The cancer, if left untreated will kill me. In the same way, sin left untreated will kill me. What I mean is this. In Romans 8:1 we are told that there is therefore, now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. This is the gospel. We are forgiven and declared righteous in God's sight because of what Christ has done for everyone who believes. By virtue of our union with Christ by the Spirit, through faith we died with Christ to sin. The power of sin over us has been broken because we are in Christ. (This is all in Romans 6). What Paul goes on to tell us in Romans 8 after declaring that we are no longer condemned because we are in Christ is this (vv.12-14):
"So then, brothers, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh. For if you live according to the flesh you will die, but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live. For all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God."
What Paul is saying is that everyone who is united to Christ by faith and thus are no longer condemned because of what Christ has done are also people who do not live according to the "flesh." Flesh here means our fallen, sinful nature. People who profess to believe in Jesus but who live according to the desires of their sinful, fallen nature are not Christians. That is what Paul means when he says that all who live (present tense verb which means this is your habitual way of life) according to the flesh will die. Death here meaning what Paul meant in Romans 6:23 when he said, the "wages of sin is death."
No one is going to heaven on the basis of what you have done or not done. However, everyone who is going to heaven, who is justified and not condemned does not make a habit of following the desires of the remaining sin in them. Rather, every true Christian is seeking, by the power of the indwelling Holy Spirit to put to death their sins, that is to kill their sins. If you are not engaged in this warfare against your sin then you are living according to the sinful nature and thus you will die. As Paul says in v. 14, "All who are led by the Spirit of God are children of God." To be led by the Spirit is the same thing as saying that we are, by the Spirit, putting to death the deeds of the body, that is the sins we commit with our body as the result of sinful desires. All who are killing their sins by the Spirit are the children of God. These two things always go together.
One of the chief ways that God assists us in our fight against our sins, in our Holy Spirit enabled work of killing our sins, is to send suffering. That is the point of the passage in Hebrews 12 which we looked at before. We were told in that passage that the reason God disciplines his children, that is, sends trouble of all kinds to them, is so that we will share his holiness. Holiness meaning that we will love and treasure God and his ways more and love our sin less. Thus, just as chemo-therapy, which in my case is not pleasant, is killing the cancer in me, so God sends trouble to kill the sin in me. I do not like chemo-therapy but gladly accept it because it is killing cancer in me. I do not like the fact that my oldest son has a traumatic brain injury nor that I have cancer but I am glad for these troubles because I know that by them God is killing the sin in me.
1 comment:
Thank you for you post...My mother is going thru a her first round of chemo and I was thinking about the same metaphor as you posted. So between GOD and google I found your words.
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