Freedom From Sin
(week 11, 2008)
Olubi Johnson
John 8:31-36 (KJV): So Jesus said to those Jews who had believed in Him, If you abide in My word [hold fast to My teachings and live in accordance with them], you are truly My disciples. (32) And you will know the Truth, and the Truth will set you free. (33) They answered Him, We are Abraham’s offspring (descendants) and have never been in bondage to anybody. What do You mean by saying, You will be set free? (34) Jesus answered them, I assure you, most solemnly I tell you, Whoever commits and practices sin is the slave of sin. (35) Now a slave does not remain in a household permanently (forever); the son [of the house] does remain forever. (36) So if the Son liberates you [makes you free men], then you are really and unquestionably free.
Here, the Lord Jesus teaches us that even though you may believe on Him you have to continue in His Word, so you can know the truth which will set you free from sin.
The implication of this is that after you believe on the Lord Jesus, you are free to a degree but not totally from the sin.
Furthermore, the more of the Word you know by revelation and experience the freer you get from sin and you can come into the experience of becoming totally free from sin.
He implies that the knowledge of the servant, referring to Moses and the Mosaic/Levitical moral and ceremonial laws, cannot set you free from sin:
Hebrews 3:5-6 (KJV): And Moses truly was faithful in all his house, as a servant, for a testimony of those things which were to be spoken afterward. (6) But Christ was faithful as a Son over his own house; whose house we are, if we hold fast the confidence and the rejoicing of the hope firm to the end.
Hebrews 9:9-10 (KJV): For it was a figure for the time then present, in which were offered both gifts and sacrifices that could not make him who did the service perfect as regards the conscience, (10) which stood only in meats and drinks, and different kinds of washings and fleshly ordinances, imposed on them until the time of reformation.
Hebrews 10:1-4 (KJV): For the Law which has a shadow of good things to come, not the very image of the things, appearing year by year with the same sacrifices, which they offer continually, they are never able to perfect those drawing near. (2) For then would they not have ceased to be offered? Because the worshipers, when they had been once for all purged, would have had no more conscience of sin. (3) But in those sacrifices there is a remembrance again of sins every year. (4) For it is not possible that the blood of bulls and of goats should take away sins.
However, the knowledge of the Son: the Lord Jesus Christ and the law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus can and will set you totally free from sin.
Romans 8:2-4 (KJV): But the Law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has made me free from the law of sin and death. (3) For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh; (4) so that the righteousness of the Law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the but according to the Spirit.
Now it is vital to have a precise knowledge of what sin is and thus how to be totally free from it using the knowledge of the Son, the Lord Jesus.
What then is sin?
Sin is a spiritual substance in the spirits (for those not yet born-again), souls and bodies of men that makes them to commit acts of sin.
Many people do not know that sin is a substance that causes acts of sin. So they try to be free from sin by trying to change their actions: but they fail because until you are totally free from the substance of sin you cannot be totally free of the acts of sin.
What is the origin of sin?
Sin is a corrupted form of God’s nature: it originated in Lucifer when he alienated or cut himself off from fellowship with God through rebellion by wanting to be independent of God because of the great wealth and power God gave him. It is instructive to note here that the love of money has and will always be the root of all evil (1 Timothy 6.10), since wealth and the power it gives makes people think they can be independent of God:
Ezekiel 28:12-19 (KJV): Son of man, lift up a lament over the king of Tyre, and say to him, So says the Lord Jehovah: You seal the measure, full of wisdom and perfect in beauty. (13) You have been in Eden the garden of God; every precious stone was your covering, the ruby, topaz, and the diamond, the beryl, the onyx, and the jasper, the sapphire, the turquoise, and the emerald, and gold. The workmanship of your tambourines and of your flutes was prepared in you in the day that you were created. (14) You were the anointed cherub that covers, and I had put you in the holy height of God where you were; you have walked up and down in the midst of the stones of fire. (15) You were perfect in your ways from the day that you were created, until iniquity was found in you. (16) By the multitude of your goods they have filled your midst with violence, and you have sinned. So I cast you profaned from the height of God, and I destroy you, O covering cherub, from among the stones of fire. (17) Your heart was lifted up because of your beauty; you have spoiled your wisdom because of your brightness. I will cast you to the ground; I will put you before kings, that they may behold you. (18) By the host of your iniquities, by the iniquity of your trade, you have profaned your holy places; so I brought a fire from your midst; it shall devour you, and I will give you for ashes on the earth, before the eyes of all who see you. (19) All who know you among the peoples shall be astonished at you; you shall be terrors, and you will not be forever.
Now just like clean flowing spring water becomes corrupted with impurities and germs if it becomes stagnant, the life and anointing of God that was on Lucifer became corrupted when life stopped flowing from God to him because of His rebellion: desire to be independent of God.
God’s nature is called eternal life or living water. This eternal life, this living water became corrupted in Lucifer, who thus became Satan. So spiritual death is simply a corrupted or polluted form of God’s life that is formed when men or angels alienate themselves from God, the source from which life flows.
It is instructive to note here that on the cross the Lord Jesus was made sin: because the life of God in him drained out through the loss of his blood, since the life of the flesh is in the blood (Leviticus 17. 14) and the life of God was flowing from his spirit, through his soul, through the blood out of from his physical body.
When this happened the life of God in his spirit became corrupted and he became sin or divine nature in his spirit became corrupted to become the sin substance even though he did not commit any act of sin:
2Corinthians 5:21 (KJV): For He has made Him who knew no sin, to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.
Hebrews 4:15 (KJV): For we do not have a high priest who cannot be touched with the feelings of our infirmities, but was in all points tempted just as we are, yet without sin.
So the Lord Jesus died, first spiritually on the cross, before he later died physically because God temporarily stopped the flow of the life of God to him so he could die for our sins; later on in hell (Ps. 16.10) after 3 days and nights God restored the flow of life and raised him from the dead, firstly spiritually and then physically glorifying his physical body. This is why the scripture says in
Matthew 27:46 (KJV): And about the ninth hour, Jesus cried with a loud voice, saying, Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani? That is, My God, My God, why have You forsaken me?
Psalms 16:10 (KJV): For You will not leave My soul in hell; You will not allow Your Holy One to see corruption.
Colossians 1:18 (KJV): And He is the Head of the body, the church, who is the Beginning, the First-born from the dead, that He may be pre-eminent in all things.
The Lord Jesus was the first person to be born-again from spiritual death into spiritual life making him the first-born among many brethren:
Romans 8:29 (KJV): For whom He foreknew, He also predestinated to be conformed to the image of His Son, for Him to be the first born among many brothers.
In our article next week, we will look at the different forms of the sin nature and why and how to be totally free from it.
