I have heard many people come against the 'grace movement', whatever that even is. I don't consider myself a member of the 'grace movement', because it sounds silly to me. The Gospel is a grace movement, I am son of God and the only reason I'm not dead from my past lifestyle is His grace. My movement is only in His grace, as is all of ours. His grace is why you are alive.
One of the biggest lies thrown towards the people that love to shout of His graceful goodness is that all the grace talk promotes a lifestyle that says you can sin all you want. I personally have never heard anyone ever preach that it is ok to sin because grace covers it. Sin is not ok, but grace does cover it. What I have heard many times though is people preach that we are destin to sin and we will need to deal with it, and almost always out of the predominately misunderstood Romans 7. Grace is the power of God that enables you to live sin-free. Grace is not a green light to sin, grace is complete freedom from sin.
Many excuses to walk in sin have been made and preached out of Romans 7. You can't find a single place in your New Testament that says you are always going to sin, you can only misunderstand Truth. First off if you are saved and in His grace Romans 7 does not even apply to you. Romans 7:1 Do you not know, brethren—for I am speaking to men who are acquainted with the Law—that legal claims have power over a person only for as long as he is alive? (Amplified) Romans 7: 6 But now we have been released from the Law, having died to that by which we were bound, so that we serve in newness of the Spirit and not in oldness of the letter. (NASB)
Paul was not a split personality. He didn’t write Romans 6 about how our sin nature has been removed from us and that we are new creations and totally free from sin’s hold, and then switch back to his other personality in Romans 7 and say how we can’t do it anyways, and then switch back to his first personality and talk about being free from sin and walking in the Spirit again in Romans 8. That sounds absurd saying it that way, right, but that is how most people think about it and how it gets preached all the time.
Jesus walked the law out in perfection, Matthew 5:17 "Do not think that I came to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I did not come to abolish but to fulfill.” (NASB) The law has been fulfilled and you are walking in perfection, Holiness, and righteousness before God because of what Jesus accomplished on the cross. Hebrews 10:14, Ephesians 1:3-4, Romans 5:19, and the New Testament is filled with more scriptures stating that we are perfect, holy, righteous, and blameless in God’s eyes. Romans 8: 3 For what the Law could not do, weak as it was through the flesh, God did: sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and as an offering for sin, He condemned sin in the flesh, 4 so that the requirement of the Law might be fulfilled in us, who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit. (NASB)
We have a tendency to look at the apostles while they were with Jesus and say, “Man I can sure relate to that mess up of there’s”. Well, we shouldn’t be able to relate to their problems. Yes there is a process of stepping into manifesting righteousness daily, but it is stepping into who you are in Him. The apostles were not “born again” yet, or born from above. The word for again in the Greek is anóthen-from above, from heaven. Holy Spirit did not set up camp in their hearts until Jesus had died and risen, John 20:21 So Jesus said to them again, “Peace to you! As the Father has sent Me, I also send you.” 22 And when He had said this, He breathed on them, and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit.” (NKJV)
When the disciples were healing the sick, casting out devils, cleansing lepers, raising the dead, and proclaiming the Kingdom they were doing it out of the umbrella of Jesus’ anointing and authority. They were moving from Jesus' power, we are moving in Jesus' power. We are spotless and one with Him. The disciples didn’t have Jesus on the inside so they were acting on His word, “GO, heal the sick.” Notice Jesus only told them, Matthew 10:7-And as you go, preach, saying, the kingdom of heaven is at hand. (NASB) Jesus did not tell them to baptize and make disciples until they had Holy Spirit on the inside, Matthew 28:18 And Jesus came and spoke to them, saying, “All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. 19 Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, (NKJV).
Jesus said in John 14:12 “Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever believes in me will also do the works that I do; and greater works than these will he do, because I am going to the Father (ESV). I have never heard that talked about in any other way except that we will do the miracles, and greater ones, then He did. Which is true and we should be all for that all the time. But we forget Jesus walked sinless. He walked in perfect love and obedience with the Father. How he walked has to be included in that. Romans 6: 5 For if we have been united together in the likeness of His death, certainly we also shall be in the likeness of His resurrection, 6 knowing this, that our old man was crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves of sin. 7 For he who has died has been freed from sin. (NKJV) Romans 6:18 And having been set free from sin, you have become the servants of righteousness (of conformity to the divine will in thought, purpose, and action). (Amplified)
This is what I am not saying. I am not saying that no one has ever sinned, except Jesus. I am also not saying that just because you are born from above that you will never sin again. I am saying that sin has no hold over you and that you have been given everything needed (2 Peter 1:3) to walk sinless and in perfect unison with the Father. We should never make much of sin, it no longer has power over us. We should always make much of righteousness, because we are 100% righteous. Romans 5:18 Here it is in a nutshell: Just as one person did it wrong and got us in all this trouble with sin and death, another person did it right and got us out of it. But more than just getting us out of trouble, he got us into life! 19 One man said no to God and put many people in the wrong; one man said yes to God and put many in the right (Message).
Every time in the New Testament that sin is brought up in the manner of what we should if we have sinned, it says "if" you sin. It never says "when" you sin. You are a new creation that has had the sin nature removed from you, and you have been filled with Jesus. Any introspective exercise being carried out by a follower of Jesus should only result in a finding of more of Jesus, He is the only thing in you. Yes, a process has begun, but this is a process of knowing how perfect you are. You are not becoming more anointed, you are growing in the understanding of how anointed you already are. You are not becoming more holy and righteous, you are growing in the understanding of how holy and righteous you already are.
So let’s look at the old man versus the new man shall we. In Mathew 16 Jesus asks the disciples who the people say that He is and Jesus responds to Peter after Peter says that Jesus in the Christ in verse 16. Verse 17 And Jesus said to him, "Blessed are you, Simon Barjona, because flesh and blood did not reveal this to you, but My Father who is in heaven." (NASB) Four verses later Jesus is showing His disciples how He must "suffer many things...and be killed, and raised up on the third day". Verse 22 Peter took Him aside and began to rebuke Him, saying, "God forbid it, Lord! This shall never happen to You." 23 But He turned and said to Peter, "Get behind me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to Me; for you are not setting your mind on God's interests, but man's."
So Peter gets praised one moment and then is a mouth piece for Satan the next? Wowzers! In verse 23 the word for 'your mind' is phroneó-the midriff or diaphragm; the parts around the heart, properly, regulate (moderate) from within, as inner-perspective (insight) shows itself in corresponding, outward behavior. Essentially equates to personal opinion fleshing itself out in action. Peter's sin nature had not yet been crucified and removed from him because Holy Spirit had not yet made His home in Peter's heart. Thus, the Romans 7 man.
How about in Matthew 26: 31 Then Jesus said to them, “You will all fall away because of Me this night, for it is written, ‘I will strike down the shepherd, and the sheep of the flock shall be scattered.’ 32 But after I have been raised, I will go ahead of you to Galilee.” 33 But Peter said to Him, “Even though all may fall away because of You, I will never fall away.” 34 Jesus said to him, “Truly I say to you that this very night, before a rooster crows, you will deny Me three times.” 35 Peter said to Him, “Even if I have to die with You, I will not deny You.” All the disciples said the same thing too. Notice, ‘All the disciples said the same thing too’.
Here is the Romans 7 man, they are still controlled by sin and the law because the power of sin had not yet been broken and the law hadn’t been fulfilled and they had not yet been ‘born from above’. Let’s look at what happened the same night that all the disciples said they would never deny Him. Matthew 26:47-50 Judas betrays Jesus. Verse 56…. Then ALL the disciples left Him and fled. All of them just agreed with Peter and said that they would never deny Him, verse 35 Peter said to Him, “Even if I have to die with You, I will not deny You.” All the disciples said the same thing too. Later that same night, Matthew 26:69-75 Peter denies Jesus three times. They didn’t want to do that, but sin still had its power over them. Sin does not have power over you anymore, the only power the enemy has over us in the power we give him through believing his lies.
John 21:15-17 Peter tells Jesus that He does indeed love Him all three times Jesus asks Peter. The response from Jesus was to make sure Peter knew that He was entrusting him with His bride, because Jesus didn’t see the sin. Jesus had abolished sin for good and was now resurrected triumphantly over death and sin. All 11 disciples that ran for their life when they seized Jesus after saying that they wouldn’t do that, came back and become sin-free Holy Spirit filled radical Christ-ians. Matthew 28: 16 But the eleven disciples proceeded to Galilee, to the mountain which Jesus had designated. 17 When they saw Him, they worshiped Him; but some were doubtful. 18 And Jesus came up and spoke to them, saying, “All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. 19 Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, 20 teaching them to observe all that I commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.” (NASB)
Sin has no longer has power over you! Romans 6: 11 From now on, think of it this way: Sin speaks a dead language that means nothing to you; God speaks your mother tongue, and you hang on every word. You are dead to sin and alive to God. That's what Jesus did. 12 That means you must not give sin a vote in the way you conduct your lives. Don't give it the time of day. 13 Don't even run little errands that are connected with that old way of life. Throw yourselves wholeheartedly and full-time - remember, you've been raised from the dead! - into God's way of doing things. 14 Sin can't tell you how to live. After all, you're not living under that old tyranny any longer. You're living in the freedom of God....17 But thank God you've started listening to a new master,18 one whose commands set you free to live openly in his freedom! (Message bible)
Walk in His freedom! Thank you Jesus that you took what we deserved so we can live in what you deserved. That’s my King! The greatest laid down lover ever! Thank you Jesus!
This is another fantastic teaching on this topic from Dan Mohler, enjoy!!
www.youtube.com/watch?v=YacUejbtQ6I
For more resources
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