Imagine yourself in a small town, and Christ Himself began to preach in the town square. His message would be the same: “Repent, for the Kingdom of heaven is at hand.”
Now some in the crowd would think that they would need to quit drinking beer on Friday night and go to church with their girlfriend Sunday morning. Some would take his short message to mean that they must straighten up. And some would take the word “repent” a little deeper to mean stop lying and cheating and doing bad things.
The latter is a step in the right direction, but it goes much deeper–way down into the selfish heart of the hearer of Christ’s command, “Repent.” Repent from what? Repent from sin. But it is difficult to repent from sin when there are so many different definitions of it. What does the Bible say?
Sin Defined
What is sin? Sin is the breaking of the law. Whosoever committeth sin transgresseth also the law: for sin is the transgression of the law. I John 3:4. “But which law?” someone will ask. There are hundreds of laws in the Bible and hundreds more made by man. Which law is John talking about? It is the Ten Commandments. How can we be sure? Paul clears up the matter irrefutably. I had not known sin, but by the law: for I had not known lust, except the law had said, Thou shalt not covet. Romans 7:7. “Thou shalt not covet” is one of the Ten Commandments. Coveting or desiring your neighbor’s possessions is prohibited in the Ten Commandments, given to Moses on Mt. Sinai. Therefore, sin is breaking one of the Ten Commandments.
And we have all broken them. “All have sinned and have come short of the glory of God.” Our old carnal fleshly nature is corrupt and sinful and depraved. A person cannot please God if they are led around by its selfish ways. Paul flashes back to this sordid state in Romans 7, letting the reader know that someone out there does understand what it means to be a slave to the sinful nature. When we were in the flesh…You mean when you were in that old carnal nature? You mean, Paul, that you are not now in the flesh? …the motions of sins, which were by the law, did work in our members to bring forth fruit unto death. Romans 7:5. For when we were controlled by the sinful nature, the sinful passions aroused by the law were at work in our bodies, so that we bore fruit for death. Romans 7:5, NIV. He goes on in that chapter to relate the utter confusion and frustration that a sinner feels when they want to do good, but the sin within them prevents them from being the righteous person they really desire to be.
Preachers for ages have erroneously taught that Paul was talking about his sinful present state at the time of the writing of the letter to the Romans. No! The apostle Paul had seen the risen Savior, had been on at least two missionary journeys over the space of twenty-four years, had written much of the New Testament, had raised the dead, healed the sick, and cleansed the lepers—no, we had better get this right—Paul in Romans 7 was not speaking about himself in 57 A.D! He was flashing back to that time when he was a slave to sin. He was sharing in the sinner’s sad plight, with great empathy. He was feeling a sinner’s seemingly hopeless condition without the Savior. He is explaining in Romans 7:14-24 just how hellish it was to be in the bondage to sin. He has flashed back and writes in the present tense for the reader to feel the immediacy of the horrendous bondage the sinner is in. He mentions what it was like being in bondage to sin, a slave to sin and sinning twenty-four years earlier. The thing that he hates to do (sin) is the thing he does. In this sinful state he has no power in and of himself to stop sinning, even though he knows that it is wrong and wants to stop it. That is bondage; that is a slave to the sinful nature.
But just before Paul’s description of a sinner caught in the bondage to sin, he contrasts two states of being. 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. But now we are delivered from the law…Romans 7:5-6. He contrasts the two states. “When we were” in bondage to sin, and “now we are delivered”—these are the two contrasting conditions of a human being. One is before the Spirit of God comes into a life, and the other is after.
Somebody wants to tell me, “My pastor has never taught this.” And I’ll say to them, “Look, I’m just teaching what Paul taught. That is my job. Welcome aboard.”
Our Old Nature Must Die on the Cross
So how does one get out of the bondage of sin and sinning? How do we deal with this sin problem in our lives? The scriptures say that “He shall save His people from their sins.” How does this happen? Can we ever get in a “right” state with God? What must we do? There is only one thing to do with the carnal sinful self and that is to confess our depraved state, identify it with Christ on the cross, and let it die with Him, our sin sacrifice. There is only one way for sin to be destroyed; it must be crucified. But we cannot really do anything to bring this on. It is a total work of God that has already been done—at the cross. We cannot do anything to deserve this wonderful deliverance from this death caused by sin and sinning. All He wants us to do is believe what He has already done to deliver us from the bondage of sin.
First, we must know this one thing: our old man, our old ego, our old self, our old nature, our old heart, our old carnal nature, the flesh, the depraved body of sin within us—it is put to death with the sacrificial Lamb. 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. Romans 6:6.
This death is not a physical death, but it is a spiritual death. Paul did not say that our old sinful nature was going to be taken care of some day when we all get to heaven. No! He said that it is dead, already put to death on the cross! That is not a misprint or a mistranslation. The sacrificial Lamb of God took our sins upon Him at the time of His death. He was our scapegoat, as when the Levitical priest laid hands on the goat transferring the sins of the people onto it. Christ died as a sinful lost man that day, for He “was made to be sin for us, who knew no sin that we may be made the righteousness of God in Him” (II Cor. 5:21).
He wants us to believe this—that our sinful nature died with Him on the cross, and that we were buried with Him, and that we were raised up with Him as well. For if we have been planted together in the likeness of his death, we shall be also in the likeness of his resurrection. Romans 6:5.
Is this hard for us to believe? Is it hard to have faith in this teaching? Yet the elect will believe this word. The others will fall as the children of Israel did through unbelief. For you see that God is not asking us to do anything except believe what He has already done for us. He first believed in His work in us long before we got here on this earth.
Repentance from sin is the first of Christ’s teachings/doctrines. It is the foundation upon which the rest of His teachings are laid. His sons and daughters will humble themselves and make the sacrifice.
To read much more on this topic, click here: Ebook: The Unveiling | Immortality Road (wordpress.com) .
{This is an excerpt from my book The Unveiling of the Sons of God. Order a copy; it is totally free with free shipping to my readers. Just send your mailing address to my email: wayneman5@hotmail.com Include your name and the title of the book.}
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