Over the years I have come to realize that many Christians
do not truly understand what it means to become a Christian or as Jesus put it,
to be born again. Since many do not understand this scriptural principle, it
has an adverse affect on how we view evangelism and church outreach. Cultural
Christianity often does not align with biblical Christianity. Many want a
religion that will enrich their lives but without interfering with their lives.
Biblical Christianity is quite different. Jesus taught a hard doctrine when He
told His followers that unless they forsake their lives they cannot be His
disciples[1].
Christianity is not taking your life and fixing it up or making it better, but
laying down your life in the flesh to take up a new life born through the
Spirit. There is a transformation that takes place, not merely a renovation.
Look at Jesus’ teaching from John 3:
3 Jesus answered and said
unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born again, he
cannot see the
…
6 That which is born of the
flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. 7 Marvel not that I said unto
thee, Ye must be born again.
Jesus also said that finding the
Throughout scripture we are told that the old life in the
flesh is dead spiritually and destined for condemnation. What the unbeliever
does not yet realize is that Jesus condemned sin in the flesh by taking
judgment upon Himself so that we could be redeemed from our old nature of sin.
Look at how the Bible explains this in Romans
3:23-26
23 For all have sinned, and
come short of the glory of God; 24
Being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ
Jesus: 25 Whom God hath set
forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood, to declare his
righteousness for the remission of sins that are past, through the forbearance
of God; 26 To declare, I
say, at this time his righteousness: that he might be just, and the
justifier of him which believeth in Jesus.
There are a few things we should take special note of in this passage. First, all have sinned – no one is excluded. Some mock at the idea that we were born with a sin nature, but anyone who has children should recognize this truth by personal experience. I did not have to teach my children how to have fits, stomp, hit, back talk, act selfishly and any number of other things kids naturally do. The Bible accurately says that foolishness is bound up in the heart of a child and must be driven out[3]. I don’t have to teach my kids how to misbehave; I have to take action to conform them to an acceptable standard of behavior. All have sinned from the age where we can communicate and will struggle with sin in the flesh until this life is over.
Even those who learn how to outwardly curb their behavior are still guilty of sin. Jesus often confronted very religious people who thought that keeping rules, regulations and participating in religious practices made them righteous. He taught that sin comes out of the heart[4]. The outward expression of sin is only the symptom of what has been cultivating in the heart long before the action came to fruition. To even look at a woman and lust in our heart is adultery – even if the physical act never occurs. The scriptures teach that to hate is equal to murder, to covet is idolatry and thievery, rebellion is equal to witchcraft, and the list goes on and on. When God identified the seven things that He counts as an abomination in Proverbs, pride was the first thing on the list[5]. Is there anyone who has not struggled with pride?
Sin separates us from God for the Bible states that two cannot walk together unless they agree. Since the commandments of God serve to conform us to God’s own character and nature, we should see that the statutes of God serve to draw us into a closer relationship with our own Creator. We cannot love God and love what God hates. We cannot cling to what God hates and expect to walk with God. Christianity is a restoration to our intended purpose – to have a personal, intimate relationship with the God who created us. Therefore, sin is anything that calls us to depart from the Lord to serve our flesh.
When people say things like, “I really should stop doing such and such…”, what they are really saying is that they recognize that their actions are wrong, but they love the sin and are not yet willing to let go. By nature we seek to find ways to justify our actions and the flesh finds comfort by mixing religion with a self-centered life. Religion can bring a false sense of comfort because it gives mankind a sense of self-righteousness. Jesus addressed this attitude when He warned the Pharisees that even though they justified themselves through their religion, their lives were still an abomination before God[6].
Even if we resist temptation, if our heart is drawn to sin
we are in a losing battle. We will be miserable if we are trying to live in the
flesh and resist what our flesh craves. This is why many get frustrated and
give up on living godly lives. It can seem like freedom to let go of mere
religion and to cast off restraint. The Bible tells us that where there is no
revelation from God, the people cast off restraint[7].
Godliness cannot be lived out by human effort. Until there is a transformation
(or new birth in Christ), the heart has not changed, the affections of our
lives are still fueled by the flesh, and our love for the things of God will
not be present. There is a reason why people have such a hard time living by a
godly standard. Look at this passage from Romans 8:5-8
5 For they that are after
the flesh do mind the things of the flesh; but they that are after the Spirit
the things of the Spirit. 6
For to be carnally minded is death; but to be spiritually minded is life
and peace. 7 Because the
carnal mind is enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law of
God, neither indeed can be. 8
So then they that are in the flesh cannot please God.
The unredeemed man or woman has no power to be spiritually
minded. Anyone living according to the flesh (carnal mindedness) either has not
experienced the new birth in Christ or they have submitted themselves to the
flesh again. Notice the firm point that the scripture is making in this passage
– those who are not redeemed or are in the flesh cannot please God. Good works,
good deeds and religious practices do not change this. The flesh cannot be
subject to God but is at war with the Spirit of God. In a moment we will look
at how this changes, but realize that if your mind is only on the selfish works
of the flesh, this may be a strong warning that something is still missing in
your life. Those who live in the flesh will mind the things of the flesh. Even
though the unbeliever may try to live right, it will be drudgery and there will
be little joy in the things of God. We cannot expect someone to clean up their
lives when there is no change from the heart. The Bible compares this to taking
a swine out of the mire. You can take him out of the mire and wash him, but the
swine’s heart will remain in the mire and sooner or later he will return to it.
Compare this to the delight the godly man or woman finds in the commands of
God. Look at Psalm 1:1-3
Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly,
nor standeth in the way of sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of the
scornful. 2 But his delight is
in the law of the LORD; and in his law doth he meditate day and night. 3 And he shall be like a tree
planted by the rivers of water, that bringeth forth his fruit in his season;
his leaf also shall not wither; and whatsoever he doeth shall prosper.
This is quite a different
scenario. Not only does the godly man not walk in the sinful ways of the world,
but he delights in the law of the Lord. King David testified of this in his own
life in Psalm 119:34-35
34 Give me understanding, and I shall keep thy law; yea, I shall observe it with my whole heart. 35 Make me to go in the path of thy commandments; for therein do I delight.
When the Spirit of God reigns in your heart, you will walk in the Spirit and you will also have a change of heart. You will not love sin but will instead delight in the things of God. We as Christians do not live godly only because of a sense of obligation; it is a joy to walk with our Lord. Walking in God’s commandments is a delight. We are not resisting the sin we desire; we are pursuing the commandments that bring delight and joy to our heart. This is incomprehensible to the world because until our eyes are opened through our new life in Christ, we cannot see the value and pleasure that comes from walking in the Spirit.
I heard an excellent illustration of this some time ago. In
the past, man considered the ocean to be ‘the silent deep’. When a man puts his
head under water, he hears very little if anything; therefore he concluded that
there was no sound in the deep ocean. When man developed tools that allowed him
to monitor sound below the water’s surface, he found that the human ear cannot
detect the sounds that fill the oceans. His conclusion was logical based on his
experiment, but his assumptions were still wrong. In the same sense, mankind is
unable to see, hear or experience the truth of God’s Spirit and the reality
of what the Christian life sees all
around him because of his inability to detect the spiritual world with his
flesh. 1 Corinthians 2:14 explains:
But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they
are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are
spiritually discerned.
Without this spiritual discernment, it is not possible to see or understand the things of God. How many times have you heard someone say that they don’t want Christianity because it is a bunch of do’s and don’ts? Why does the Christian delight in God’s law? Because there is a love relationship with our Creator and we realize that drawing closer to God is the most fulfilling thing anyone can experience in this life. The Bible says that the word of God is a light to our feet and a lamp for our path. Through the word we see where we want to go and discover everything we need to get there. This is the difference between the one who forces himself to do what is right and the one who seeks the right way. One is trying to make himself go where he does not want to go and the other delights in the instructions that guide him into the way that he does indeed want to go.
So when we see the warning that all have sinned and fallen short, we also see the gift of our redemption found in Christ Jesus. Romans 3 tells us that God remained just while justifying us. This is very significant. You may have heard people ask questions like, “Why doesn’t God just do away with all sin and take us all to heaven?” Why would we expect God to do something that even we recognize as an injustice? What is the public’s reaction when a judge violates justice by letting an offender go free? If someone commits a vile crime and gets off on a technicality, what is our reaction? Many times over the years I have seen stories where a judge threw out cases or gave someone an unwarranted lenient sentence. When this happens, people demand for the judge’s dismissal and sometimes a riot ensues. If we react this way, how can we ask God to be unjust in upholding His own law? God’s consistent justice also reveals to us the amazing love of God. Look at Acts 20:
28 Take heed therefore unto
yourselves, and to all the flock, over the which the Holy Ghost hath made you
overseers, to feed the
The sacrifice of the cross was the revealed love of God. God
remained just by upholding the law. We were offenders and the law demanded
justice; therefore, Jesus became our propitiation by standing in our place and
taking the penalty of our sin in His own body. Justice was satisfied through
condemnation and judgment, but we were justified or declared to be just under
the law without paying our own debt to sin. We, by faith, believe God and are
credited with God’s own righteousness because Jesus was credited and judged for
our sins. This is also explained in 2
Corinthians 5:
21 For he hath made him to
be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of
God in him.
The Bible also tells us that all of our righteous acts are
filthy rags in God’s sight[8]
and that the sacrifices made by the sinful man are still an abomination to the
Lord[9].
God does not desire your righteousness because what you do for God has little
value. We have already read that those who are in the flesh cannot please God.
If your life in the flesh cannot please God, how can you do anything that
pleases God? You can’t. All good things come from God and nothing outside of
God is good. Consider Romans 7:
18 For 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.
This was written by the Apostle Paul. The man who wrote two-thirds of the New Testament and had many evidences of God’s power in his own life stated, “in me no good thing dwells”. This is true for every man, woman, and child. You do not have the power to produce good. The world may call our works good, but nothing produced by man is righteous before a holy God. Instead, the goodness of God is given to us through Jesus Christ. We are merely giving back to God what God has produced through our lives when we have yielded ourselves to Him. We will look at this in detail when we examine the biblical principle of works. For now you must realize that righteousness and goodness comes from God and is given to us by faith.
Let me take a moment to talk a little about faith. Understanding faith is critical to becoming a Christian and living the Christian life. Faith is not a complicated concept but there is much to learn. I will hit on this topic several times throughout this study including a section dedicated to understanding faith. Since faith applies to every area of the Christian life, I will be discussing it all along the way.
When you boil all the doctrine about faith down to its core,
faith is simply believing God and trusting Him. Faith isn’t just believing, but
a trust based on that belief. An illustration of this that comes to mind was
the daredevil Charles Blondin. In 1859 he became the first person to cross the
The same is true when it comes to trusting Christ. Many say that they believe, but faith without works (or action) is dead according to the scriptures[10]. To say, “I believe that Jesus died for my sins” is not faith. Putting your trust in His completed work is faith and the evidence for that faith is laying down your life in surrender as you trust in God to create a new life that has eternal significance and value. Letting go of your life in this world is an act of faith. Some have claimed that this is works, but this is not so. Let me illustrate this by a real life example from my own children.
When my oldest daughter was about four years old, we spent
an afternoon at a river. In the area where we were picnicking the river was
very wide but fairly shallow. In the middle of the river there was an island
that I waded to with my father. My daughter called from the shore saying she
wanted to come to the island with us. I waded back to shore and took her by the
hand, but when I did, she reached back and grabbed a branch on the shore and
held on tight. I said, “If you want to come, you have to let go of the branch”.
She replied, “If I do, I will sink.” I explained to her that there were safe
rocks for her to step on and even though she could not see them, I would guide
her feet to them. I also explained that if she did miss one, I had her by the
hand and would not let her sink. She could not hold on to the shore and go with
me to the island. She was afraid, but she also wanted to go – so she let go.
Very timidly she stepped where I directed her and as we went, her confidence
grew and soon she was reaching out for each step. This is exactly what God has
promised us in Psalm 37:23-24
23 The steps of a good man
are ordered by the LORD: and he delighteth in his way. 24 Though he fall, he shall not be
utterly cast down: for the LORD upholdeth him with his hand.
This is how faith works. God reveals to us His gift of
salvation and our new life in Christ as He stirs in our hearts to surrender to
Him. We often resist because we want to be in control of our own lives and do
not understand how much God delights in guiding our way to His amazing promises.
When we surrender by faith, we put our trust in our Savior and let go of our
old life. We have not earned our salvation nor have we merited anything. In
fact, the only human effort in the whole process is when we are trying to hold
on to our old life. There is no work involved in letting go. When we believe
God’s promise of eternal life, we stop resisting, and we put our trust in the
Lord. Romans 5 states the following:
1 Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ: 2 By whom also we have access by faith into this grace wherein we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God.
We believe God and by faith we receive the gift of
salvation. The scriptures teach that faith comes by hearing the word of God[11]
and the message preached from the word calls us to salvation[12].
When we hear the gospel, we are drawn by the Spirit of God and if we believe
and put our trust in Jesus Christ, we receive our new eternal life and inherit
the promises of God. Consider the words of Jesus in this passage from John 5:
24 Verily, verily, I say
unto you, He that heareth my word, and believeth on him that sent me, hath
everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation; but is passed from
death unto life.
Notice that Jesus is not
saying that He will enrich your old life, but there is a transformation that
occurs – you are passing from death to life. We are not divorcing the world; we
are dying to the world and our old sins. Romans chapter seven has a wonderful
explanation of this. This passage explains that the law has dominion over us as
long as we live. Since we have violated the law through sin, we are under
inescapable condemnation as long as our life is in the flesh. This scripture
uses the illustration of marriage by explaining that a woman is bound by the
law to her husband as long as he lives. If she runs off with another man she
would be an adulteress; however, if her husband dies, the law that bound her is
released and she is free to marry another.
The same is true for each
person. Through sin, we are bound by the law to the condemnation of our old
life (which is united to sin) and we will be judged for our sins unless we die
and become a new creation. Look at the rest of this explanation in Romans
7:4-6
4 Wherefore, my brethren,
ye also are become dead to the law by the body of Christ; that ye should be
married to another, even to him who is raised from the dead, that we
should bring forth fruit unto God. 5
For when we were in the flesh, the motions of sins, which were by the law, did
work in our members to bring forth fruit unto death. 6 But now we are delivered from
the law, that being dead wherein we were held; that we should serve in newness
of spirit, and not in the oldness of the letter.
Hopefully it is becoming
clear why works alone cannot save anyone. The oldness of the letter is
referring to the law of condemnation and the sins that are written against us.
When we turn to Christ, all of the offenses written against us are taken out of
the way and applied to the cross of Jesus’ crucifixion[13]. It
does no good to add trophies to our life of condemnation; we must die to this
world and be raised as a new creation. This is why the Bible says that we are
buried with Christ through baptism and raised as a new creation[14].
Baptism is the burial of our old sinful life and a resurrection of a spiritual
new man. It is through the death of the old man through the cross that our sins
are removed. This is explained further in Colossians 2:11-15
11 In whom also ye are
circumcised with the circumcision made without hands, in putting off the body
of the sins of the flesh by the circumcision of Christ: 12 Buried with him in baptism,
wherein also ye are risen with him through the faith of the operation of
God, who hath raised him from the dead. 13
And you, being dead in your sins and the uncircumcision of your flesh, hath he
quickened together with him, having forgiven you all trespasses; 14 Blotting out the handwriting of
ordinances that was against us, which was contrary to us, and took it out of
the way, nailing it to his cross; 15
And having spoiled principalities and powers, he made a shew of them
openly, triumphing over them in it.
This passage communicates
a lot of information. Consider the concept of circumcision. The Old Testament
mandate of circumcision was to cut away the flesh so that the new child could
be a partaker of the promise. Any who were not circumcised were cut off from
God’s people and His promises. This was a symbolic ordinance that pointed to a
New Testament principle that would one day be fulfilled through Christ. Just as
each male had to have this flesh removed to join the covenant of the Law, each
person born again must have the flesh removed from their heart so they can
inherit the New Covenant of salvation through Christ. In both the Old and New
Testaments God stated that true circumcision is that of the heart[15].
This is what the death of the old man is all about. Our sinful heart of flesh
is removed and a spiritual man is born. Then our sins are taken out of the way
because our old man was crucified with Christ. Jesus states that He calls us
out of the world and we no longer belong to the world[16]. We
leave the world and its fleshly desires behind as we pass from death to life.
When we lay down our life in faith, the Spirit of God regenerates us into a new
creation. Look at Titus 3:4-7
4 But after that the
kindness and love of God our Saviour toward man appeared, 5 Not by works of righteousness
which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us, by the washing of
regeneration, and renewing of the Holy Ghost;
6 Which he shed on us abundantly through Jesus Christ our
Saviour; 7 That being
justified by his grace, we should be made heirs according to the hope of
eternal life.
Also look at this passage
from 2 Corinthians 5:17-18
17 Therefore if any man be
in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold,
all things are become new. 18
And all things are of God, who hath reconciled us to himself by Jesus
Christ, and hath given to us the ministry of reconciliation;
We can see that the Bible
is very detailed on the subject of redemption. We enter into new life as our
old life of sin passes away. We put to death the old nature and become a new
creation through faith in Christ. If you do not have a new life in Christ, the
Bible promises that any who receive Him and call upon His name will be given the
right to become a child of God[17]. The
scriptures instruct us to believe on Jesus Christ, recognize our need for
redemption from sin[18],
confess Him as Lord[19], let
Him put to death our old life of sin[20], and
call on the name of the Lord through baptism[21] to fulfill
all righteousness[22].
The Lord alone must draw
us to Christ[23] and He
does this through the preaching of the word of God[24].
When we preach the word, God will draw those He is calling to salvation. When
anyone feels the calling of God, it is important for them to understand that
they cannot choose when to be saved. We must respond to the calling or risk
falling under the condemnation of those who suppressed the truth God revealed
to them[25].
The Lord has redeemed us by His own sacrifice for He has taken upon Himself the judgment of our sins and gives new life in Christ to all who respond to His call. No sin can keep us from God for all things have passed away and all things have become new when we receive His amazing grace.
Eddie Snipes
Exchanged Life Outreach
[1] Luke 14:26-28
[2] Matthew 13:44-45
[3] Proverbs 22:15
[4] Matthew 15:19
[5] Proverbs 6:16-19; Proverbs 21:4
[6] Luke 16:15
[7] Proverbs 29:18
[8] Isaiah 64:6
[9] Proverbs 15:8
[10] James 2:17-20
[11] Romans 10:17
[12] 1 Corinthians 1:21
[13] Colossians 2:12-14
[14] Romans 6:4
[15] Jeremiah 4:4; Romans 2:29
[16] John 15:19
[17] John 1:12
[18] Romans 5:6
[19] Romans 10:9
[20] Romans 6:6
[21] Acts 22:16
[22] Matthew 3:15
[23] John 6:44
[24] 1 Corinthians 1:21
[25] Romans 1:18-19
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