God created us in his image and desires to have a close relationship with us. When we ask Jesus into our hearts and receive salvation, we are responding to God’s calling and confirming that we also want a relationship with him. However, just as God is holy, it is requisite that our relationship with him is free of sin. God is sovereign, pure and incorruptible, and has no tolerance for sin therefore it is his right to not tolerate it in us. While our sins have been forgiven through Christ, we do not have license to continue indulging our sinful nature. Paul addresses this in the sixth chapter of Romans by saying, “What shall we say, then? Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase? By no means! We are those who have died to sin; how can we live in it any longer? Or don’t you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life.
For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we will certainly also be united with him in a resurrection like his. For we know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body ruled by sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin – because anyone who has died has been set free from sin.
Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. For we know that since Christ was raised from the dead, he cannot die again; death no longer has mastery over him. The death he died, he died to sin once for all; but the life he lives, he lives to God.
In the same way, count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus. Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its evil desires. Do not offer any part of yourself to sin as an instrument of wickedness, but offer yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life; and offer every part of yourself to him as an instrument of righteousness. For sin shall no longer be your master, because you are not under the law, but under grace.
What then? Shall we sin because we are not under law but under grace? By no means! Don’t you know that when you offer yourselves to someone as obedient slaves, you are slaves to the one you obey – whether you are slaves to sin, which leads to death, or to obedience, which leads to righteousness? But thanks be to God that, though you used to be slaves to sin, you have come to obey from your heart the pattern of teaching that has now claimed your allegiance. You have been set free from sin and have become slaves to righteousness.
I am using an example from everyday life because of your human limitations. Just as you used to offer yourselves as slaves to impurity and to ever-increasing wickedness, so now offer yourselves as slaves to righteousness leading to holiness. When you were slaves to sin, you were free from the control of righteousness. What benefit did you reap at that time from the things you are now ashamed of? Those things result in death! But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God, the benefit you reap leads to holiness, and the result is eternal life. For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Romans 6:1-23.
Satan is leading a rebellion against God, with the purpose of destroying every expression of God’s glory. He tempts you to defy God, hate God and ultimately wants you to think you can be your own god, just as he tempted Adam and Eve in the garden. Sin causes us to feel distanced from God and therefore we don’t place our trust in him, feeling that he won’t accept us in our fallen state. The transcendence of sin has created such a wide gap between man and God that most people have lost faith, and many deny the existence of God outright. It’s this separation that Satan exploits by feeding people lies that promote the continuation of their alienation from God so we trust ourselves, love ourselves and serve ourselves rather than God. Ultimately, God’s glory is not reflected through mankind and his existence is obscured by the veil of sin that does not permit us to see the truth.
So, why did an all knowing, omnipotent, omnipresent God permit Satan to accomplish this? Not because Satan outwitted him or pulled a fast one on him. God’s plan right from the beginning of creation, was to manifest his glory through the birth, life, death and resurrection of Jesus, which would illustrate his glory infinitely more than an innocent world ever could. Paul wrote, “The law was brought in so that the trespass might increase. But where sin increased, grace increased all the more,” Romans 5:20. People who have experienced the redemption of Christ firsthand have witnessed God’s grace in ways that even angels do not know. Humanity is destined for the mighty return of Jesus where he will defeat the ungodly of the world once and for all with the splendor of his appearing and bind Satan and toss him into the abyss! What a powerful display of God’s might and majesty that will be! And the faithful in Christ will celebrate God’s glory for all eternity!
We who have received God’s forgiveness of sin through Jesus Christ, are called to live a new life in him. The Holy Spirit living in our hearts motivates us to serve him. We are new creations and God resides in us, so if God is love, we also are love. Out of love for the Father, we then fully submit ourselves in obedience to him. The bible says our faith is credited to us as righteousness, just as Abraham’s faith was (Galatians 3:6). In the same way, God spoke to Ezekiel saying, “I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws.” Ezekiel 36:26-27.
The only thing we can offer in exchange for our salvation is our sin. Being under grace, God’s unmerited favor, we must turn from our sins and leave them in our past. In God’s economy our works don’t make us any better or worse than any other human being. The only righteousness we have is the righteousness that Christ has given us. It is the cross that makes us flawless, so that no one can boast.
