"Through him everyone who believes is set free from every sin,.." (Acts 13:39, NIV).
As Christians, sin needs no longer lord it over us ("For sin shall not have dominion over you, for you are not under the law, but under grace," per Rom. 6:14). The psalmist proclaims: "Let no sin have dominion over me" (Psalm 119:133). When we sin we do not demonstrate our freedom but prove our slavery. We are free to live in the Spirit and have new power to overcome sin by faith, not bondage to the old sin nature. We do not have the right to live as we see fit or do what is right in our own eyes as libertines or Antinomians.
Only Christians can defeat sin and live above it because the unbeliever is a slave to sin and his sin nature. To state the Augustinian formulae: The believer has the ability to sin, and the ability not to sin; the unbeliever only has the inability not to sin; while Adam had the power to sin and the power not to sin, Christ has the inability to sin. Sinners are "voluntary slaves" and are "free" to choose their own poison, so to speak.
What is the victory that overcomes the world? Our faith! If we walk in the Spirit we shall overcome the flesh and not fulfill its desires and cravings. How do we walk in the Spirit? Keeping short accounts with God of our sins, shortcomings, and failures. As Christians, we are "dead to sin" and "alive to righteousness!" When one is dead to something he is no longer under its power or authority.
Some believers sincerely that they have and need a "free will" (this doctrine is not mentioned in Scripture and neither is the terminology--some deduce it from the fact that we have the ability to make choices). Martin Luther said in his treatise, The Bondage of the Will, that we don't need a free will, but wills made free! He saw a so-called "Babylonian captivity" of the church and deplored how Erasmus of Rotterdam, who wrote In Praise of Folly, said that man has a free will--too "grandiose" a word to describe our will. This doctrine was debated in the 1500s and the doctrine of the freedom of the will was a hot item among theologians. Augustine said that we are free, but not freed (no play on words, but that we are not coerced). That is, that we have the power of choice, but God has not given us "liberty."
We are in slavery to our old sin nature and in bondage until Christ sets us free: "If the Son shall set you free, you shall be free indeed." I was set free in Christ--I didn't become a believer solely of my own free will--some people become Christians against their will, but God changes them or convicts them. They say that if you came to Christ on your own, you probably left Him on your own too. God is always at work within the believer's heart to make him willing: "For God is at work within you both to do, and to will of His good pleasure," (Phil. 2:13). He can make the most stubborn and stony heart into flesh and make the unwilling, willing.
Real freedom is knowing Christ and the victory He can give over sins ("You shall call His name Jesus because He shall save His people from their sins," Matt. 1:21). "Submit yourselves, therefore, unto God, resist the devil and he will flee from you," James 4:7. As believers we don't have to be pushed around by the world, the flesh, and the devil; we can have victory in Christ. Soli Deo Gloria!
As Christians, sin needs no longer lord it over us ("For sin shall not have dominion over you, for you are not under the law, but under grace," per Rom. 6:14). The psalmist proclaims: "Let no sin have dominion over me" (Psalm 119:133). When we sin we do not demonstrate our freedom but prove our slavery. We are free to live in the Spirit and have new power to overcome sin by faith, not bondage to the old sin nature. We do not have the right to live as we see fit or do what is right in our own eyes as libertines or Antinomians.
Only Christians can defeat sin and live above it because the unbeliever is a slave to sin and his sin nature. To state the Augustinian formulae: The believer has the ability to sin, and the ability not to sin; the unbeliever only has the inability not to sin; while Adam had the power to sin and the power not to sin, Christ has the inability to sin. Sinners are "voluntary slaves" and are "free" to choose their own poison, so to speak.
What is the victory that overcomes the world? Our faith! If we walk in the Spirit we shall overcome the flesh and not fulfill its desires and cravings. How do we walk in the Spirit? Keeping short accounts with God of our sins, shortcomings, and failures. As Christians, we are "dead to sin" and "alive to righteousness!" When one is dead to something he is no longer under its power or authority.
Some believers sincerely that they have and need a "free will" (this doctrine is not mentioned in Scripture and neither is the terminology--some deduce it from the fact that we have the ability to make choices). Martin Luther said in his treatise, The Bondage of the Will, that we don't need a free will, but wills made free! He saw a so-called "Babylonian captivity" of the church and deplored how Erasmus of Rotterdam, who wrote In Praise of Folly, said that man has a free will--too "grandiose" a word to describe our will. This doctrine was debated in the 1500s and the doctrine of the freedom of the will was a hot item among theologians. Augustine said that we are free, but not freed (no play on words, but that we are not coerced). That is, that we have the power of choice, but God has not given us "liberty."
We are in slavery to our old sin nature and in bondage until Christ sets us free: "If the Son shall set you free, you shall be free indeed." I was set free in Christ--I didn't become a believer solely of my own free will--some people become Christians against their will, but God changes them or convicts them. They say that if you came to Christ on your own, you probably left Him on your own too. God is always at work within the believer's heart to make him willing: "For God is at work within you both to do, and to will of His good pleasure," (Phil. 2:13). He can make the most stubborn and stony heart into flesh and make the unwilling, willing.
Real freedom is knowing Christ and the victory He can give over sins ("You shall call His name Jesus because He shall save His people from their sins," Matt. 1:21). "Submit yourselves, therefore, unto God, resist the devil and he will flee from you," James 4:7. As believers we don't have to be pushed around by the world, the flesh, and the devil; we can have victory in Christ. Soli Deo Gloria!
I saw a presentation by two Stanford Neurologists, one was saying that the latest and greatest research in neurology points to some very deep and primitive portions of our behavior which dictate our basest forms of behavior, such as fight or flight, hunger, thirst, lust, etc. The point was essentially we have no free will,, but our determined by our evolved nature.
ReplyDeleteThe second neurologist said not that is not correct. Rather, there are a multitude of decisions we make each day in our conscious mind, and that we can release the primitive instincts or suppress them.
Isn't it amazing how 21st century neurology is just trying to figure out what Luther and Erasmus debated 500 years ago?
By the way, I think Erasmus wrote the Freedom of the Will and that his debate with Luther was after he wrote In Praise of Folly, a work that satirized the Roman Catholic Church.