Hebrews 9:12 “Not with the blood of goats and calves, but with His own blood He entered the Most Holy Place once for all, having obtained eternal redemption.”
As revealed to us in the passage of scripture quoted above, when Jesus was raised from the dead He took His own blood into the heavenly tabernacle and offered His blood to the Father as the atoning sacrifice for the cleansing of our sins. Because Jesus was the spotless Lamb of God, who through the shedding of His blood took away the sin of the world, that sacrifice was accepted by the Father (John 1:29). And now all who believe the truth of that message are able to receive the cleansing of their sins through the precious blood of the Lamb.
Revelation 1:5 “and from Jesus Christ, the faithful witness, the firstborn from the dead, and the ruler over the kings of the earth. To Him who loved us and washed us from our sins in His own blood.”
When we come into the kingdom of God we are cleansed from all of our sins in the blood of the Lamb, for the above quoted passage of scripture declares that the Lord washes us from our sins in His own blood. And so we stand before God completely clean as if we had never sinned. It is very important that we understand this particular truth, i.e. the moment that each of us are born-again we are in that instant sinless before God, for all of our sins committed up until that moment are washed away in the blood of the Lamb. Now it may be that the born-again believer may commit a new sin five minutes after they are saved, but nevertheless during that interim five-minute period they remain completely free from all sin and there is no sin in them. Clearly when some believers are born-again they are radically changed, and are thus able to stay away from sinning against God for a period far longer than five minutes. The principle remains the same for every saint however, i.e. for whatever period of time the saint refrains from committing any new sins after they are born-again, for that period of time they walk before the Lord completely free from sin.
2 Peter 1:9 “For he who lacks these things is short-sighted, even to blindness, and has forgotten that he was cleansed from his old sins.”
Sadly because most believers are not New Testament taught, they do not realise the potential they have in Christ. In the passage of scripture quoted above the apostle Peter teaches us that there are believers who live their Christian lives forgetting the fact that there was a moment in time when they stood sinless before God. That moment was when they were born-again and they were washed from all their old sins, for they were in that instant completely free from all sin. And so we see a truth, that all of us are born into the kingdom of God completely free from sin. It was never God’s intention that once His children were washed from their old sins in the blood of the Lamb, that they should go out and start committing new sins all over again. It was always His intention that His children continue to walk free from sin, i.e. no longer walking as sons of disobedience.
Romans 8:1-4 “There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit. (2) For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has made me free from the law of sin and death. (3) For what the law could not do in that it was weak through the flesh, God did by sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, on account of sin: He condemned sin in the flesh, (4) that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.”
In the passage of scripture quoted above the Holy Spirit through the apostle Paul teaches us that Jesus has condemned sin in the flesh. So how did Jesus condemn sin in the flesh? The scripture tells us that Jesus did that by living in a body with the same likeness of sinful flesh as ours. In other words Jesus body was subject to the same sinful temptations as ours are. The difference is that Jesus never committed any sin, for He was the only man that ever lived and never let sin reign in His mortal body. In other words Jesus overcame sin in the flesh, because of which He has condemned sin in the flesh. So why was it necessary for Jesus to condemn sin in the flesh? This passage tells us that Jesus did that so that the righteous requirement of the law could be fulfilled in us who do not walk according to the flesh but walk according to the spirit. In other words Jesus condemned sin in the flesh for us so that we could walk in righteousness. And so we can see that had Jesus not condemned sin in the flesh for us, it would not be possible for the saints to walk in righteousness in this life. Nevertheless because Jesus has condemned sin in the flesh, every believer who abides in Christ is also able to overcome sin in the flesh, for Christ in them enables them to walk even as He walked, i.e. free from sin (1 John 2:6).
Michael E.B. Maher
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