He fulfilled the Law and then "set it aside for a new agreement" Hebrews 8: That New Covenant in His blood is a promise that those who "kiss the Son" through faith have the full pleasure of God.
The Old Covenant law – the knowledge of sin
The Law and its observance became obsolete and abandoned through the destruction of the Temple in A. I rest in the fact that God's love for me is freely and forever mine through my faith in Jesus Christ. Free from the Law—oh, happy condition! Jesus hath bled, and there is remission; Cursed by the law and bruised by the fall, Christ hath redeemed us once for all.
So, with all that said, what is "sin" as a Christian? How do I "define it" or how do I "describe it? For example, you rarely hear a message on the sin of "eating-too-much" or "speaking-too-much" or "thinking-too-much-of -yourself" because those are the things preachers do! But it's sure easy to speak against "homosexuality" and "adultery" and "gambling" and "drinking" because those are things that preachers don't do!
The problem is the creation of a list. The Law of Israel is gone - fulfilled in Christ.
A shadow of things to come
The lists change according to the denomination and the preacher-in-charge like the one to whom I was listening , but the lists are there. I propose that as a New Covenant believer in Jesus Christ, I may frame my understanding and description of "sin" around the things which "abide" or "continue on" in the New Covenant era i.
Those three things which abide in this age are "faith, hope and love, but the greatest of these is love" I Corinthians If I think that by my activity I earn the favor and blessings of God i. Faith leads me to believe that God's favor rests on me because of my trust in "the righteousness of His Son" and not because of my obedience to "any Law" Philippians 3: Whatever is not of faith that the blessings of God secured for you through the obedience of Jesus Christ is sin. The hope of these believers in Collosae was everlasting happiness because of the inheritance reserved for them as co-heirs with Jesus Christ see Titus 2: This is why they kept "their minds on things above, and not on the things of this earth" Colossians 3: But thanks be to God that, though you used to be slaves to sin, you wholeheartedly obeyed the form of teaching to which you were entrusted.
We used to be slaves to sin. We are not slaves to sin now. This indicates that Romans 7: The current stance in so many cases is that God does not expect us to obey the commandments given by Christ and His Apostles. They are present in the New Testament only to show us our need of a Savior. How do we escape bondage to sin and become slaves to righteousness?
Certainly not by claiming it does not matter whether we sin because under the new covenant God does not recognize we are sinning. This is what is taught currently. We escape bondage to sin and become slaves to righteousness by the power of the Spirit of God. As we live in the Spirit He gives us the wisdom and power grace to overcome sin.
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So I say, live by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the sinful nature. I put this in human terms because you are weak in your natural selves. Just as you used to offer the parts of your body in slavery to impurity and to ever-increasing wickedness, so now offer them in slavery to righteousness leading to holiness.
Which of the two interpretations of Romans 7: Is it saying we are doomed to be in slavery to our sinful nature, or is it inviting us to live in slavery to righteousness? The last verse in the sixth chapter of Romans, a verse often preached to the unsaved but has little to do with the unsaved, tells us that as Christians if we choose to be the slave of God and righteousness we will gain eternal life; but if we choose to be the slave of sin, spiritual death will be our wages. But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves to God, the benefit you reap leads to holiness, and the result is eternal life.
The gift of eternal life is actually the gift of the opportunity to attain life by choosing to be the slave of righteousness. This the unsaved cannot possibly do, and so Romans 6: The subject of the present brief essay is the manner in which we are to deal with sin under the new covenant. In order to explain how we are to deal with sin we first had to provide the scriptural background for our position as people under the new covenant.
Lesson 11: Defining Sin in the New Covenant
We are not doomed to keep sinning. This is not the way of the new covenant. Rather the new covenant, unlike the Law of Moses, provides not only the forgiveness of our sins but also the breaking of the chains of sin that reside in our sinful nature. There are two issues here.
First, precisely what is sin under the new covenant? How is sin defined? Second, how do we obtain release from the sins dwelling in our personality? Sin under the new covenant is defined as "the works of the flesh. The acts of the sinful nature are obvious: I warn you, as I did before, that those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God.
We know immorality is sinful. We know strife and rage are sinful. We know drunkenness and witchcraft are sinful. There is no question. These behaviors are sin. Nor should there be obscenity, foolish talk or coarse joking, which are out of place, but rather thanksgiving. For of this you can be sure: No immoral, impure or greedy person—such a man is an idolater—has any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God. Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts.
Even their women exchanged natural relations for unnatural ones. In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed indecent acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their perversion. Furthermore, since they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, he gave them over to a depraved mind, to do what ought not to be done.
They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity.
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They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice. They are gossips, slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil; they disobey their parents; They are senseless, faithless, heartless, ruthless. The above definitions of sin sound like America of today. In fact, many of these behaviors are found in the churches, such as gossip and slander.
There is a difference between the covenants. The old covenant is very specific in its list of behaviors that are sinful. Obey the Law of Moses and you will live. The new covenant does not work like this. The purpose of the definition of sin given to us by Christ and His Apostles in the New Testament is to guide us to righteous behavior. But the real law of the new covenant is the Holy Spirit Himself.
We are to follow the Spirit every day. As we do He brings to our attention some aspect of our behavior that is not pleasing to God. It may be in the area of worldliness, or the lusts and passions of the flesh, or our self-will. When we are made aware of our displeasing behavior we are to confess it as sin. When we confess our sin we do not just recite it, we vigorously denounce and resist it, naming it clearly as sin with the idea that never again by God's help will we practice such behavior again.
Then we are to draw near to God and resist the devil. As with the guidance of the Holy Spirit we confess and denounce our sins, turning away from them, we find God is actually forgiving our sins and cleansing our personality. We read in the New Testament that not bringing forth the fruit of righteousness in our life will result in our being cut off from Christ. Not abiding in Christ is a grievous sin under the new covenant. Five of the virgins were denied entrance to the Kingdom because they did not keep full of the Life of Christ.
Not keeping full of the Life of Christ is a grievous sin under the new covenant. The man with one talent was deprived of his talent and cast into outer darkness. The Lord refers to him as a wicked, lazy slave.
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So we see that not using the abilities given to us so God's Kingdom is built up is a dreadful sin and the result is catastrophic. We have been commanded to present our body a living sacrifice to God. To not do so is a great sin. We have been commanded to deny ourselves, to take up our cross, and to follow Jesus. To not do so is a great sin and will have disastrous consequences. In other words, our righteousness must greatly exceed the righteousness of the Pharisees if we expect to enter the Kingdom of God.
The law of the Spirit of Life is infinitely stricter than the Law of Moses. But unlike the Law of Moses we have been given marvelous grace. We have the atoning blood of Christ to keep us without condemnation as we follow the Spirit of God. We have the body and blood of Christ to strengthen our personality. We have the born-again experience, meaning that incorruptible Divine Life has been born within us. We have been crucified with Christ, resurrected with Christ, and now are at the right hand of God in Heaven. We have the wisdom and power of the Holy Spirit to enable us to bear witness of the atoning death and triumphant resurrection of Christ, to enable us to build up ourselves and others to maturity as measured by the stature of the fullness of Christ, and to furnish us with the ability to overcome every sin.
In addition we can come boldly through the veil until we are before the Mercy Seat in Heaven, there to request help from God as we seek to overcome the world, our flesh, and our self-will. Sin is much of what we do when we choose to walk in our sinful nature rather than in the Spirit of God. How does God deal with sin under the new covenant?
He forgives the past sins of the new Christian on the basis of the blood atonement made by the Lord Jesus Christ on the cross of Calvary. If we as a young Christian, or even a Christian of many years, choose to keep on living in our sinful nature we will slay the Divine Seed that has been planted in us, as in the parable of the sower. In the day of resurrection we will inherit corruption and death. We will not receive a redeemed body. Our fate may be the outer darkness or even the Lake of Fire. Or we may pass through terrible fires that will save us into the Kingdom.
If we choose to live in the Spirit of God He will lead us against the sins of our personality. Just as the Israelites conquered the Canaanites one city at a time, as the Spirit of the Lord led them, so it is true that the Spirit of God leads us one city at a time against the worldliness, lust, and self-will in our personality. If we as a Christian choose to live in the flesh we will die spiritually. We will slay our own resurrection. If we as a Christian choose to live in the Spirit of God we will be enabled increasingly to break the chains of sin that bind us and to keep the commandments of Christ and His Apostles.
As we keep the commandments of Christ and His Apostles, continuing to observe all necessary Christian activities such as gathering on a regular basis with fervent believers as possible , praying continually, meditating each day in the Scriptures, giving of our substance, seeking the gifts of the Spirit and ministering to the members of the Body, exhorting our fellow believers to walk in the path of righteousness, always singing and making melody in our heart to the Lord—as we do these necessary things Christ will be formed in us.
Christ formed in us is the new covenant. Christ Himself is the new covenant. The forming of Christ in us is the highest covenant of all. There never will be a Divine covenant given to man that is superior to that of Christ formed in us. As Christ is formed in us we become a covenant of God with saved mankind. The saved nations of the earth will come up to the new Jerusalem, the glorified Christian Church, to be blessed; to receive the Divine Life of the Holy Spirit; to learn the righteous ways of the Lord.
In this manner Christ in us becomes a covenant of God with the peoples of the earth. We see now how God deals with sin under the new covenant. He forgives us, and then furnishes us with every Divine grace to make it possible for us to grow in the knowledge of good and evil and in the strength and wisdom to embrace the good and to renounce and totally resist and reject the evil. God conceives Christ in us, ministers to us by the Holy Spirit and by the members of the Body of Christ until Christ comes to maturity in us, and then comes Himself with Christ and dwells in us for eternity.
Christ came to destroy the works of the devil in us. He came also to inhabit us, to make us part of Himself so by nature we would obey the eternal moral laws of God Almighty. So infinitely superior to the Law of Moses that to add any part of the Law to the Divine salvation is to add that which cannot improve but only detract from the operation of redemption. Yet, sometimes some part of the Law is entangled in the faith of a believer. In this case we are not to judge our brother but to live peaceably with him so his faith is not injured.
If he does not eat pork we will not eat pork in his presence while the world stands. Yet under the new covenant eating or not eating pork adds nothing whatever to the work of salvation, nor does circumcision or any other aspect of the old covenant. We have a infinitely better covenant, an infinitely more powerful grace.
Let us not sin against God because we are not under the Law of Moses.