Overcome Sin by Faith Alone
Romans 1:17 “For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith; as it is written, "The just shall live by faith.”
All believers know the above quoted passage of scripture very well, i.e. the just shall live by faith. What that simply means is that there is nothing we can do in the kingdom of God except by faith. So why is that? The answer to that question is just as simple. It is only by God’s power that we can walk as God has called us to walk, and it is only by faith that we have access to God’s power. It is for this reason that the Holy Spirit teaches us that without faith it is impossible to please God (Hebrews 11:6). And so anything done outside of faith is done in the flesh, which is why the apostle Paul teaches us that anything not done in faith is in fact sin (Romans 14:23).
Romans 6:1-12 “What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound? (2) Certainly not! How shall we who died to sin live any longer in it? … (11) Likewise you also, reckon yourselves to be dead indeed to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus our Lord. (12) Therefore, do not let sin reign in your mortal body, that you should obey it in its lusts.”
And so we see that we overcome sin in the flesh by faith and faith alone. In other words we must believe that the Lord Jesus has made it possible for us to no longer commit known sins. If we do not believe this is possible then we will never overcome sin in the flesh, for it is only through the power of God that we can overcome sin and it is only by faith that we have access to the power of God. There is no other way possible for the Christian to overcome sin, for if there was then we would not have needed Jesus, because we could have done it without Him. The passage of scripture quoted above puts the ball in our court, for the scripture tells us to reckon ourselves to be dead to sin and to not let sin reign in our mortal body. God is not unjust and He would not tell us to do something that we could not do. We certainly can do it. But we can only do it by faith in His transforming power, for it is the power of God that enables us to walk free from sin.
Michael E.B. Maher
Comments