Free From the Penalty, Power and Presence of Sin
I was thinking this past week about the whole issue of sin — quite a depressing subject, generally speaking. Sin is the cause of my ageing body which I feel every day more and more in my aching shoulders and arms. Sin is the cause of my flesh tendencies and temptations that I have to resist every day in the power of Christ. Sin is the reason I want to beat myself up after frequent failings as a father or a husband. Sin is the reason my unnecessary self-protection prevents me from exploring new possibilities and from taking risks. I could go on, but suffice to say that sin has a huge effect on us in ways so common and usual, that we don't even recognize it for what it is. I only point this out to create the context for the good news I want to convey.
Even after humanity plunged itself into sin, God in His foreknowledge, devised a marvellous plan to rescue us from this predicament of sin that we were now trapped in.
His plan to conquer sin was primarily threefold.
At the Cross, Jesus paid the PENALTY of sin. The just requirement of God was that blood had to be shed to atone for sin. So Jesus, the pure Lamb of God took our place, paying on our behalf the full penalty of our sin. As a result, there is no punishment for sin anymore. There are natural consequences of sin, but no more punishment. Isn't that marvellous?!
At Pentecost, God gave us His Holy Spirit to dwell in us, enabling us to conquer the POWER of sin. To defeat the debilitating effects of sin on our inner personhood, God gave us His own Spirit to live in us, Who enables us to conquer our temptations, our flesh desires, our flesh propensities. The Holy Spirit in us also empowers us to grow into all that we desire to be, overcoming negative thought patterns, negative behaviour patterns, the effects of past debilitating experiences. It results in a life of anticipation, hope and promise, all because of the person of the Holy Spirit.
God's plan to rescue us from sin will occur when we are raptured to be with the Lord or when we physically die. God then frees us from the PRESENCE of sin. The older I become, the more I'm looking forward to shedding this earth-suit I live in. It hasn't worked properly for forty-seven years, and the little bit of mileage left that I'm trying to squeeze out of it is becoming more difficult each day. This suit I live in carries the remnant of sin still in me, so it needs to die.
That's when I'll be given a brand new body — one that is strong, one that works perfectly, that is completely free from sin and all its effects.
If you are a believer today, you have been set free from the PENALTY of sin. It's a settled issue, past tense, once for all time. Enjoy it to its fullest, and learn to live in that freedom.
That also means that you, like all of us, are ever-growing and learning to appropriate the truth that the POWER of sin has been broken. Now we learn to rely on the Holy Spirit in us to do what we could never do without Him. It's a journey, not always easy, but one where the outcome is a given win.
And maybe you're like me, longing for the day you'll be free from the PRESENCE of sin; the day you’ll shed your sin-infested earth-suit, trading it for a strong, incorruptible body that will never let you down and never grow old.