The Christian life operates completely on a mystery: Christ in us. Not us living the life, but he living his own life in us. Not us producing the life, but expressing his life, as we trust him to live through us. God has permanently joined himself to our spirit. We and he are one. We operate as one. When we learn to live out of that, everything the New Testament promises about the Christian life, which we have tried so hard but failed to make come true, become daily realities.
It’s impossible for us to produce the life. But Jesus will live it through us. The life is Jesus. It’s not him plus anything—our Bible study, our prayer life, our good service, our church attendance, or anything else we may do. Those things all have their place, but they are not the life. He is.
We who are Christ’s have received the life. But as long as we are trying to make something of ourselves for God, make ourselves better, depending on our own ability to be a good Christian, we’ll live as if we don’t have it. We’ll live life we are forever striving to obtain something we already have. Jesus lives in us now. “The life that He lives, He lives to God,” Paul said. The life that He lives, He always lives to God. And He will live that life in us, as we trust Him to do it.
What God has given us is far better than try hard to keep God’s rules, strive to be like Jesus (even though you’ll never measure up), do plenty of religious stuff, and thank God that one day you’ll get to go to heaven. That is not the Christian life. The Christian life is Christ, living Hs own life in us. That’s the perfect freedom that Christ has given us.
We don’t live by law anymore. We died to the law with Christ. He is the end of the law for us. The law fulfilled its purpose: it showed us our sin. It showed us our need for a Savior. Now that we have come to faith in Christ, we are no longer under it.
But don’t we need the law to keep us from sinning? That might be a reasonable question, if the law did that. But it doesn’t. The law actually arouses fleshly desires within us. The law doesn’t keep us from sin. Just the opposite. God says the law is the power of sin! God had to kill us off to it.
What, then—do we just live lawlessly? Not at all. The opposite of living under the law isn’t living lawlessly. It is living by the Spirit. We live in the complete freedom that only the Spirit brings.
Does living in freedom mean you will live a life of sin? No! That’s the beauty of God’s new arrangement. He’s given you a new heart. His Spirit has come to live in you. Deep down, you don’t want to livea life of sin. It’s completely incompatible with who you are, it can’t satisfy you, and so you wouldn’t stay there long-term, anyway. God has given you something far better—his life in you.
But why do we still sin sometimes if we have a new heart that’s on God’s side, with his desires written on it? Ah, that’s a very good question. God provides a very specific answer, and he makes it very clear, if we read carefully. He says in Romans 7:14-25 that the reason we find ourselves being dragged down by this power called sin is that we live in bodies that haven’t yet been changed. Our inner being has been changed, but “the members of our body” haven’t been. That’s where the power of sin is located now, in the members of our physical body (which includes our physical brain). Those members are programmed to sin (to seek life on their own, independent of God). But that power of sin is not who we are!
The solution is not us trying harder not to sin. That’s what Paul was trying (and failing) to do in Romans 7. It doesn’t work. God never intended for it to work. The solution is living by faith in Christ in us. Jesus never has a problem not sinning.
The very good news is that your heart is completely on God’s side now. Your new heart wants what God wants. That’s why Paul makes the astounding statement (twice!) that when he finds himself sinning, it’s not him doing it, it’s the power of sin that lives in the members of his unchanged body. Whoa! That’s pretty radical. And that’s one reason why there’s no condemnation from God for it. God knows we don’t want to be sinning, not in our deepest being. So we don’t have to beat ourselves up over it. We thank God we’re already forgiven and move on. Jesus has people to love through us.
Temptation is a necessary part of God’s program in our lives, because God uses it to teach us to walk by faith in Christ in us. That’s what walking by the Spirit is. The kingdom of God operates entirely by faith. God has us in his school.
What does this mean practically? It means that our lives are not focused on sin management. We aren’t trying to answer the question, “How can I change myself so that I stop sinning? What are the steps I can take? How can I be more committed?”
All of that is a dead end. Why? Because it puts the burden of getting our act together on us, which is not where it belongs. God said, “I will cause you to walk in My ways,” remember? But if our goal is to stop sinning, we’re trying to cause ourselves to walk in his ways. It doesn’t work. Paul discovered that for himself in Romans 7. He laid into the Galatians for this exact same thing. He said, “You began by the Spirit. Now you’re trying to perfect yourself by the flesh [your own self-effort]? Are you guys nuts?”
Get your eyes off your own performance, and instead focus on Christ, and him in you. As a writer friend of mine says, “The Christian’s goal is not to stop sinning, but to start walking by faith in the Spirit of God inside.”
Ask God to teach you to walk by faith in Christ, who lives in you. You can’t produce the life of Jesus, but he can. That’s what he does. He will live that life through you as you learn to walk by faith. And as he lives through you more fully, guess what? You will stop sinning.
But what if we do sin? When that happens, do we temporarily lose our one-spirit connection with God?
No. Absolutely not. You never stop being one with him. When you sin, God doesn’t go anywhere, and neither do you. You’re still one spirit with him, which is as close as you can get. You still share in God’s divine nature. When you sin, you’re simply not walking in the truth of who you now are, and who Christ is in you. God wants to teach you to walk in the truth.
Jesus put away the sin issue between you and God. You’re completely forgiven. God doesn’t even remember your sin. You don’t have to do anything to be “restored” to God. Christ’s sacrifice already restored you. You don’t have to add anything to it. You can’t add anything to it. Does that mean we are taking sin lightly? No, not at all. It means we’re taking everything Jesus accomplished in his death and resurrection very seriously.
What God has done for us in Christ bypasses any steps we might try to take to get back to God. Those steps were necessary under the Law of Moses, yes, but not anymore. We live in the freedom of being completely forgiven, completely restored, completely made a new person, and completely having God live in us. God is teaching us to simply walk in the reality of all he’s already done for us, and in us.
We could compare it to a parent teaching a child how to ride a bike. We had a great place to teach our kids how to ride. The elementary school down the street had a huge grassy area with a slight hill (an incline a few feet long, actually) at one end. We stood them at the top of the incline, put them on the bike, and let go. We knew they would fall off, and they did. But they fell on grass. A few tries, and they got it. Our focus was never on when they fell off. Our focus was on when they didn’t. Woohoo!
God is the same way with us. He’s forming Christ in us. He’s teaching us to live by faith in Christ who lives in us. He doesn’t focus on when we fall off. He focuses on when we don’t, because he knows the end goal, and he knows we’re going to make it. And every time he sees us learning to depend on Christ in us, he says “Woohoo!”
Here are some of the places in the Bible where God explains what we just discussed:
Our new heart is on the same page as God: “For I joyfully concur with the law of God in the inner man …” (Romans 7:22)
Christ has put away the sin issue between us and God: “… but now once at the consummation of the ages [Christ] has been manifested to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself.” (Hebrews 9:26b)
God’s new arrangement with us is based not on law, but on the Holy Spirit within us: “Therefore, my brethren, you also were made to die to the Law through the body of Christ, so that you might be joined to another, to Him who was raised from the dead, in order that we might bear fruit for God.… But now we have been released from the Law, having died to that by which we were bound, so that we serve in newness of the Spirit and not in oldness of the letter.” (Romans 7:4, 6)
Christ is being formed in us. My children, with whom I am again in labor until Christ is formed in you … (Galatians 4:19)
We continue by the Spirit, not the flesh. Are you so foolish? Having begun by the Spirit, are you now being perfected by the flesh? (Galatians 3:3)
The Law reveals sin. By the works of the Law, no flesh will be justified in His sight; for through the Law comes the knowledge of sin. (Romans 3:20)
Once we come to Christ, we are not under the law. Therefore the Law has become our tutor to lead us to Christ, so that we must be justified by faith. But now that faith has come, we are no longer under a tutor. (Galatians 3:24-25)
The Law arouses sinful passions. For while we were in the flesh, the sinful passions, which were aroused by the Law, were t work in the members of our body to bear fruit for death. (Romans 7:5)
The Law empowers sin. The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. (1 Corinthians 15:56)
The Law of Moses could never permanently connect us to God: “For the Law, since it has only a shadow of the good things to come and not the form of those things itself, can never, by the same sacrifices which they offer continually every year, make those who approach perfect.” (Hebrews 10:1)
Through the cross, Jesus has permanently connected us to God: “… but [Christ], having offered one sacrifice for sins for all time, sat down at the right hand of God … For by one offering He has perfected for all time those who are sanctified.” (Hebrews 10:12, 14)
Also, “Now where there is forgiveness of these things, an offering for sin is no longer required.” (Hebrews 10:18)
God makes himself one with us: “But the one who joins himself to the Lord is one spirit with Him.” (1 Corinthians 6:17)
Our inner being has been changed, but the power of sin still exists in the members of our physical body: “For I do not understand what I am doing; for I am not practicing what I want to do, but I do the very thing I hate. However, if I do the very thing I do not want to do, I agree with the Law, that the Law is good. But now, no longer am I the one doing it, but sin that dwells in me.” (Romans 7:15-17)
Also: “For the good that I want, I do not do, but I practice the very evil that I do not want. But if I do the very thing I do not want, I am no longer the one doing it, but sin that dwells in me.” (Romans 7:19-20)
Also: “I find then the principle that evil is present in me, the one who wants to do good. For I joyfully agree with the law of God in the inner person, but I see a different law in the parts of my body waging war against the law of my mind, and making me a prisoner of the law of sin, the law which is in my body’s parts.” (Romans 7:21-23)
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