The Bible says, “Do you not know, brothers – for I am speaking to men who know the law – that the law has authority over a man only as long as he lives? For example, by law a married woman is bound to her husband as long as he is alive, but if her husband dies, she is released from the law of marriage. So then, if she marries another man while her husband is still alive, she is called an adulteress. But if her husband dies she is released from that law and is not an adulteress even though she marries another man. So, my brothers, you also died to the law through the body of Christ, that you might belong to another, to him who was raised from the dead, in order that we might bear fruit to God. For when we were controlled by the sinful nature, the sinful passions aroused by the law were at work in our bodies, so that we bore fruit for death. But now, by dying to what once bound us, we have been released from the law so that we serve in the new way of the Spirit, and not in the old way of the written code.
What shall we say, then? Is the law sin? Certainly not! Indeed I would not have known what sin was except through the law. For I would not have known what coveting really was if the law had not said, “Do not Covet.” But sin, seizing the opportunity afforded by the commandment, produced in me every kind of covetous desire. For apart from law, sin is dead. Once I was alive apart from law; but when the commandment came, sin sprang to life and I died. I found that the very commandment that was intended to bring life actually brought death. For sin, seizing the opportunity afforded by the commandment, deceived me, and through the commandment put me to death. So then, the law is holy, and the commandment is holy, righteous and good. Did that which is good, then become death to me? By no means! But in order that sin might be recognised as sin, it produced death in me through what was good, so that through the commandment sin might become utterly sinful.
We know that the law is spiritual; but I am unspiritual, sold as a slave to sin. I do not understand what I do . for what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do. And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good. As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me. I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. For what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do – this I keep on doing Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it.
So I find this law at work: when I want to do good , evil is right there with me. For in my inner being I delight in God’s law; but I see another law at work in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within my members. What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? Thanks be to God – Through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I myself in my mind am a slave to God’s law, but in the sinful nature a slave to the law of sin. ( Romans ( 7: 1- 25.)
The day you were saved, you were set free from all sin. Your sin problem was solved on the cross long ago. Because of the cross, no one will go to hell as a result of sin. God condemned sin in Christ, once and for all. God will never punish anybody for sin. No one will go to hell because of sin. God cannot punish one crime more than once. God judged Jesus Christ and punished him with the highest punishment; forsaking him on the cross while our sin was upon him. That for once, the son called and there was none to answer was a thing of deep agony.
Men shall go to hell because they have not believed in Jesus Christ. The Bible says, “Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already because he has not believed in the name of God’s one and only son” (John 3: 18.)
The sin that leads people to hell is unbelief in Jesus. Ensure that you do not go to hell. You know what to do.
I am not serving the Lord in order to escape hell. My service to him is an overflow of gratitude. The Bible says, “For he had rescued us from the dominion of darkness, and brought us into the kingdom of the son he loves, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins (Colossians 1:13-4.) We have been set free.
In the kingdom of Satan, sin is a power, a law. There is no choice about it. But for us, we have righteousness as our inheritance. The sinner is compelled to sin. Sin is an imprisoning power over him.
The unbeliever deserves to be pitied, not to be hated. The devil is his slave driver. The unbeliever is a slave to Satan, and bound to obey the enemy.
Our evangelism should not be hinged on the sin of the unbeliever. It should be the testimony of Jesus and His power to liberate. Unless there is a change of kingdoms there is no stopping of sin.
Knowledge and Experience
Many believers commit sin because the enemy, in their ignorance, seduces them to accept that sin is part of the New Life. They consequently do not co-operate with God in order to enter their full experience of total liberation in Christ.
People must know what they are, and then their experience will follow. Those who know what God has said cling on it and find that it becomes their experience.
Knowledge liberates. You cannot confidently act on what you do not know. People will become what we tell them they are. You become what you know yourself to be.
God does not delight in our confession of the marks of Satan. He delights in our confession of the marks of God. You tell God;
- I will loved like you do.
- I will forgave my brother as you do.
- I will give generously as you do.
- I will be as joyful as you are. Etc.
Listen, you will become what you confess. In our finances, we have become what we have confessed. I stand where God says that I am. A man has the wife that he has produced by his confessions. The wife has the husband of her word’s making. It is true for children.
God’s Life in us
We have God’s life, “and this is the testimony: God has given us eternal life, and this life is in his Son” (1 John 5:11.) The life that flows inside God is the same that flows in us.
We have received the power to be the sons of God, power to become children of God. I am God’s son. I have been born into a divine family. I am in the kingdom of holiness, of saints, of wealth, of rest, of power.
Excerpt from Basic Christian Leadership – Z.T. Fomum
