- The following verses seem to contradict each other. Every born again believer falls into sin every day knowingly. So how do we harmonize these verses?
1 John 5:18 “We know that whosoever is born of God sinneth not; but he that is begotten of God keepeth himself, and that wicked one toucheth him not.”
1 John 1:8,10: “8If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. 10If we say that we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us.”
- When First Adam disobeyed God, Adam brought the Spiritual death, which is the death of the Soul into all human race. In other words, God’s Holy Spirit do not indwell in a person’s Soul anymore [unless “born again”]. God sent forth his son who was born of Holy Spirit and who took only Adam’s nature in flesh to make us alive again by giving us indwelling Holy Spirit.
Rom 7:9 “For I [whole human race] was alive without the law once [in the loins of Adam]: but when the commandment came, sin revived, and I died.“
Rom 8:3 “For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh:”
1 Cor 15:22 “For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive.”
2 Cor 1:21-22 “Now he which stablisheth us with you in Christ, and hath anointed us, is God; 22Who hath also sealed us, and given the earnest [down payment] of the Spirit in our hearts.”
- Source of Sin is our Heart/Soul/Inward man/Adam-Nature. What happens in Salvation is, a new Heart/Soul/Inward man/Christ-Nature is given and indwelling Holy Spirit is put in this new heart. The root of the evil is removed, the leak is plugged in. No sin flows out of this new heart.
Eze 36:26-27 “A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you: and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you an heart of flesh. 27And I will put my spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes, and ye shall keep my judgments, and do them.”
1 John 5:18 “We know that whosoever is born of God sinneth not; but he that is begotten [born-again of] of God keepeth himself, and that wicked one toucheth him not.”
- So where is the sin coming from? from the flesh or the sinful body [vulnerable to sin] which has not been reborn yet. Only the Soul/Heart/Inward man/Nature is redeemed and reborn for now. The believers receive glorious sinless body on the Christs’ second coming.
Rom 7:22-24 “For I delight in the law of God after the inward man [new heart]: 23But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members [sinful flesh]. 24O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?”
1 John 3:2 “Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him [with glorious spiritual bodies]; for we shall see him as he is.”
- What is a born-again believer expected to do? Walk in Spirit yielding to the indwelling Holy Spirit. God has enabled the believer with a new heart and indwelling Holy Spirit to overcome sin. When believers fall into sin, God chastises them as father chastises children, to correct them and build them up but the believer once saved is never lost to destruction.
Rom 6:11-20 “For in that he died, he died unto sin once: but in that he liveth, he liveth unto God. 11Likewise reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord. 12Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, that ye should obey it in the lusts thereof. 13Neither yield ye your members as instruments of unrighteousness unto sin: but yield yourselves unto God, as those that are alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness unto God. 14For sin shall not have dominion over you: for ye are not under the law, but under grace. 15What then? shall we sin, because we are not under the law, but under grace? God forbid. 16Know ye not, that to whom ye yield yourselves servants to obey, his servants ye are to whom ye obey; whether of sin unto death, or of obedience unto righteousness?”
1 Cor 9:27 “But I keep under my body, and bring it into subjection: lest that by any means, when I have preached to others, I myself should be a castaway.”
- Did Christ go through the same temptations as us in flesh? He was tempted in the same way first Adam [and Eve] was tempted with ‘lust of the eyes’, ‘lust of the flesh” and “the pride of life” and yet never gave into sin. He Walked in the Spirit, and did not fulfill the lust of the flesh. He was sinless, He was pure and holy, He had no sin in Himself, He never transgressed the law of God at any point, He was perfectly “without blemish,” so He could be qualified to be that sacrificial “Lamb,” that He could be the Passover Lamb.
Heb 4:15 “For we have not an high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities; but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin.”
Rom 8:3-6 “For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh: 4That the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit. 5For they that are after the flesh do mind the things of the flesh; but they that are after the Spirit the things of the Spirit. 6For to be carnally minded is death; but to be spiritually minded is life and peace.