Wanted to provide a brief word on sin, and being free from it and any sense of condemnation it might bring into our lives post-confession/repentance. I have past sins that the accuser of my soul likes to bring up at points. I have to dig down with the Lord in prayer, and almost mechanically/analytically work through what He has done for me and how that implicates who I am now as a new creation in Christ. Douglas Campbell highlights how sin functions in the Apostle Paulโs thinking quite well:
The seriousness of Paulโs account of human wrongdoing here needs to be noted. If sin is just a series of bad choices that proceed from a fundamentally healthy nature, then Jesus needs to provide only a clear example of how to behave, along with some additional teaching about right acting. That he had to die, executing our condition, then resurrecting human nature in a new form, suggests that there was something irredeemably corrupt and contaminated in the old one. As some scholars would put it, our problem is radical (from the Latin radix, meaning โrootโ), suggesting that our problem goes down into the very roots of our nature.[1]
The assumption of our humanity, by Christ, and then Him putting it to death suggests (strongly) that sin has penetrated our very natures (ontology) as human beings; that nothing short of that โold manโ being put to death and a โnew manโ being re-created in the resurrection of Jesus Christ will do. It is only through union with Christ, through participation with Christโs vicarious humanity that the Christian comes to have fellowship with the Holy and triune God. It is in this where the Christian lives into what it genuinely means to be human coram Deo.
With the aforementioned as the background let me provide a scenario. Iโm humming along, all of the sudden the enemy pops up his grubby face and starts attempting to remind me of past sins. Before I knew how to handle this, this sort of accusation would trip me up very badly. Now I no longer fall for this, since I am not โignorant of the devilโs devices.โ What I do when this happens is turn to the logic of Romans 8:
31 What, then, shall we say in response to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? 32 He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us allโhow will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things? 33 Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen? It is God who justifies. 34 Who then is the one who condemns?No one. Christ Jesus who diedโmore than that, who was raised to lifeโis at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us.
1) I recognize that in my fallen heart I am even worse than what the loser enemy is accusing me of. 2) I recognize that โHe who knew know sin became sin for me that I might become the righteousness of God in Him.โ 3) I recognize that Jesus Christ took that old man that the devil seeks to thwart me with, condemn me with, and has put it do death in His humanity. 4) I recognize that because I am โin Christโ in His death and burial, that likewise I am always and forever in Christ in His resurrected humanity. 5) I recognize that the enemy is attempting to condemn a humanity that the living God of all creation took for Himself and me with Him. 6) I recognize that if the enemy wants to attack anyone He must attack and condemn the โSon of Man.โ 7) I recognize that that poser god, the devil, already tried to condemn the Christ, and all that resulted in was Jesus triumphing over him, and his minions, making a public spectacle of him at the cross. 8) I recognize that who I am is so inextricably bound to who Christ is for me that the enemy no longer has a target to hit in me. 9) I recognize that I am not in a place, nor is the sucker evil one to condemn anyone. 10) I recognize that God is the only One who can rightfully condemn anyone. 11) I recognize that the Judge became judged for me, that I might have and find my life in His. 12) I recognize that the enemy is a beaten foe, and a chump; I tell him to eat skubalon in the name of Jesus Christ.
This is the exercise I have been going through over the last couple of days. To God in Christ alone be the Glory!
[1] Douglas A. Campbell, Pauline Dogmatics: The Triumph of Godโs Love (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2020), 116, n.7.
I see we share a lot in common, Bobby. (Even the sometimes colorful, euphemistic and colloquial manner of proclamation ; )
A very practical word (if it may be found by some to be not altogether “good”) :0
Skubalon eh? LOL
Bobby, this strikes me as pastoral counseling of the the type that is very much needed in the Torrance School.
So much of the debate and interchange reads academic in written word. That is not to say that it is (merely) academic. I, the parishioner NEED the Word of Christ Incarnate, of Jesus’s life and death and resurrection for me and of Christ The Way, The Truth, and The Life, and of course I NEED to know the Word, the Son of the Father, made flesh by the power of the Holy Spirit. So it is all only academic in its literary form, not in reality. But this writing strikes me particularly pastoral as I daily struggle with my sinfulness. I have known it’s truths for years, but to verbalize it a way that puts Jesus’ life in my stead at the forefront of my battle in a daily CONFESSION may have a lasting effect I have heretofore missed.
I have saved the email notification of this post at the top of my emails and have already re-visited it daily, and intend to continue to almost as liturgy, comparable to a friend who is in recovery uses 12 step “liturgy” to keep them in the program.
Thanks Bobby, and as always,
Our Lord continue to bless you.
Well done. And thank you for the encouragement for me and others to do likewise.
@Richard, thank you. Yeah, I don’t actually cuss in real life, but some contexts seem fitting for it. I went back and changed it to skubalon–the Greek is preferable.
@Duane, amen, glad this has helped encourage you in this way; that was my hope! It is the way the Lord has ministered to me over the years.
@Quistian, glad you found it edifying and helpful.