also be recreated at the Rapture and then we will be complete in who God has made us. In the meantime, our fleshly body and mind have not yet totally caught up to our new Spirit.
Paul describes that there is something in us that wars with our newly created Spirit in Christ. And that is called The Flesh. But is it us who are sinning? Is it our newly created Spiritual being, the real us, who does the sinning now? It is such an important Scripture that shows us that what I am saying here is correct. We are perfect in the Spirit from the very moment of Salvation. Our Newly Created Spirit never sins. It is The Flesh that is warring against our true being, in the Spirit. Our flesh tempts us to sin and has a bent toward sinning still.
“Was then that which is good made death unto me? God forbid. But sin, that it might appear sin, working death in me by that which is good; that sin by the commandment might become exceeding sinful.
For we know that the law is spiritual: but I am carnal, sold under sin.
For that which I do I allow not: for what I would, that do I not; but what I hate, that do I.
If then I do that which I would not, I consent unto the law that it is good. Now then it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me.
or I know that in me (that is, in my flesh,) dwelleth no good thing: for to will is present with me; but how to perform that which is good I find not. For the good that I would I do not: but the evil which I would not, that I do.
Now if I do that I would not, it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me.
I find then a law, that, when I would do good, evil is present with me. For I delight in the law of God after the inward man: But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members.
O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?”
(Romans 7:13-24 KJV)
Paul is telling us it is The Flesh sinning and not the new real you in The Spirit. If you are saved and have the Holy Spirit within, you hate it when you sin. You feel guilty after you sin because the Spirit of God dwells within you and you are one with Him.
In fact, we are sinning when God is standing right there within us. We know it is wrong. We try to fight it but there are times when we just decide wrongly to sin. Then after, we feel like we are HELPLESS and awful to do such a thing when God is dwelling within us right? It’s a horrible feeling isn’t it? You feel full of shame, weak, helpless even. You feel as Paul, ‘O wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this BODY OF DEATH.’!
What is God’s thought of this though?
King David puts it this way,
“For as the heaven is high above the earth, so great is his mercy toward them that fear him. As far as the east is from the west, so far hath he removed our transgressions from us. Like as a father pitieth his children, so the Lord pitieth them that fear him. For he knoweth our frame; he remembereth that we are dust. ” (Psalm 103:11-14 KJV)
Nothing takes God by surprise folks. NOTHING. He knows the end from the very beginning. He is the great I AM who is present everywhere, in every time and in every place! (Isaiah 46:10, Matthew 9:4, Psalms 44:21, Psalms 139:7-10, Jeremiah 23:23-24, Proverbs 15:3, Joshua 1:9) He knows our frame, that is God knows what we are like. Frail. Unable to save ourselves from our sins in The Flesh. He knew when you would sin before you ever were born. That is why from the beginning He appointed Jesus to die on the cross for us and to forgive us all our sins, ‘As far as the East is from the West’! Thank God that His unconditional love is so far above what we think and feel, even in what little faith we have.
You see unbelievers love to sin, it is just doing what The Flesh demands. Sinning is it’s very nature. You cannot make a dog act like a cat right? It is just not in their nature. And unbelievers do not have a conscience about their sins committed. They are not worried about their sins before a Holy God, as they do not believe in the God of the Bible. Is that not the way we believers once were? Do whatever makes you happy right? Today we live, tomorrow we die. If it feels good just go for it right? God never really was in the picture for us right? And non believers will continue living in their sins unless they are first confronted in the belief that God exists.
Do not misunderstand me. Believing that God exists alone will not save a person from their sins. Even the devil and his fallen angels believe there is a God – yet they tremble (James 2:19) at that fact because soon their sentence of an eternity in hell will soon come to be their reality.
But believing God exists is a step in the right direction to the possibility of being confronted with the truth. If they can stop comparing their goodness against other sinners and instead start comparing their so called goodness with the Holy Perfect God of the universe, there is a chance they will cry out to Him for mercy through Christ. They may drop their pride and instead be humble before God. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom (Psalm 111:10). The Holy Spirit works externally for a person to give everyone the opportunity to choose. He confronts them with the utter impossibility to remove our sins against a Holy God through our own self righteous deeds. The Ten Commandments accomplished that for all us believers right?
We Do Not Need To Be Constantly Refilled With The Holy Spirit
What is all the teachings by some preachers and some denominations and religious groups that we must continually be refilled with the Holy Spirit then? Does the Holy Spirit run out and a person needs to be refilled again and again. Is the Holy Spirit dwelling in a believer like gasoline a car…that slowly gets used until we reach the point that the car starts reminding you that you are low on fuel. Better get refilled or the car will die on the roadside? Does that seem like a reality when God is indwelling us already? What is God, a tank to fill? No! The Holy Spirit within us is the fullest tank that keeps on producing! It is NEVER running on empty.
If the Holy Spirit is within you then YOU already have ALL of the Spirit of God dwelling within you. All the fullness of God. You even have ALL the righteousness of God in Christ (2 Corinthians 5:21 ), who lives within every believer. Believers do not need to be refilled constantly. We do not build up so many sins and then need a refill of the Holy Spirit to clean us again. We are ALREADY FULLY CLEANED in the Spirit, in our true being.
But we will run into what I call a dry spell of walking in The Spirit because The Flesh is still here and NONE of us can be completely sin free after our Salvation. NONE! At those times we need refreshing by the Holy Spirit to renew our mind about our sin and to help us get back to walking in The Spirit. The more we walk in The Spirit, the less we will sin. (Galatians 5:16)
Doesn’t the Bible Say Not To Grieve The Spirit?
“And grieve not the holy Spirit of God, whereby ye are sealed unto the day of redemption.”
(Ephesians 4:30 KJV)
Notice the words ‘YE ARE SEALED’. It was a past event and you ARE SEALED forever. Your Salvation cannot be lost. Jesus paid it all my friends! What is meant by ‘grieving’ the Holy Spirit then? Does this mean when we sin that God will get angry with us? Is that what this means? Does it mean that if you have the Holy Spirit dwelling within you (which means you are in God’s eyes, Holy, Righteous and redeemed) that God will condemn you now because once again you failed and sinned in The Flesh? It does not make much sense given the truth of the Scriptures shown does it?
To God, the real you is the Spirit. In your spirit being you are in Christ. You are ONE with Christ and without penalty for sin. God already knew beforehand what sins you would commit. And He nailed them ALL to the cross in Jesus. So your sins are already done with and put away from God (Hebrews 9 & 10). Jesus took that punishment. You will never be condemned for the sins Christ already took the punishment for. NEVER! Christ’s sacrifice was 100% sufficient to God the Father for your redemption.
How Is The Holy Spirit Grieved When We Fail, And Sin?
Let’s use an analogy to see the truth. Before I was a father to my daughters, I did not understand this. But now I do! I get it! Here is me to my daughter, “Listen, do NOT run on ice. If you do you are going to get hurt physically and it will affect you badly.” So what happens when I get a call from the school that she hurt her ankle running on the ice in the playground? Am I ready to yell at her and disown her forever? Or am I firstly concerned for her as my daughter who I love? Do I feel grieved that she did not listen and she got hurt? Yes of course. I did warn her! Does that mean that I am going to disown her and kick her out of the family? Of course not.
Did she disobey me and cause this ankle issue? Yes she did. She has the consequence of the action to deal with (pain, healing time, loss of school studies, more time in school to catch up.) And what do I do? I try to help her in her healing and at the same time, she sees the consequence and hopefully learns from the experience.
God is not looking for robots. He gives us FREE WILL. In our fleshly bodies, we are going to be tempted. We can overcome the temptations but we will sometimes blow it. When we do it grieves the Holy Spirit. Of course it does! And the more a believer knows the Holy Spirit is within dwelling, that is He is right there while you are blowing it watching.. we do feel guilty afterwards right? God is not “out there somewhere”. He is ‘Emmanuel’ GOD WITHIN YOU and you cannot get much closer than that! Feeling guilty about a sin you commit is a sure way to know that the Holy Spirit is correcting you and disciplining you. It is not to condemn you of your sin as some are teaching these days. NO, it is out of love for you. When you blow it,
“My little children, these things write I unto you, that ye sin not. And if any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous:” (1 John 2:1 KJV)
What If A Person Continues To Repeat A Sin?
As a believer, do you still have a body? The sinful flesh? Yes, you do! Should we try to resist sinning? Absolutely! In no way am I saying that because we are forgiven we should just go and sin all we want. Absolutely not! If the Holy Spirit is within you He will correct you when you sin. If you are living in a continuous sin and not feeling any guilt about it when you know it is a sin, you need to question if you actually are saved. The Holy Spirit always helps to recognize and correct sins in a believer. It is part of the process of Him sanctifying you and renewing your mind. He will keep renewing your mind in the process of sanctification. But know this; this process of sanctification takes time, a lifetime. Resisting sin is a good thing. It is you trying to keep in line with what the Holy Spirit wants you to do (walking by The Spirit), as He is sanctifying you. Over time, the Holy Spirit renews your mind and as that happens, you will find that you stop repeating certain sins, or out right stopping them.
” What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound? God forbid. How shall we, that are dead to sin, live any longer therein? Know ye not, that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into his death? Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life.
For if we have been planted together in the likeness of his death, we shall be also in the likeness of his resurrection: Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with him, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin. For he that is dead is freed from sin. Now if we be dead with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with him: Knowing that Christ being raised from the dead dieth no more; death hath no more dominion over him. For in that he died, he died unto sin once: but in that he liveth, he liveth unto God.
Likewise reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord. Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, that ye should obey it in the lusts thereof. Neither yield ye your members as instruments of unrighteousness unto sin: but yield yourselves unto God, as those that are alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness unto God.
For sin shall not have dominion over you: for ye are not under the law, but under grace.”
(Romans 6:1-14 KJV)
Paul is not saying that we lose our salvation if we sin. What he is saying is that Christ has redeemed us from our sins. He has made us DEAD to the Law. Now the Holy Spirit resides within us to help us renew our mind to the truth. Should we just continue going in the opposite direction to the sanctification process the Holy Spirit is working in us? That sure is the HARD way right? Do not look at not sinning as a requirement under the Law that we need to obey or we will lose our Salvation. Believers have been made DEAD to the Law. That is works did not save you right? Neither do they now to keep you saved! You are under grace and forgiveness. Instead we are no longer under the law as a means to be forgiven. We are already forgiven IN CHRIST right?
However, we should be working towards and willingly giving over sin temptation to the Holy Spirit and acknowledge it is wrong. It is good to pray to the Holy Spirit and ask for help in resisting. Asking for help to renew your mind over this temptation that you are struggling with. That is working with he Holy Spirit! God will help you! Even right when you are about to sin. And even pray about it after you already gave into it. It is not that you are asking God to forgive you – He ALREADY did that in Christ! It is that you ask God flat out in honesty, confessing your sin.. I blew it again. Please help me to stop this. Help renew my mind on this.
What should we do when tempted and we feel like ‘Uh oh.. this is a tough one to resist!’ One thing you can do in certain situations is to do as Joseph in Egypt as a slave when tempted to commit adultery with his master’s wife enticed him. He flat out RAN AWAY! Yes get yourself out of that situation and FAST! And of course, do not get yourself into situations where you know there will be a temptation that you have had difficulty.
Does that mean you will never sin again?
Does that mean it is possible to never sin again after Salvation?
“If we say that we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us.” (1 John 1:10 KJV)
If I can be truthful in anything it is this.. you are going to blow it! You are still going to struggle with sinning after your Salvation. You are still in your fleshly sinful body just as I am. Anyone that says they have no sin after Salvation, they just cannot get around this one. They are actually calling Jesus a liar! All while they are flat out lying about this. Fighting sin is a daily struggle in this world. One of the greatest writers in the New Testament, the Apostle Paul, struggled with sin. (Romans 7) So will we. However, it is a worthy struggle. Resist hard. Use your faith. Use the Word of God to renew your mind to the truth. Stand firm knowing what Christ did for us! Now I say that as one who also blows it! But I keep trying. Not to remain saved.. but because it is just right isn’t it?
“My little children, these things write I unto you, that ye sin not. And if any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous:” (1 John 2:1 KJV)
The Bible is clear that God disciplines those He loves. He will discipline believers as His children because He loves us and wants to build up our faith in Him, learn that consequences are real and that we should not do that again. But rest in faith that what God says is true in the Bible. Rest on His promise of eternal life and that you cannot lose your Salvation. Your new immortal body will come soon enough and this life we live in The Sinful Flesh body will be less than a second of time in light of us living all eternity with Christ and our fellow Saints.
In Salvation, you always have the Full Holy Spirit with you, from the day of your Salvation and for all eternity.
Want to help the Holy Spirit?
Fill yourself with the Word Of God! Read the Bible. Abide in Christ and His words (John 15). Decide to walk in The Spirit as much as possible to avoid the sins of The Flesh. And know this: when you blow it, and sin (and you WILL!) know God is there ready to give you a hand up to overcome the sin. Be HONEST with God.. He knows you better than you know yourself and He INDWELLS you as a believer to help change you and renew your mind from the inner man of the Spirit of God, which works outwardly into your life in good works God has prepared for you.
