1 Corinthians 6:12 “All things are lawful for me, but all things are not helpful. All things are lawful for me, but I will not be brought under the power of any.”
When we are born-again it is our spirits that are made alive once again, for it is our spirits that have passed from death to life. Nevertheless as we have already seen in the previous section, there is one sin that the believer can commit that will cause their spirits to die once again, which is the sin to death. Every other sin committed by the believer cannot affect their spirits however, and the reason for that is because under the New Covenant the saints are not under law but rather they are under grace (Romans 6:14). In the above quoted passage of scripture the apostle Paul reveals the truth to us that all things are lawful to the believer. So what does that truth actually mean? If we go back to the first sin committed by mankind we can better understand the difference between being under grace and being under law. When God created Adam and Eve He placed them under law, for the law He gave them was to not eat the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil (Genesis 2:16-17). For those who are born under law the penalty that is incurred for transgressing the law is spiritual death, for the Lord said to Adam that in the day he disobeyed God’s commandment he would surely die (Genesis 2:17). That is exactly what happened, for on the day Adam and Eve ate the forbidden fruit they both died spiritually and were thus separated from the life of God. And thus they needed to be born-again in order to be reconciled back to God. And so all believers are made alive in spirit once again when they accept Jesus Christ as Lord and Saviour, and when that happens God places them under grace and not under law. For if God placed the saints back under law, the moment they transgressed any law they would incur the penalty of sinning under the law, which is spiritual death, and if that were to happen there would be no recourse for them because one cannot be born-again again. And so it is for that reason that the saints are under grace and not under law, and thus all things are lawful for the saints. In other words because all things are lawful for the saints it becomes impossible for them to transgress any law, which means they cannot incur spiritual death which in effect means that their spirits are immune to sin.
Michael E.B. Maher
Comments