Bible Study Never Guilty—Never Disappointed

[netchaplain]

A believer can be discouraged or dissatisfied but does not have to be disappointed, cast upon hardness but not cast down, intentionally offended but not offended, heartbroken but joyous in Christ.

The access to disappointment is dependence on self or others but dependence on God never disappoints. If we depend on His Word that, “All things work together for good to those who love God†(Rom 8:28), there cannot exist a justifiable disappointment for the believer?

If we depend on His Word that the believer is completely cleared and guilt-free of sin’s eternal curse of damnation, which is the greatest of grace’s gifts because it allows eternal fellowship with Him, we are entirely fictional in finding disappointment.
Discouragement and self-disappointment is expected during the “babe in Christ†stages, but during the maturing stages (which has no pinnacle) one finally learns that everything that is desired, even in the disruption and distraction of the “old man,†ultimately results in, “to will and to do of His good pleasure,†because He, “works in you†this overall (Phil 2:13).

We can and should be dissatisfied with our “old man†when we encounter its workings from self and others, but we never need to allow disappointment (which is faith-building), considering that God not only foreknows all our occurrences but also foreknows that our ultimate desire in them is to please Him.

Can the believer truly incur any type of real guilt (not even self-induced, which would be nonexistent) on the conscience of his person when affected by the “old man,†considering God has, regardless of any situation, already declared innocence on him (but not on the old man, for sin is never forgiven when condemned—Rom 8:3)?

The believer’s overriding contemplation, esp. in the most heartbroken of times, can be his guiltless condition in which the Father, through His Son, our Lord Jesus has placed him and this alone can allow freedom from over-expecting more from self than what God expects; yea, which He also foreknows and thus is never condemning but chastising, loving and instructional.

 

[JohnD]

Romans 6 (NASB95)

1 What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin so that grace may increase?
2 May it never be! How shall we who died to sin still live in it?
3 Or do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus have been baptized into His death?
4 Therefore we have been buried with Him through baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life.
5 For if we have become united with Him in the likeness of His death, certainly we shall also be in the likeness of His resurrection,
6 knowing this, that our old self was crucified with Him, in order that our body of sin might be done away with, so that we would no longer be slaves to sin;
7 for he who has died is freed from sin.
8 Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him,
9 knowing that Christ, having been raised from the dead, is never to die again; death no longer is master over Him.
10 For the death that He died, He died to sin once for all; but the life that He lives, He lives to God.
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.
15 What then? Shall we sin because we are not under law but under grace? May it never be!
16 Do you not know that when you present yourselves to someone as slaves for obedience, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin resulting in death, or of obedience resulting in righteousness?
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 sanctification.
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.
23 For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

 

[JohnD]

Romans 7 (NASB95)

1 Or do you not know, brethren (for I am speaking to those who know the law), that the law has jurisdiction over a person as long as he lives?
2 For the married woman is bound by law to her husband while he is living; but if her husband dies, she is released from the law concerning the husband.
3 So then, if while her husband is living she is joined to another man, she shall be called an adulteress; but if her husband dies, she is free from the law, so that she is not an adulteress though she is joined to another man.
4 Therefore, my brethren, you also were made to die to the Law through the body of Christ, so that you might be joined to another, to Him who was raised from the dead, in order that we might bear fruit for God.
5 For while we were in the flesh, the sinful passions, which were aroused by the Law, were at work in the members of our body to bear fruit for death.
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.
7 What shall we say then? Is the Law sin? May it never be! On the contrary, I would not have come to know sin except through the Law; for I would not have known about coveting if the Law had not said, “You shall not covet.”
8 But sin, taking opportunity through the commandment, produced in me coveting of every kind; for apart from the Law sin is dead.
9 I was once alive apart from the Law; but when the commandment came, sin became alive and I died;
10 and this commandment, which was to result in life, proved to result in death for me;
11 for sin, taking an opportunity through the commandment, deceived me and through it killed me.
12 So then, the Law is holy, and the commandment is holy and righteous and good.
13 Therefore did that which is good become a cause of death for me? May it never be! Rather it was sin, in order that it might be shown to be sin by effecting my death through that which is good, so that through the commandment sin would become utterly sinful.
14 For we know that the Law is spiritual, but I am of flesh, sold into bondage to sin.
15 For what I am doing, I do not understand; for I am not practicing what I would like to do, but I am doing the very thing I hate.
16 But if I do the very thing I do not want to do, I agree with the Law, confessing that the Law is good.
17 So now, no longer am I the one doing it, but sin which dwells in me.
18 For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh; for the willing is present in me, but the doing of the good is not.
19 For the good that I want, I do not do, but I practice the very evil that I do not want.
20 But if I am doing the very thing I do not want, I am no longer the one doing it, but sin which dwells in me.
21 I find then the principle that evil is present in me, the one who wants to do good.
22 For I joyfully concur with the law of God in the inner man,
23 but I see a different law in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin which is in my members.
24 Wretched man that I am! Who will set me free from the body of this death?
25 Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, on the one hand I myself with my mind am serving the law of God, but on the other, with my flesh the law of sin.


I always remind myself who and what I am dealing with when I am tempted to take Romans 8 out of its contextual setting. You make several good points NetChaplain... I only wanted to add this aside. God bless!

 

[JohnD]

The key in Romans 8 is:

Romans 8:1-2 (NASB95)
1 Therefore there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.
2 For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and of death.


Echoing back to the spirit versus the letter (of the law) and passages like Philippians 3:3 / John 4:23-24 and Romans 2:28-29... wrapped up in 1 John 1:1 - 1 John 2:6... summed up as living in the flesh is to fail and living in the spirit is to conquer and while we are not to sin or take sin lightly, when we do sin God's love in perfected in us by the means he provided for us (the ongoing cleansing blood of Christ) when we confess (to him see Psalm 51:4) and forsake our sins...