Freedom From Sin 2
(week 12/08)
By Olubi Johnson
In our article last week we saw that God wants us totally free from sin. We also saw the sin substance is spiritual death: a corrupted form of God’s life and nature.
This week we will look at the different forms of the sin substance or nature and how to be totally free from the nature of sin, the guilt of sin and the acts of sin.
Now the sin substance or spiritual death has a ‘liquid’ form, a ‘solid’ form and a ‘gaseous’ form using the understanding of the form of physical substances (Romans 1.20).
Spiritual death in its ‘liquid’ form flows in the spirits of men who are not born-again, just like eternal life: living water flows in the spirits of men who are born-again:
1John 3:14-15 (KJV): We know that we have passed from death to life because we love the brothers. The one not loving the brother remains in death. (15) Everyone hating the brother is a murderer, and you know that every murderer does not have everlasting life abiding in him.
Revelation 12:15 (KJV): And the serpent threw water out of his mouth like a river after the woman, that he might cause her to be carried off by the river.
In its ‘solid’ form it is the sin substance that blocks the flow of the life of God, from God to man and is resident in their physical bodies, being passed from through the sperm at conception:
Psalms 51:5 (KJV): Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me.
This was why Jesus had to be born of a virgin: so He would not partake of the sin nature through the flesh.
In its ‘gaseous’ form it is in the air causing men to think, feel and act like Satan:
Ephesians 2:2-3 (NKJV): in which you once walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now works in the children of disobedience; (3) among whom we also had our way of life in times past, in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the thoughts, and were by nature the children of wrath, even as others.
It is instructive to note here that it is this power of sin in the air that makes men think, feel and act like Satan by making them desire to be independent of God and indulge in physical pleasures selfishly even when they have to hurt others to enjoy themselves.
This is the hallmark of the Satanic nature: the desire to be independent of God shown in trying to do God’s things in your own way; coupled with gross selfishness shown in being lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God and others: gross selfishness.
When we get born-again the sin nature is removed from our spirits, but is still in our souls and bodies. So in a sense we are only one-third free from the sin substance that is why we must continue in the Word, to have clearer and clearer revelation and experience of the truth: God’s Word (John. 17.17) so gradually become totally free from the substance of sin in our spirits, souls and bodies:
1Thessalonians 5:23 (KJV): Now may the God of peace Himself sanctify you, and may your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blamelessly at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Now why should we put in the necessary time, effort and sacrifice to be totally free from the sin nature in our souls and bodies especially since once we are free from it in our spirits when we die and leave our physical bodies we will go to heaven?
There are two main reasons why we should strive to be totally free of sin nature in our souls and bodies while we are still here on earth:
1. The degree to which we are free of the sin nature in souls and bodies will determine how good or what order of resurrection (Hebrews 11.35) we will have. Remember one star will differ form another in glory (1 Corinthians 15.41).
2. The degree to which we are free from sin will determine the degree to which we can fellowship with God and please Him and incidentally ourselves. We were created to please God and it is only in pleasing Him that we ourselves can enjoy the highest form of fulfilment and pleasure (John 15.10-11, Revelation 4. 11, Acts 17.26-28).
In our article next week we see how to get totally free from sin.
