Bible Study Getting Out of the Sin-Confession Cycle.

[Tenchi]

Romans 6:1-7
1 What shall we say then? Are we to
continue in sin that grace may abound?
2 By no means! How can we who
died to sin still live in it?

​

I've encountered many Christians who have settled into the belief that the Christian life is just a long, unending cycle of sin>confession>sin>confession, over and over, lasting victory over sin an impossibility this side of the grave. They look around and see that their fellow believers are caught in the same sin>confession cycle that they're in and so, they are confirmed in their belief that the cycle is inevitable. This belief is further solidified by decades lived in the sin>confession cycle, despite frequent, heartfelt prayers to God to be delivered from it. There has been no deliverance, really, though there has been some slightly greater control over oneself that has developed (possibly).

And so, when believers who've lived like this and have grown hardened into the belief that there is no other way to live, hear of, or read, what the apostle Paul wrote in the verses above, they simply dismiss it. Whatever Paul meant, he can't have meant what he actually wrote. The believer hardened into the sin>confession cycle knows that Paul's got it wrong; though they've prayed and prayed and wrestled as hard as they could against it, their long experience unable to be free in any significant way from sin proves that Paul is wrong.

What, after all, is more real than our actual experience, right? What is more true than what happens to us in concrete, personal experience? Thinking in this way, the believer long-caught in the sin>confession cycle justifies their failure to have moved into an ever-increasingly holy life. In fact, they take a certain subtle pride in their spiritual perseverance, in their willingness to "get back up and continue the race," sometimes over and over in a single day. Their being wearily reconciled to the idea that the sin>confession cycle is the normal life of the Christian person is, in their minds, a sign of a spiritual veteran! This is, after all, what long, hard experience has taught them and nothing can be more sure than such experience.

Often, too, if there is some glimmer of understanding in a believer who's come to think that no real and increasing freedom from sin is possible that, maybe - just maybe - they've misunderstood how things work spiritually, well, the thought is quickly snuffed out. It's simply too painful to contemplate that all the time they've been walking with God, they've been doing so on a fundamentally mistaken basis. Pride won't allow such an admission. And the wasted time and effort! No, it's better, they think, to just continue on.

But as the words of the apostle Paul make very clear, the sin>confession>sin>confession cycle is unnatural to Christian living. The truly born-again child of God has been freed, not just from the penalty of their sin, but from the power of the Source of all their sin: The Old Self.

Romans 6:6-7
6 We know that our old self was crucified with him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing, so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin.
7 For one who has died has been set free from sin.

In being made a "new creature in Christ" (2 Corinthians 5:17) every Christian has been crucified spiritually with Jesus, united with him in his death, burial and resurrection. When he died at Calvary, they died with him to their Old Self, to the power of the pathologically-selfish person they are apart from God. How, exactly? The Bible never says. It tells us what has happened and when, but not how. We don't need to know, though, the mechanics of our spiritual union with Jesus in his death, burial and resurrection. The crucial thing to understand is that it is so, that it is the truth that, through our union with Christ in his death, burial and resurrection, we have been freed from the power of who we were before we were saved and made a "new creation."

About this, Paul makes quite a big deal, pointing out this dead-to-sin truth, not only in his letter to the believers at Rome, but repeatedly in his various letters to the Early Church:

Galatians 2:20
20 I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.

Galatians 5:24
24 And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.

Galatians 6:14
14 But far be it from me to boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world.

Colossians 2:11-13
11 In him also you were circumcised with a circumcision made without hands, by putting off the body of the flesh, by the circumcision of Christ,
12 having been buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with him through faith in the powerful working of God, who raised him from the dead.
13 And you, who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses,

Colossians 3:1-3
1 If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God.
2 Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth.
3 For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God.

This is the normal Christian life. Regular descent into sin is aberrant behaviour for born-again people, it is to act entirely contrary to who they've become in Jesus Christ, to what is true of them as those who have been "made dead to sin and alive unto God" (Romans 6:11). And yet, many Christians sin quite regularly and often for decades, settling into the resulting flat greyness of a life fouled and deadened by their sin. And being long in this circumstance, horribly, they grow unable to accept that there is a far, far better way to live. But, God's word is plain as day:

Romans 6:11-14
11 Even so consider yourselves to be dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus.
12 Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its lusts,
13 and do not go on presenting the members of your body to sin as instruments of unrighteousness; but present yourselves to God as those alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness to God.
14 For sin shall not be master over you, for you are not under law but under grace.

Continued below.

 

[Tenchi]

What about personal experience? It appears to very clearly deny all of this stuff. Most Christians sin every day, and are often proud to admit this fact, the act of doing so thought by them to be a demonstration of advanced humility and honesty. Unable to lay claim truthfully to an increasingly holy life, they attempt to scrape out some virtue from their never-ending failure by their confession of it. What a dreadfully sad state-of-affairs for those who have been made dead to the Old Self and sin!

In any case, though the believer's experience may diverge from the declaration of God's word, they are commanded to "walk by faith, not by sight" (2 Corinthians 5:7), they are to consider, or reckon, it so that they are "dead to sin and live unto God through Jesus Christ (Romans 6:11). This is trusting what God has said in spite of what one feels or experiences. For only as a Christian does this will they begin to experience the truth of their union with, and identity in, Jesus Christ. One pastor put it this way:

"Faith is believing a thing is so,
When it appears it is not so,
In order for it to be so,
Because it is so."

A biblical example of this definition of faith is presented to us in the story of the Israelites arriving at the border of Canaan, the Promised Land (Numbers 13-14). The Israelites could only experience the promise of God that the land of Canaan was theirs if they went in and took it . But their experience and feelings at the edge of Canaan did not bear out what God had said. The land was filled with great cities and peoples, giants strode about in it. And so, the Israelites were filled with doubt and fear and would not go into Canaan. Neither their experience, nor their feelings aligned with God's statement to them about the Promised Land. As a result, they drew back from the "land overflowing with milk and honey."

Sound familiar? Christians do this with the spiritual "Promised Land" that is theirs in Jesus Christ all the time. They read the apostle Paul's divinely-inspired words about their union with Christ in his death, burial and resurrection and the resulting freedom from the power of the Old Self and sin that is theirs and do just as the Israelites did at the border of Canaan. Their immediate experience is that sin has much power over them; their feeling is that it is impossible to live otherwise. And so, they behave accordingly, in direct denial of God's statement to them in His word that such living is contrary to the truth of what they've been given as "new creations in Jesus Christ."

Neither the disbelieving OT Chosen People of God at the border of Canaan, nor the modern, disbelieving born-again child of God who is a "joint-heir with Christ" spiritually (Romans 8:17; Ephesians 2:6), have pleased God in their disbelief. In fact, God regards such a lack of faith as evil:

Hebrews 3:7-12
7 Therefore, as the Holy Spirit says, “Today, if you hear his voice,
8 do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion, on the day of testing in the wilderness,
9 where your fathers put me to the test and saw my works for forty years.
10 Therefore I was provoked with that generation, and said, ‘They always go astray in their heart; they have not known my ways.’
11 As I swore in my wrath, ‘They shall not enter my rest.’”
12 Take care, brothers, lest there be in any of you an evil, unbelieving heart...

Is it any wonder, then, that the Christian who has settled into the sin>confession cycle, refusing to believe God's declaration to them in His word that they are "dead to sin" and freed from the power of the source of all their sin, which is their old, unsaved Self (Romans 6:6; Romans 6:11), is kept from the spiritual "Promised Land" that is theirs in Christ? If they won't, by faith, take hold of what is true of them in Jesus, they can't ever begin to experience the "milk and honey" of their spiritual inheritance in him.

Are you one who has become convinced that the sin>confession>sin>confession cycle is the normal Christian life? Are you determined to go with what you experience and feel about the "giants" and "great cities" of sin your life, no matter what God has said to you in His word? If you're ever going to experience the power, joy and peace of what is yours in Jesus Christ, if you're ever going to conquer those "giants" and "great cities" of sin your life, you will have to set aside your experience and feelings that diverge from God's declaration in His word, however well-established they are by time and repetition, and begin to "walk by faith, not by sight" in the truth of God's word about who you really are as His child.

Hebrews 3:19
19 So we see that they were unable to enter because of unbelief.

Hebrews 4:2-3
2 ...the message they heard did not benefit them, because they were not united by faith with those who listened.
3 For we who have believed enter that rest...
Hebrews 11:6
6 And without faith it is impossible to please him...

2 Peter 1:3-4
3 His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of him who called us to his own glory and excellence,
4 by which he has granted to us his precious and very great promises, so that through them you may become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped from the corruption that is in the world because of sinful desire.

Romans 6:1-7
1 What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound?
2 By no means! How can we who died to sin still live in it?
3 Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death?
4 We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.
5 For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his.
6 We know that our old self was crucified with him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing, so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin.
7 For one who has died has been set free from sin.

 

[Tenchi]

If a believer has hardened into the idea that sin will always plague their living in more or less the same degree, so what? In my experience anyway, these Christians aren't radically given over to wickedness (at least, as far as anyone knows); they attend church regularly, read their Bibles, pray, serve in their church, give to charity. They've managed to create something like the biblical shape of Christian living from their own human effort and they feel like things between themselves and God are, for the most part, all right. When they sin, they are quick to take advantage of the grace that is theirs in the atoning work of Jesus on their behalf and are always very grateful for such endless mercy and forgiveness. These believers are quite content to continue on in this way, not reaching the spiritual heights that are possible for them as children of God, but not descending into utter depravity, either. So, all this "dead-to-sin" stuff is uninteresting to them; it's just too peculiar a way to live, too "mystical" and "airy-fairy." Maybe some priest in a monastery can achieve what Paul wrote about in Romans 6, but the average Christian must resign themselves to a less...radical spiritual experience.

What is the cost, if any, of not entering into the spiritual Promised Land that is the spiritual birthright of every born-again person? Is it really no big deal if a Christian refuses to live by faith in their spiritual identity in Jesus? Well, actually, it is a very big deal to neglect to "walk by faith, not by sight" and to fail to live in the truth of one's union with Jesus in his death, burial and resurrection.

You see, the basic and normal Christian life is one that increasingly possesses the spiritual Promised Land obtained in Jesus. It is, as was pointed out earlier, abnormal to be a Christian who never arrives at the place where sin is the exception rather than the rule, who is not, in practical daily living, progressively freed from the power of Self and sin. An increasingly holy life is the means by which God comes more completely into "focus," by which the Christian "sees" God with greater and greater clarity and fullness.

Hebrews 12:14
14 Strive for peace with everyone, and for the holiness without which no one will see the Lord.

Sin always produces blindness spiritually. Consider the church of Laodicea:

Revelation 3:15-17
15 “‘I know your works: you are neither cold nor hot. Would that you were either cold or hot!
16 So, because you are lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of my mouth.
17 For you say, I am rich, I have prospered, and I need nothing, not realizing that you are wretched, pitiable, poor, blind, and naked.

The believers at Loadicea had no idea of their true spiritual condition. Their sin of lukewarmness had blinded them to their wretched and pitiable state. You can be sure with such poor spiritual "vision" that they did not see God clearly at all, either. So, too, the modern believer who has grown resigned to their own spiritual lukewarmness, content to live perennially plagued by the same sins, experiencing only temporary and inconsistent "victory" over them. Just like the believers at Laodicea, this believer is "wretched, pitiable, poor, blind and naked" and so, oblivious to their condition.

The believer mired in the sin>confession cycle may reply, "I don't feel 'lukewarm' toward God, or spiritually blind. I read my Bible and pray every day. I never miss a Sunday worship. Yes, I've struggled with the same sins for years and I fall into them almost every day. No one's perfect, right? But I get right back up and keep 'running the race.'"

This Christian doesn't see that, in their justification of their sin-plagued living, they demonstrate the very blindness they're denying! As Paul wrote,

Romans 6:1-2
1 What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound?
2 By no means! How can we who died to sin still live in it?

Spiritual activity, the external appearance of spiritual life in religious action, by no means proves spiritual health. The church at Sardis illustrated this:

Revelation 3:1-2
1 “And to the angel of the church in Sardis write: ‘The words of him who has the seven spirits of God and the seven stars. “‘I know your works. You have the reputation of being alive, but you are dead.
2 Wake up, and strengthen what remains and is about to die, for I have not found your works complete in the sight of my God.

The believer who accommodates regular collapse into sin by way of their religious activity is just like the church at Sardis which had a reputation of being "alive" spiritually, of being spiritually active, while at the same time being so asleep spiritually that they might as well have been spiritually dead. Doing religious things - Bible reading, prayer, church attendance - can sometimes actually obscure the truth of a near-death spiritual condition!

It is the normal Christian life to be living in the "Promised Land" of life in Christ Jesus, that is always marked by an increasing holiness, by an ever-advancing freedom from sin in one's daily living. If such a consistent (though, not necessarily rapid) departure from sin is not the case in one's life as a born-again person, the spiritual condition of the churches of Laodicea and Sardis are unavoidable. It is only as one is separated unto God (2 Corinthians 6:17-18; 1Peter 1:15-16), forsaking the World, the Flesh and the devil (1 John 2:15; James 4:4-10; Ephesians 5:1-13), by faith moving ever-deeper into the Promised Land of life in Christ Jesus that actual, basic, normal Christian living occurs.

As the Christian believer lives more and more consistently in holiness before God, they not only see God more clearly, but in doing so, move into deeper fellowship with Him. Holiness is not an end in itself but is merely the necessary means to full, genuine, daily, transformative communion with God. The believer, then, who tells you that, after decades of walking with God, they struggle with the same sins in more or less the same degree, that they are pretty much the same person they have always been, is telling you that they know nothing of true, deep fellowship with God. In fact, they are admitting that they are of a kind with the Laodicean or Sardisian believers described in John's Revelation. Understand that such a believer is an extremely poor source of advice about how to walk well with God, however long they claim to have "walked" with Him.

Romans 6:17-22
17 But thanks be to God that though you were slaves of sin, you became obedient from the heart to that form of teaching to which you were committed,
18 and having been freed from sin, you became slaves of righteousness.
19 I am speaking in human terms because of the weakness of your flesh. For just as you presented your members as slaves to impurity and to lawlessness, resulting in further lawlessness, so now present your members as slaves to righteousness, resulting in holiness.
20 For when you were slaves of sin, you were free in regard to righteousness.
21 Therefore what benefit were you then deriving from the things of which you are now ashamed? For the outcome of those things is death.
22 But now having been freed from sin and enslaved to God, you derive your benefit, resulting in sanctification, and the outcome, eternal life.

 

[Tenchi]

So, practically, what does all of the foregoing mean? When I'm faced with temptation to resume the sin>confession cycle, to fall again into sin, what do I do? In Romans 6, the apostle Paul gives two basic commands we are always to follow when confronted by the invitation to sin:

1.) By faith, count on the truth of your union with Christ and the resulting freedom from Self and sin. (Romans 6:11)

2.) Yield (or present) yourself to God as His humble bond-servant. (Romans 6:13)

Every sin always invites us to do the same two things. Whether it is a porn addiction, or a food addiction, or the impulse to become enraged, or to be lazy, or to be entertained with demonic/immoral things, or whatever, a born-again person always does the same two things when he sins: 1.) He denies who he is in Jesus, acting in a (sinful) manner contrary to his true, "new creation" identity as God's child and 2.) he stands in God's place in his life, following his own will and way rather than God's.

Because every sin always entails these two things, the apostle Paul addresses them directly and in so doing gives to us the core of God's "way of escape" (1 Corinthians 10:13) from the sin>confession cycle. So, then, when a Christian is, say, tempted to look at porn, the way of their escape from this temptation begins with rehearsing the truth about who they are in Christ: "I am dead to sin and alive unto God. My old Self and sin have no power over me."

On the heels of this declaration of the truth about oneself, conscious, explicit, perhaps even out-loud submission to God must follow. "God, please control my desires, thoughts and actions. Not my will but yours be done. I submit myself to your authority and control."

But, then, the tempting impulse immediately resumes. What now? It hasn't worked! The call to sin continues! The apostle Paul's "way of escape" is useless. Well, hang on. If the proper response to the temptation the first time it appeared was the above, why wouldn't it be the proper response the second, third, fourth and fifth time? You see, the Real Battle of Christian living isn't to force oneself to "live right," to make oneself act contrary to one's desires, but to STAY SUBMITTED TO GOD. All of what God has promised to do in the lives of His children is predicated on their constant surrender to His will and way, to the control of His Spirit.

Romans 8:14
14 For all who are being led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God.

Galatians 5:16,18
16 But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not carry out the desire of the flesh...

18 But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the Law.

Romans 11:36 - 12:1
36 For from Him and through Him and to Him are all things. To Him be the glory forever. Amen.
1 Therefore I urge you, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship.

James 4:6-7
6 ...“God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble.”
7 Submit yourselves therefore to God...

James 4:10
10 Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will exalt you.

1 Peter 5:5-6
5 ...“God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.”
6 Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God so that at the proper time he may exalt you,

Micah 6:8
8 He has told you, O man, what is good; And what does the LORD require of you But to do justice, to love kindness, And to walk humbly with your God?

God will never transform a rebel, which is what we are, born-again or not, when we are not consciously, constantly putting ourselves under His control.

But when we are walking with God as inferior to Superior, branch to Vine, sheep to Shepherd, child to heavenly Father, vessel and servant to Master, when God is the Boss, when He is our Lord and Ruler, then all that He is will fill us, and change us, and bring us into joyful, holy, daily fellowship with Himself. But God waits upon our conscious submission to Himself to make us like His Son, Jesus Christ. He will not impose Himself on us, He will not force us to His will and way; we must choose - by our constant submission to Him - God's holy life and transforming work.

When we've given over the "steering wheel" of our life to the Holy Spirit, he steers us into holiness and truth, going to work first upon our desires, the primal, directing core of our living, changing them, bringing them into proper proportion, dissolving evil desires and instilling new, godly desires in us. As he does, we come to desire what God desires for us, we hunger for His word, we want to be holy, we want to know God more and more, we want to love His Church and to share the increasingly awesome experience we have with Him with others. In all of this, we become more and more like Jesus (Romans 8:29), glorifying God as in inevitable result (1 Corinthians 10:31).

But first, there is the business of "possessing the land of promise" which always involves confronting and defeating the "great cities" and "giants" of sin that bar believers from the spiritual "land" in Jesus that is "overflowing with milk and honey." It turns out, though, the fight isn't actually ours to wage. We can't beat these opponents in-and-of ourselves; we're far too weak. We need God to fight for us, which He is quite willing to do - but on His terms, not ours. See above.

Perhaps the hardest thing to understand in all of what God does to bring about godliness in us is that He changes us, we don't change ourselves for Him. We really are just vessels in and through whom God moves, by the Holy Spirit manifesting His life and work in us.

Romans 8:13
13 for if you are living according to the flesh, you must die; but if by the Spirit you are putting to death the deeds of the body, you will live.

Philippians 1:6
6 For I am confident of this very thing, that He who began a good work in you will perfect it until the day of Christ Jesus.

Philippians 2:13
13 for it is God who is at work in you, both to will and to work for His good pleasure.

Philippians 4:13
13 I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.

2 Corinthians 3:18
18 But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as by the Lord, the Spirit.

Ephesians 3:16
16 that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with power through His Spirit in the inner man,

Ephesians 6:10
10 Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of His might.

1 Thessalonians 5:23-24
23 Now may the God of peace Himself sanctify you entirely; and may your spirit and soul and body be preserved complete, without blame at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.
24 Faithful is He who calls you, and He also will bring it to pass.

Jude 1:24-25
24 Now to Him who is able to keep you from stumbling, and to make you stand in the presence of His glory blameless with great joy,
25 to the only God our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, dominion and authority, before all time and now and forever. Amen.

God changes us; we can't ever change ourselves - not really, not in the way God intends we should be changed and for the purposes He desires to fulfill in our transformation. And so, when we finally see that a life lived in the endless sin>confession cycle is entirely unlike the life God intends for us to live with Him, and we begin to live in submission to Him and, by faith, stand unmoved upon what He says is true of us, we are astonished by the result. For this kind of life with God is exactly the opposite of the horrible, wrenching, sin-plagued experience we're used to.

As we fight the Real Battle of the Christian life and refuse to move out from under God's control, God's power is demonstrated in our life such that the terrible fight with temptation that we're used to is gone and we are moved in God's direction with such profundity and power that we often don't realize we are being moved. Only much later do we recognize that a crossroad of temptation is far behind and we've travelled with God further down the Narrow Way into holiness and fellowship with Himself. We aren't barely hanging by our fingernails, straining and striving to eke out each step toward God, our flesh, the World and the devil all blowing with gale force upon us and repeatedly knocking us flat. Instead, when God changes us, we "mount up with wings as eagles" and go "from strength to strength" (Isaiah 28:31; Psalm 84:5-7), laughing often in astonishment at how different, how much more enlivening and easy, it is to be transformed by God rather than by ourselves.

 

[Tenchi]

Bump.

 

[KV-44-v1]

Great read! thx for sharing.

 

[Tenchi]

Bump.

 

[Tenchi]

Bump.

 

[Tenchi]

Bump.

 

[Tenchi]

Bump.

 

[Hopeful 2]

Romans 6:1-7
1 What shall we say then? Are we to
continue in sin that grace may abound?
2 By no means! How can we who
died to sin still live in it?

​

I've encountered many Christians who have settled into the belief that the Christian life is just a long, unending cycle of sin>confession>sin>confession, over and over, lasting victory over sin an impossibility this side of the grave. They look around and see that their fellow believers are caught in the same sin>confession cycle that they're in and so, they are confirmed in their belief that the cycle is inevitable. This belief is further solidified by decades lived in the sin>confession cycle, despite frequent, heartfelt prayers to God to be delivered from it. There has been no deliverance, really, though there has been some slightly greater control over oneself that has developed (possibly).

And so, when believers who've lived like this and have grown hardened into the belief that there is no other way to live, hear of, or read, what the apostle Paul wrote in the verses above, they simply dismiss it. Whatever Paul meant, he can't have meant what he actually wrote. The believer hardened into the sin>confession cycle knows that Paul's got it wrong; though they've prayed and prayed and wrestled as hard as they could against it, their long experience unable to be free in any significant way from sin proves that Paul is wrong.

What, after all, is more real than our actual experience, right? What is more true than what happens to us in concrete, personal experience? Thinking in this way, the believer long-caught in the sin>confession cycle justifies their failure to have moved into an ever-increasingly holy life. In fact, they take a certain subtle pride in their spiritual perseverance, in their willingness to "get back up and continue the race," sometimes over and over in a single day. Their being wearily reconciled to the idea that the sin>confession cycle is the normal life of the Christian person is, in their minds, a sign of a spiritual veteran! This is, after all, what long, hard experience has taught them and nothing can be more sure than such experience.

Often, too, if there is some glimmer of understanding in a believer who's come to think that no real and increasing freedom from sin is possible that, maybe - just maybe - they've misunderstood how things work spiritually, well, the thought is quickly snuffed out. It's simply too painful to contemplate that all the time they've been walking with God, they've been doing so on a fundamentally mistaken basis. Pride won't allow such an admission. And the wasted time and effort! No, it's better, they think, to just continue on.

But as the words of the apostle Paul make very clear, the sin>confession>sin>confession cycle is unnatural to Christian living. The truly born-again child of God has been freed, not just from the penalty of their sin, but from the power of the Source of all their sin: The Old Self.

Romans 6:6-7
6 We know that our old self was crucified with him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing, so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin.
7 For one who has died has been set free from sin.

In being made a "new creature in Christ" (2 Corinthians 5:17) every Christian has been crucified spiritually with Jesus, united with him in his death, burial and resurrection. When he died at Calvary, they died with him to their Old Self, to the power of the pathologically-selfish person they are apart from God. How, exactly? The Bible never says. It tells us what has happened and when, but not how.

The bible/Paul do tell us how.
The verses after your opening two Rom 6 verses at your post's beginning tell us how...baptism into Christ and into His death and burial !
Rom 6:3-4..." Know ye not, that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into his death?
4 Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life."
That newness of life, is without sin.

We don't need to know, though, the mechanics of our spiritual union with Jesus in his death, burial and resurrection. The crucial thing to understand is that it is so, that it is the truth that, through our union with Christ in his death, burial and resurrection, we have been freed from the power of who we were before we were saved and made a "new creation."

About this, Paul makes quite a big deal, pointing out this dead-to-sin truth, not only in his letter to the believers at Rome, but repeatedly in his various letters to the Early Church:

Galatians 2:20
20 I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.

Galatians 5:24
24 And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.

Galatians 6:14
14 But far be it from me to boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world.

Colossians 2:11-13
11 In him also you were circumcised with a circumcision made without hands, by putting off the body of the flesh, by the circumcision of Christ,
12 having been buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with him through faith in the powerful working of God, who raised him from the dead.
13 And you, who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses,

Colossians 3:1-3
1 If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God.
2 Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth.
3 For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God.

This is the normal Christian life. Regular descent into sin is aberrant behaviour for born-again people, it is to act entirely contrary to who they've become in Jesus Christ, to what is true of them as those who have been "made dead to sin and alive unto God" (Romans 6:11). And yet, many Christians sin quite regularly and often for decades, settling into the resulting flat greyness of a life fouled and deadened by their sin. And being long in this circumstance, horribly, they grow unable to accept that there is a far, far better way to live. But, God's word is plain as day:

Romans 6:11-14
11 Even so consider yourselves to be dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus.
12 Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its lusts,
13 and do not go on presenting the members of your body to sin as instruments of unrighteousness; but present yourselves to God as those alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness to God.
14 For sin shall not be master over you, for you are not under law but under grace.

Continued below.

You sound like you are ready to start living without sinning.
I hope you continue down this road to a real repentance from sin, and continued life in Christ.

 

[Tenchi]

1 John 1:8
8 If we say that we have no sin, we are deceiving ourselves and the truth is not in us.

 

[Hopeful 2]

1 John 1:8
8 If we say that we have no sin, we are deceiving ourselves and the truth is not in us.

1 John 1:7
7 "But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin."

Are you unwilling to break the sin-confession cycle ?
BTW, confession without repentance is pointless.

 

[KV-44-v1]

If we say that we have no sin, we are deceiving ourselves and the truth is not in us.

Assuming "we" do not walk in the Light.

 

[Tenchi]

1 John 1:8
8 If we say that we have no sin, we are deceiving ourselves and the truth is not in us.

 

[Hopeful 2]

1 John 1:8
8 If we say that we have no sin, we are deceiving ourselves and the truth is not in us.

Are you really willing to say your opening post was just typing practice with no inherent truth ?
You went on and on about breaking a cycle, you now say can't be broken.
What's up ?

 

[Tenchi]

1 John 1:8
8 If we say that we have no sin, we are deceiving ourselves and the truth is not in us.

 

[Hopeful 2]

1 John 1:8
8 If we say that we have no sin, we are deceiving ourselves and the truth is not in us.

If we say we have no sin, we should confess that sin and be washed of it by the blood of Christ.
Then we can walk in God, in Whom is no sin !
And, we can say we have fellowship with Him, (1 John 1:6), that we know Him, (1 John 2:3-6), and that we have no sin. (1 John 1:5)

Can't you admit that John is writing of two different walks ?
One in darkness, and the other in the light ?

 

[KV-44-v1]

1 John 1:8
8 If we say that we have no sin, we are deceiving ourselves and the truth is not in us.

|
v

Are you really willing to say your opening post was just typing practice with no inherent truth ?

You went on and on about breaking a cycle, you now say can't be broken.

What's up ?

 

[Hopeful 2]

|
v

I don't understand your response.