The Gospel Truth That Makes Us Free

...Now, whether or not we will, or for that matter, even be able to attain to Christ-like holiness this side of Heaven has been a subject for debate among Christians. But one thing is for certain. We need to be serious about pursuing and perfecting it in reverence of God, because without holiness, no one will see the Lord! Besides that, Christ commands us to be holy because our Father in Heaven is Holy, and He would not command us to do something that was impossible for us to do. There are many souls in the world and in the church today who are living under the bondage of sin and its devastating consequences in their lives. The anointing that is within Christian believers through a relationship and fellowship with Christ around His Word and in His Spirit is designed to enable us to demonstrate deliverance to those in captivity and bondage to the power of sin in their lives. But we must be free, ourselves, before we can offer freedom to others. I believe this teaching will lead us closer to experiencing that freedom and, thereby, help us bring it to others, as well.

Christian faith is founded on the knowledge of the Truth that is realized in the Person of the Lord Jesus Christ and revealed by the power of the Holy Spirit. Grace begets knowledge; knowledge begets faith; and faith begets faithfulness. We must come to know, by the inspiration and quickening of the Holy Spirit, what the Bible reveals about the accomplished work of Christ on the cross regarding the atonement for our sins, which incorporates both forgiveness for our sins and, of equal importance, deliverance from our old sin nature. This, of course, has been accomplished through Christ identifying with us through His substitutionary sacrifice for our sins and by our identifying with Christ in His crucifixion, resulting in our own death to the power of sin over our lives, which enables us to resist the temptation to sin or to allow sin to rule in our mortal bodies. We are thereby enabled by the mercies of God to present our bodies as living sacrifices, holy and acceptable unto God, which is our spiritual service, and not be conformed to this world, but transformed by the renewing of our minds so that we might prove (demonstrate) what is that good and acceptable, and perfect will of God.

An attorney calls someone into a courtroom as a witness in order to help him prove his case. Jesus calls those who are baptized in His Holy Spirit witnesses unto Himself. The Holy Spirit has been given to the Christian believer to prove the veracity of Christ’s claims that He has indeed come into the world to save sinners from their sins! In reference to sinners, Paul said, "of whom I am chief." Therefore, sinners who receive the knowledge of the Truth in the Person of Jesus Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit are made the very righteousness of God in Christ and are no longer under the power and sway of self, Satan, and sin. The problem is that most Christians don't truly know this, much less believe this, and/or act on this when tempted, tested, and tried. Nevertheless, for those who have been enabled to appropriate this grace through faith, Jesus Christ has become not only the means to their justification as a wonderful Savior, but also their deliverance from the "old sin nature," resulting in their sanctification. These have chosen to make Him both Savior and Lord of their lives by submitting to His will and obeying His commandments in a similar way that He submitted to His Heavenly Father’s will and obeyed His commandments. As Jesus Christ chose to operate in perfect faithfulness to His Father’s will instead of His own will and to experience crucifixion for us resulting in our salvation and sanctification, Christ truly becomes our Lord to whom we have chosen to be fully submitted in operating as faithful servants and obedient sons to His will by taking up our own crosses daily and following Him. This results in our consecration and effective service to Him, the church, and the world. This is how we become the masters and commanders over our old sin nature and its consequences, namely sickness, poverty, and death. We are thereby enabled to bring deliverance to others, not in word only, but with a demonstration of the Spirit and of power through His anointing and our resurrected new life in Christ. In other words, in direct response to the measure we experience freedom from our sins, we are enabled to lead others into freedom from theirs and break the power of the curse off of their lives. Holiness unto God results in His power being at our disposal for the benefit of a hurting world.

Jesus said, “If you continue in my words, then you are my disciples indeed, and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free.” Paul said, “Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty,” and, “it was for freedom that Christ has made us free.” As Christ’s faithful followers, we are commanded to go into all the world and make disciples of all nations. This, of course, is why we are in the world today - so let’s stop allowing ourselves to be dominated by sin and get on to the business of bringing salvation and Christian discipleship to others!

I was once told a story by a famous evangelist who had seen many miracles and many souls saved in his meetings. He told the story of how he himself was saved. He was walking down the street, and as he passed by a street preacher, the preacher turned around and shouted to him, “Hey, sinner, rejoice! You don’t have to sin no more!” My friends, that is the gospel truth that makes us free! We must come to know and believe what the Holy Scriptures tell us about ourselves in Christ. Namely, that our old sinful man was executed with Christ. Our old sin nature has been judged and condemned to death in Christ's death on the cross. We were crucified with Christ, nevertheless we live, and the life that we now live in the flesh, we live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved us and gave Himself for us. As we come to know this, believe this, consider this a factual truth, and act upon it with firm resolve when tempted to sin, we are made free from the power of sin. In other words, by resolutely refusing to allow sin to have dominion over us when tempted to transgress the will of God, sin will have no more power over us because we, by faith, will be empowered to behave in pureness and holiness of spirit, soul, and body with the understanding that we are dead indeed to sin and alive to God through Jesus Christ our Lord. If this seems to be an extraordinary place of faith to some, it's because it is! It is quite the same and equally as extraordinary as Peter walking on water by faith in response to Christ's word. This results in the manifest reality: "They who are Christ's have crucified the flesh with its affections and lusts." Again, that is the gospel truth that makes us free, and it is especially good news to those sincere Christian believers who may have been enslaved and in bondage to a life, perhaps, even a lifestyle of habitually besetting moral short comings and sins. Therefore, we can truly praise God, who always causes us "to triumph over self, Satan, and sin through faith in Christ Jesus," and remember, "this is that which overcomes the world, even our faith."

Now, there is another dynamic to consider. "If we were saved by His death, how much more shall we be saved through His life?" "Jesus ever lives to make intercession for the saints according to the will of God." "He was raised for our justification." We can therefore mortify the misdeeds of the body through the Spirit." "The love of God has been has been shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit" and "faith works through love." "We have the mind of Christ," and "we are seated with Christ in heavenly places." All that is required of us now is to learn to yield to the leadings of the Holy Spirit instead of yielding to the dictates of the flesh. In doing so, we will get real good at "denying the old man" and get a whole lot better at "putting on the new man, who is created in righteousness and true holiness."

I am reminded of the movie A Beautiful Mind, in which Russell Crowe played the gifted mathematician and Nobel Prize winner, John Nash, who was also diagnosed with severe schizophrenia that eventually led him to a complete mental breakdown and hospitalization. The nature of his illness, in combination with his profound mind, caused him to suffer from elaborate hallucinations. There were three imaginary characters (one was his best friend throughout college) in his delusional mind that stayed with him throughout his life and professional career, even up to the time of the award ceremony in which he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Economics. At that time, when asked how he was able to continue his career as a distinguished professor in a prestigious university while still having these hallucinations, he answered, "I have learned to ignore them. I give them no heed, and they eventually just give up and leave me alone." I believe there is something that we, who are so often tempted to transgress the will of God and act contrary to His word, can glean from this gifted man's experience. Perhaps we, too, can learn to ignore the tempter's voice and give no heed to the devil as we practice giving up those familiar sins with which we have become so comfortably related. I believe that by grace through faith, our minds can be renewed to Christ's way of thinking, and that our bodies can be conformed to Christ's way of acting. But we must learn to submit ourselves to the will of God, resist the devil, and he will flee from us!

In Mel Gibson's movie, The Passion of The Christ, there was a scene depicting Jesus Christ hanging on the cross. It was a scene revealing the time in history when Jesus Christ, the spotless Lamb of God, actually became sin for us to redeem us from our sins. At that moment, God had to turn his back on Jesus, causing Him to cry out, "My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?" While I was watching that scene, the Holy Spirit spoke to my heart and said, "In the same way that God turned His back on Jesus, you need to turn your back on your sins." Wow! You see my friends, it is important to confess our sins but it is equally important to utterly forsake them.


In closing, I would like to share some scriptures with you that I believe will help us all to do just that, and perhaps, a bit more effectively.

"Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with Him that the body of sin might be destroyed that henceforth we should not serve sin. For he that is dead, is freed from sin. Now if we be dead with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him knowing that Christ, being raised from the dead, dies no more. Death has no more dominion over Him for in that He died, He died unto sin once: in that He lives, He lives unto God. Likewise, reckon yourselves to be dead indeed to sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord. Let not sin, therefore, reign in your mortal body that you should obey it in the lust thereof. Neither yield your members as instruments of unrighteousness unto sin, but yield yourselves unto God as those that are alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness unto God. For sin shall not have dominion over you, for you are not under the law, but under grace." Romans 6:6-14