If I'm Dead to Sin, Why Must I Kill it Every Day
A fight we will always have as followers of Christ, is the battle against sin. There is no escaping it till the day we die or when Jesus returns. But why did God, who placed us in Christ and who is capable of removing sin completely from a believers life, still lets us battle against this great foe? Well, Pastor John Piper gives a great answer to this question and more.
The following is from the, ''Ask Pastor John'' section in today's Desiring God website. (By John Piper. © Desiring God Foundation. Source: desiringGod.org). So i take no ownership or right over this message.
The Question posed to Pastor John Piper is as follows:
The following is from the, ''Ask Pastor John'' section in today's Desiring God website. (By John Piper. © Desiring God Foundation. Source: desiringGod.org). So i take no ownership or right over this message.
The Question posed to Pastor John Piper is as follows:
''George in Cologne, Germany writes in: “Pastor John, if a Christian is born anew, and has died to sin, why is sin in the heart so decisive? The same for the flesh? Why must it be killed everyday? My status in Christ, and my daily work, this mortification, seems (and feels!) so contradictory!”This is the answer given:
Yes,
it does. I totally resonate. Let’s try to do two things in answer to George’s
question. First, let’s show from the New Testament what actually happens in the
new birth, especially as it relates to a Christian’s ongoing sinning. And then,
second, let’s see if we can answer, at least partly: Why does God do it this
way? Because that is really the heart of his question. But in order to get to
that, I think we need to start with, What happens in the new creation or the
new birth?
So,
my answer to this first question is: What God creates in the new birth is not a
sinless Christian. What he creates is an embattled, not-yet perfect,
Spirit-empowered, persevering, Christ-treasuring, sin-hating, new being — a new
creation in Christ. And don’t miss those words “embattled” and “sin-hating.”
The new creation in Christ is a fighter. Paul said at the end of his life, “I
have fought the good fight” (2 Timothy 4:7).
And he tells Timothy, “Fight the good fight” (1 Timothy 6:12) — and he
means the fight for holiness and the fight for faith: the good fight of faith.
So, notice these four paradoxical pairs of verses to see how the event of new
birth relates to this ongoing battle:
1)
Here is the first pair: 1 John 3:9,
“No one born of God makes a practice of sinning.” Then, 1 John 1:8, “If we say we
have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.” So, new birth
creates a DNA, as it were, in this person — a divine-like DNA that cannot be
content with ongoing sinning though, in this life, if we say we have no sin, we
have a misunderstanding of how it is working. So, that is the first pair.
2)
Here is the second pair: Romans 6:6,
“We know that our old self was crucified with him in order that the body of sin
might be brought to nothing, so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin.”
Wow. What an event. And then Romans 6:11–12,
“So you also must consider [or reckon] yourselves dead to sin.” Well, why? If
you are dead, you are dead. No. “Reckon yourselves dead to sin and alive to God
in Christ Jesus. Let not sin therefore reign.” This is an imperative. Get about
the business of killing sin, reckoning yourself to be dead to sin, and bringing
yourself under the reign of Christ, not the reign of your mortal body. So, the
indicative statement, “you have died” (see also Romans 7:4) and the
imperative statement, “consider yourself dead and live in the power of it” (2 Corinthians 13:4), that
is the second pair.
3)
Here is a third pair: Colossians 3:3,
“You have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God.” Then Colossians 3:5, “Put to
death therefore what is earthly in you.” So, the death that we died makes a
fighter against what we have died to: “put to death.”
4)
And the last pair is 1 Peter 1:23,
“You have been born again, not of perishable seed but of imperishable, through
the living and abiding word of God.” Then, the second half of the pair is 1 Peter 2:1–2,
“So put away all malice and all deceit and hypocrisy and envy and all slander.
Like newborn infants, long for the pure spiritual milk, that by it you may grow
up into salvation.”
So,
what I infer from those four pairs of verses is that what the new birth, the
new creation brings into being is an embattled, not-yet perfect, Spirit-empowered,
persevering, Christ-treasuring, sin-hating, new being in Christ. The outcome is
guaranteed, but the battle is real.
And
so, the last question is: Why does God do it this way? He has the power to snap
his finger and make us sinless. And we know that he does because he is going to
do that in the twinkling of an eye (1 Corinthians
15:51–52) — at the resurrection or in the moment of death — and we
won’t be made into robots when he does it. He will make us sinless without in
any way making us less human or less free. We will never ever sin again in
heaven. Why doesn’t he do it now? That is the question.
I
think there is at least one clear macro answer to that question and some less
clear micro answers to that question that flow from the macro. The macro answer
is: God does it this way because he intends for the process of sanctification
to maximize the praise of his glory, especially the praise of the glory of his
grace. And I say that because of numerous places where this is the express
intended outcome of sanctification, like Philippians 1:11, where
the outcome is supposed to be that we are “filled with the fruit of
righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ, to the glory and praise of God.”
So, he is going to bring about a fullness of fruits of righteousness because he
means to be praised. That is the design in why he does it the way he does it.
Or, 2 Thessalonians
1:11–12 where the outcome of our sanctification is “so that the name
of our Lord Jesus may be glorified in you, and you in him, according to the
grace of our God and the Lord Jesus Christ.”
So,
whether we can see at the micro level why this is the case, it is clear at the
macro level God has chosen to sanctify us through this painful, slow,
progressive, embattled way because it glorifies Christ and the grace of God
more than if he snapped his finger and made us perfect and sinless at the point
of new birth. Now, are there any micro, sub-reasons that we can see that might
explain why that is the case? And I will just mention three:
1)
Through this slow, painful, embattled process, we are reminded — John Piper is
reminded — every day how dreadfully depraved and sinful and helpless I am and
would be if left to myself. And so, God intends for me to know this, to feel this
by my constant need for warfare to overcome my bent to sinning.
2)
Flowing from that reminder, we are made — John Piper is made — to feel the
wonder of God’s patience and grace in holding on to me and returning to me
again and again and reviving me and fighting for me and bringing me safely to
glory — at least for 70 years now. It is no wonder that the book of Jude closes
with a stunning doxology to God’s persevering, keeping power in the embattled
Christian life: “Now to him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to
present you blameless before the presence of his glory with great joy, to the
only God, our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty,
dominion, and authority” (Jude 24–25).
Isn’t
that amazing? What is he giving glory to God for? He is giving glory and
majesty and dominion and authority to God for one simple reason: God patiently
keeps working with us until the end. That is just astonishing to me, and I
don’t think I would feel that nearly to the level that I do without God doing
it the way he is doing it.
3)
And the last thing, the third thing I would say is that since true holiness is
the reflex of seeing the superior beauty and value of Christ, the nature of the
daily battle keeps this reality in front of me so that Christ and his beauty
and his value remain central in my life. So, it becomes clear that Satan is
defeated not by the mere finger-snapping, raw power of God, but by the supreme
beauty of Jesus Christ that I have to get clear every day from Scripture so
that I am more attracted to Jesus than to unholiness.
So,
I think the main thing that I would say to George is that, whatever the reasons
are that God has chosen to sanctify us in this slow, painful, embattled way,
this choice of his is because he gets greater glory when we fight the battle
every day with the weapons he has appointed and the way he has ordained. So
let’s get on with the good fight.
John
Piper is founder and teacher of desiringGod.org and chancellor of Bethlehem
College & Seminary. For 33 years, he served as pastor of Bethlehem Baptist
Church, Minneapolis, Minnesota. He is author of more than 50 books, including A
Peculiar Glory.
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