The Difference Between
Committing A
Sin and Sinning
In Teaching
E-mail 38 we addressed the need for
a holy fear of God, a love-grounded fear that stirs you to live according to His Word. That’s the pathway on which He empowers you to
progressively grow in sanctification as you walk in His Spirit
in obedient trust.
Your holy fear of the God you love and
serve moves you to resist breaking His good, righteous laws.
Our Father loves us so extravagantly that He has shown us the
way of blessing through His commands and teaching as they are
built upon by His Son.
Our holy and reverent fear of Who He is
draws us to Him in obedience, not away from Him in shame! As Moses assured
the people of Israel, “Do not be afraid.
God has come to test you, so that the fear of God will be with
you to keep you from sinning” (Exodus
20:20).
We want to emphasize that the fear of God
is a good thing. Combined with our obedient trust and devotion
to Lord Jesus, it keeps us from continuing in sin.
Did you ever consider the difference
between sinning and committing a sin?
• Sinning is a habitual pattern of repeatedly
violating God and His ways with no desire or intent to repent.
• Committing
a sin is a singular act against God
and His ways in which you gave in to temptation rather than
resist it.
Both a decision
to sin and a lifestyle of sinning grieve our God. That which is not
repented of remains as guilt:
No one who has God as his Father keeps on
sinning, because the seed planted
by God remains in him. That is, he cannot continue sinning, because
he has God as his Father (1 John 3:
9).
Therefore, since we are surrounded by such
a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily
entangles, and let us run with
perseverance the race marked out for us (Hebrews 12:1).
The writer to the Hebrews then goes on to
tell us how to stop sinning: “Let us fix our eyes on Jesus” (v.2). It is Jesus in us Who enables us to resist the temptation to sin (see James 4:7; 1 Peter 5:
9), and to stop walking in the darkness of habitual sin. As we shared
in our previous Teach-ing E-mail:
• The Spirit of Jesus in His
followers enables them to resist anything that’s against
God.
• Jesus alone is the true power
against our dark, sinful desires.
• It is because of the Spirit of
Jesus in His followers that we can “take
captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ” (2 Corinthians 10:5).
Even with the Spirit of Jesus in you, you
may still give way to temptation and commit a sin. And, our
merciful and loving Lord graciously provides the means of
restoring the intimacy of fellowship with Him and with each
other:
If we confess
our sins, He is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all
unrighteousness (1 John 1:9).
Our Lord Jesus gloriously speaks to our
Father in our defense when we turn from our sin and come before
Him determined to walk in obedience to His commands (1 John 2:
1-3).
BUT, if we refuse His offer to confess our
sin so we can be forgiven and purified, there remain dire
consequences:
For if we deliberately
continue to sin after receiving the
knowledge of the truth, there no
longer remains a sacrifice for
sins, but only the terrifying
prospect of Judgment, of raging
fire that will consume the enemies of God (Hebrews 10:26,27).
Yet another grievous consequence is
brought about by those who choose to abide in unrepentance:
A person in your faith community who keeps
on sinning and/or refuses to repent of a sin is undermining
your communal righteousness. An underlying premise of true fellowship is
this: you’re promising your brothers and sisters in your
faith family that you’ll do nothing to hinder their prayers from being answered.
Our Father commands us to confess our sins to one another and
to live uprightly so that His ears will be open to our prayers (James 5:
16; 1 Peter 3:12). That communal facet of our walk in Jesus is
the enactment element of righteousness in which we are mutually
accountable before Him. That’s why Jesus made so clear
the parameter of going to a brother who sins so that he might
repent and be restored.
[For more on this topic, use the Google
search on our website and type in <communal
righteousness>]
In Teaching
E-mail 37 we asked these
questions. Here are some admittedly brief answers. You may come
up with additional responses as you discuss them with your
family and faith family.
• Are there laws in the Older
Testament that no longer apply to followers of Jesus? Which
ones?
Since Jesus became a “Priest forever in the order of
Melchizedek” (Hebrews 5:6)
the laws applying to the operation and administration of the
Temple have been fulfilled in Him and no longer apply to us as
His Kingdom people. After His ascension our Lord made sure the
Temple was destroyed because His followers had now become the collective temple for His Spirit (1 Corinthians 6:19).
However, the moral laws pertaining to
righteous conduct still apply to us as followers of Jesus,
since these are the commands He
taught as heart issues to His
disciples. We’ll expand on this shortly.
• In the teachings of Jesus, did He
do away with all of the Older Testament laws, or did He
strengthen and make full their meaning?
Ever mindful of the good and righteous
teaching presented in the Hebrew Scripture, our Lord Jesus
strengthened and deepened the understanding of the laws
and commandments.
For example, Deuteronomy 5:17 commands, “You shall not murder.”
Jesus commands:
“[W]hoever is angry with his brother without a cause shall be in danger of the judgment. And whoever
says to his brother, “Raca!’ shall be in danger of
the council. But whoever says,
‘You fool!’ shall be in
danger of hell fire” (Matthew
5:22). [This person has despised the insulted man in his heart. His
words evidence this.]
Deuteronomy 5:18 commands, “You shall not commit adultery.”
Jesus commands:
“But I say to you that whoever looks
at a woman to lust for her has already committed adultery with her in his heart” (Matthew 5:28).
Our Lord Jesus deepened the righteous
teachings of the Hebrew text by focusing on the heart motive of the
person rather than just on their acts. Many of the Pharisees
and scribes presented the appearance of obedience to the laws of God but their
motive was not love—for either God or their fellow man!
Our Lord yearns for His followers to walk
in obedient trust with circumcised hearts that love Him: “The LORD your God will circumcise your hearts and
the hearts of your descendants, so that you may love Him with all
your heart and with all your soul, and live” (Deuteronomy 30:6; see also Colossians 2:
11).
• If laws in the Older Testament are
not repeated in the Newer Testament, does that mean they are no
longer in effect?
Man, not God, has divided the Bible into
what most call the Old and New Testaments. But Paul sums up its continuity for all of us: “All Scripture is
God-breathed and is profitable for
teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that
the man of God may be complete, thoroughly
equipped for every good work” (2 Timothy 3:16,17).
The only Scripture to which Paul would be
referring is the Hebrew Bible of His forefathers. Thus, the
nature of God and the “profitable way” in which His
people are to live is found in the Older Testament and made
full in the teaching and commands of Jesus.
As one who walks in His Spirit,
you’re assured that whatever you bind on earth will be
bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed
in heaven (Matthew 16:19, 18:18). Through the lens of His
Spirit He has given His own the
authority and power to apply His commands to our lives. Many principles for this application are found
in the Older Testament. For example:
• There is no “law”
pertaining to TV viewing. But we do know from the Older
Testament that there are issues of
righteousness that we must
consider if we’re to make an application that’s
acceptable to God (ie., Psalms 101:3;119:37).
• There are no laws about home
schooling, Christian schooling or public education in the
Bible. But there are commands in the Older Testament that
pertain to raising “godly generations”. These need
to be applied if you’re to get a clear picture of a
parent’s responsibility (i.e., Deuteronomy 6:6-9).
“For if we would judge ourselves, we
would not be judged”
(1 Corinthians 11:31).
In Lifebyte
57. Kingdom Living (Part 7), we
wrote:
The principle of obedience to God’s
commands because of your love
relationship with Him is
foundational to Hebrew Scripture. For instance, the theme of
love-grounded obedience in Joshua 22:5 is largely unknown as a
way of fruitful life for much of western Christendom today.
But in the time of Jesus there was no
doubt about the interconnection between love, obedience and holding fast
to their God in willing service. That’s why Jesus could
so readily inform His listeners that His “family
members” were those who HEAR the word of God and DO IT
(Luke 8:21).
In this light you’ll find that
God’s moral laws still apply. As you read through Romans
2, for instance, there’s no doubt that what we do in our lives
reflects whether we’ve walked the pathway of sin or of
love-grounded obedient trust. Our devotion
to our Lord Jesus is our heart
motive to walk in His ways. This love differentiates us from
those who perceive His commands as constraining rules and
therefore pervert His grace into law-lessness.
How determinedly do you practice the
interconnection between love and responsive
obedience to God’s Word?
This is love
for God: to obey His commands. And His commands
are not burdensome (1 John 5:3).
Let’s examine the first three of the
Ten Commandments listed page 5. You’ll notice that
they’re numbered differently according to the
denominational frame of reference.
For the sake of our discussion we’re
going to use the Jewish delineation along with the biblical
text for the commands. As you read through our discussion,
please ask yourself what our God’s commands mean to you and your way of life. Do
you live in obedience to God’s Word as His Spirit
empowers you to do? Are your motives based on love for Him, or
are you consumed with rule-keeping to try to gain His
acceptance?
1. I am the LORD your God.
Why would God want His people, Israel, to
have as their first commandment the understanding that He is “your God”? First, He wanted to personalize His relationship to
them as His chosen and treasured
possession (Deuteronomy 7:6).
They were selected by grace for Himself as unique and
set-apart.
Relational intimacy is a vital facet of our God’s nature! He walked
with Adam and Eve in the garden as a delighted Father with His
children. And when He sent His Son to become man to redeem us,
the angel ordered that His Name be Immanuel—God with us (Matthew 1:23, apperceiving Isaiah 7:14).
Intimate relationship is behind His
command that you “Love the LORD your God with
all your heart and with all your soul and with all your
strength” (Deuter-onomy
6:5; reaffirmed in Luke 10:27).
Next, the focus in this command is on God
alone to help us understand His command to fear Him.
“God” is far more than a word. Our Lord Jesus made
clear to His disciples that a holy fear of God underlies our
relationship with Him as His Kingdom people:
I will show you Whom you should fear: Fear Him who, after
the killing of the body, has power to throw you into hell. Yes,
I tell you, fear Him (Luke 12:5).
Our gracious and righteous God is able to cast
people into hell for eternity.. Let this sink in, because the above words of
Jesus are not empty. A righteous fear of God is part of our
love relationship with Him! He is holy and His commands are holy, and by the
gracious indwelling of His Spirit He lovingly enables us to
incorporate obedience into our trust journey in Jesus. To
willfully turn away from that intimacy and adopt a lifestyle of
forsaking His ways will indeed incur His wrath: “It is a dreadful thing to fall into the
hands of the living God” (Hebrews
10:31).
Notice from page 5 that Protestant
denominations make the first commandment a preface. Especially during
this past century, failure to focus on relationship with God as
the first and foremost foundational
commandment has opened the way to
the unabashed law-lessness which now identifies much of western
Protestantism. (Lawlessness is nothing new. Certain factions in
the first century had perverted God’s grace into antinomianism—a
disregard for God’s commands, teachings and laws.)
This omission has spawned the
“Church Growth Movement” and “greasy
grace” and every form of worldly compromise which passes
for contemporary “worship”. Each of these
man-centered expressions nullifies the holiness of God. Rather,
they attract by any means possible those who want to live
according to their sin nature rather than the holy and
set-apart way of the Lord.
Roman Catholics and Lutherans combine the
first two commandments into a single command. However, for many
Catholics in particular, this lack of emphasis on God’s
awesome Sovereignty in relationship with His own has led to
heresy: declaring as the “vicar of Christ on earth”
a mere man who is as susceptible to his sin nature as anyone.
From Catholic understanding, that which proceeds from the Pope
is the word of God Himself, an infallible ruling. Both the
position and the commands of the Pope elevate him to the role
of “Christ in the flesh”.
Contemporary Lutheran doctrine
overlaps Catholic teaching on many points so
there’s no reason for them to re-arrange the numbering of
their commandments. An analogy may help you understand any
creedal difference be-tween Lutherans and Catholics:
If true
biblical reformation could be
described as traveling the 93 million miles from the earth to
the sun, Lutherans only went as far as the nearest satellite.
The furthest most Protestant denominations have gone is to the
moon. They’re still in orbit around the earth—and
millions of miles from reaching the sun.
The King of the Kingdom is not God within
religious systems in which
• clergy are intermediaries for
others.
• “church” refers to an
edifice rather than the called-out bride of Christ.
• those who claim to belong to Jesus
are not indwelled by the Spirit of Jesus.
• those who consider themselves
Christian neglect their purpose in His Kingdom (Ephesians 2:
10).
These individuals have established another god —
an idol of their own making who fits their parameters of a god
they want to serve but disparages the God of the entire Bible.
Religious ritual, programs and liturgy have replaced the
relational intimacy of love-grounded obedient trust.
2. You shall have no other gods before Me;
You shall not make for yourself an idol.
Once the first commandment has been
diminished or de-emphasized, people follow the path of the
Israelites. The very ones who had been chosen by grace to love
and serve the Most High instead committed spiritual adultery. They
lusted after other gods, stooping as low as to worship a
calf’s image or even to burn their children alive to the
demon entity Molech. (Think of today’s
“idols” of a worldview which excuses abortion,
compromises with evil, and pursues unbiblical goals and
values.)
In Teaching
E-mails 4 and 27 we quote Christian
pollster George Barna:
There is no difference between
"Christian" families and non-Christian homes... There
are now over 20 million people in this nation who are actively
seeking the restoration of the early Church.
Please re-read these Teaching E-mails for
a fuller picture of the idolatry of American Christendom. We
also encourage you to read Barna and Viola’s latest book, “Pagan Christianity?” How grievous if you face our Lord at the
Judgment Throne having lived in violation of the the first two
commandments of our loving and faithful God.
3. You shall not make wrongful use of the
Name of your God.
It tears our hearts apart to hear people
using the precious Name of Jesus Christ as a filthy expletive.
It’s even more painful when you hear “church
goers” profaning His Name. Are you careful to make
sure no media enter your life or home in which His Name is
blasphemed? His holiness is at stake by the way in which you
revere His Name!
Do not profane My holy name. I must be acknowledged as holy by the Israelites. I am
the LORD, Who makes you holy (Leviticus 19:12; 22:32; see also Isaiah 57:15).
Again, when the first commandment, which
proclaims God as God, is neglected, even His Name is open to
disrepute. Why? Because there is no
fear of Him.
Concluding Thoughts
In this Teaching E-mail we’ve
briefly addressed just the first three commandments because
these three deal directly with our relationship with our God.
For followers of Jesus, these underscore the foundational
attitude we should have as a temple of the Spirit of Jesus
within us.
God hasn’t changed concerning the love and fear we need in
our relationship with Him. The religious systems of both Roman
Catholicism and much of de-nominational Protestantism are based
on idolatrous practices adapted from the pagan Greeks and
Romans.
God has become far removed from the
individual believer. Many Catholics call upon Mary and the
deceased saints to intercede on their behalf, an idolatry which
is spiritual adultery. It is the indwelling Spirit of Christ
alone Who makes intercession on our behalf:
In the same way, the Spirit helps us in
our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express.
And He who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit,
because the Spirit intercedes for
the saints in accordance with
God’s will (Romans 8:
27,28).
Much of Protestantism has also fo-cused
away from reliance on the in-dwelling Spirit of Christ alone.
Pursuit of Bible knowledge without obedience to a beloved Lord can become
idolatrous. Those who know the Word but don’t live it through His power have not allowed God to be their God. Again, Barna’s appraisal of American
Christianity: There is no
difference between "Christian" families and
non-Christian homes.
Before our next Teaching E-mail comes out
we ask you to evaluate your faith walk in light of the first
three commandments. Ask the Spirit of Jesus to show you whether
you’re following God’s criteria for these
commandments with a heart that’s devoted to our Lord and
King. Be sure there isn’t any vestige of idolatry in your
faith practice!
If the practice of your faith is wrapped
around traditions and rituals like those embedded within
Catholicism or Protes-tantism which emphasize a God Who is
“out there”, please reconsider before Him and His
Word. He hasn’t called for you to be a
‘churched’ person, but a full-fledged beloved
servant of the King in His Kingdom.
