Evening Spiritual Diary for 1/8/2025 10:48 PM
My Worship Time Focus: PT-1 “Sin Is Incompatible With the Work of
Christ”
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: 1 John 3:5-8
Message of the verses: “5 You know that He
appeared in order to take away sins; and in Him there is no sin. 6 No one who abides in Him sins;
no one who sins has seen Him or knows Him. 7 Little children, make sure no one
deceives you; the one who practices righteousness is righteous, just as He is
righteous; 8 the one who practices sin is of the devil; for the devil has
sinned from the beginning. The Son of God appeared for this purpose, to destroy
the works of the devil.”
This
section is difficult to understand as an example notice the highlighted part of
verse six, and that is the most difficult part of this section that I will do
my best to make sure we all understand it.
Jesus’
primary reason for come to earth was in order to take away sins. Therefore with this truth known it is
absolutely inconsistent with Jesus Christ’s redeeming work on the cross for
anyone who claims to be a Christian (one who shares the very life of Christ) to
continue in sin. Now to do so utterly
ignores the reality of the sanctifying element of salvation, whereby believers
are set apart from sin to righteousness.
Now I have written earlier that there are three stages of
sanctification. The first part is when a
person becomes a new believer he is set apart to the Lord Jesus Christ to do
what He desires for him to do. Next as
believers grow up in the Lord they are being sanctified more and more as they
grow up in the Lord. Thirdly when the
rapture of the church happens an believers in the church age go to be with the
Lord they will be totally and fully sanctified.
MacArthur
explains “John reminds his readers that they know ( a form of the verb oida), not by mere information by the
confidence of personal perception, that He appeared. John used a form of the
very phaneroo, which in the New Testament
often indicates either Christ’s first or second coming (e.g., Col. 3:4; Heb.
9:26; 1 Peter 5:4), to refer to the indisputable fact that the Lord had
come. He came not only to pay the
penalty for sin and provide forgiveness (the doctrines of propitiation and
justification [Rom 3:25; 4:25; 5:9, 18; Heb. 2:17 1 John 4:14]). As a result of Christ’s substituionary
atonement on the cross, believers have been set apart from sin unto holiness
(cf. Eph. 1:3-4). Te lawlessness that
once characterized their lives has been removed. Because Christ died to sanctify (i. e., make
holy) the believer (2 Cor. 5:21; Eph. 5:25-27), to live sinfully is contrary to
His work of breaking the dominion of sin in the believer’s life (Rom. 6:1-15).”
I
want at this time to look at those verses from the book of Romans to close this
first SD on these verses, as I will take my time getting through them so that
we can all understand what John is teaching us in these verses.
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!
Please
take your time to read over these verses as they will help you understand what
we have just looked at and what we will be looking at in the next SD on the
verses from 1 John.
1/8/2025 11:14 PM
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