Jesus also, that he might sanctify the people with his own blood, suffered outside the gate. Therefore, let us go forth to him outside the camp, bearing his reproach. For we have no continuing city here, but we seek one to come.
Select a thought to read by choosing a collection, the month, and then the day:
"IF" VERSUS "WHEN"
When confronted by Christian ministers who insist that how a believer lives his life has no bearing on whether or not he will be saved in the end, the wise elders of the congregation of the Lord came up with interesting ways to refute their foolishness. One of these ways was to refer to 1John 2:1, where John wrote, "My little children, these things I write unto you, that ye sin not. And if any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous."
"The difference between your religion and mine", said Preacher Clark to one Baptist man, "is if and when."
"What do you mean?" came the reply.
"According to what you teach, God's children are bound to sin every day; they have no choice. So, you have to say 'My little children, when we sin, we have an advocate with the Father'. According to what I teach, God's children are free from sin. So we say what John said, "My little children, if we sin, we have an advocate with the Father."
The old saints whom I knew were fearless and joyful in their preaching that Christ sets us free from the power of sin so that we no longer are bound to sin but are free to obey God. In doing so, they were merely confessing their own experience. They knew that they had been made free from sin. Likewise, I can only assume, Christian ministers who teach that all must sin every day are only proclaiming their personal experience. They sin every day, and so, they insist that everyone else has to sin, too. Now, tell me truthfully, which man would you rather have as your guide in Christ? The man who has been set free from the dominion of sin and tells others that they can be free as he is, or the man who sins every day and tells you that you are doomed to do the same?
On another occasion, a Christian man was arguing with Elder Frank Griffin that the power of sin over men is unchangeable.
"Now, you know, Frank," he said, "that you can't help but sin every day of your life. Be honest about it. Let me explain it like this: our nature is like a stubborn yearling that resists our best efforts to pull it along a narrow road. Now, that road represents God's will, and we might want to stay on the road, but no matter how much we want to, that wild yearling keeps pulling us off it. What are you going to do, Frank, if that yearling keeps jerking against your rope and keeps pulling you off the road?"
"Bless God!" Brother Frank joyfully replied, "I'd kill the yearling!"
The old nature of man is overwhelmed by the divine nature of God when we are filled with the holy Ghost. Paul said, "I die daily" (1Cor. 15:31). "I am crucified with Christ," proclaimed Paul, "nevertheless I live; yet, not I, but Christ liveth in me." Is Christ living in you? As Preacher Clark said many a time, "God's Son can live as sinless a life in you as he did in the body of Jesus, the son of Mary." When Christ lives in us, we do not sin because he does not sin. Let him live!
Peter pointed out that in Christ Jesus we are "made partakers of the divine nature" (2Pet.1:4). Thank God! The new nature we have in Christ is clean; it is not of the flesh. Beyond all contradiction, the divine nature of God does not have to sin every day. The life that God lives, and gives, is pure and holy. God gave that holy life to His Son, along with authority to give that life (and its nature) to us who believe the gospel. Jesus is by nature holy, all the time and without strain, and this is the same sinless nature that the holy Spirit brings into us. Holiness is the nature of every person who is baptized with the Spirit, just as it is Christ's nature. As Paul wrote, "If any man be in Christ, he is a new creature". The new creature has no difficulty in understanding and obeying the commandments of God-every day, all day long.
It is true that we must learn to walk in the newness of life once we receive it, but even as we are learning, we need not sin. Sin is for sinners, all of whom will have their part in the Lake of Fire that burns with brimstone "day and night forever" (Rev. 21:7-8; 20:10). Godliness, on the other hand, is for the children of God, who will dwell peacefully in His holy presence forever. It is our privilege in Christ to walk in the Spirit and to please our heavenly Father completely, day by day. Not only can you do that, my dear brothers and sisters, but it is contrary to your nature to do anything else.