Freedom from sin

but as he who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your con­duct, since it is writ­ten, “You shall be holy, for I am holy.” (1 Peter 1:15–16)

The New Tes­ta­ment writ­ers some­times address the Chris­tians as ‘Holy and beloved’ (e.g. Colos­sians 3:12). To mod­ern ears, how­ev­er, the words ‘holy’ or ’saints’ sound unusu­al, old-fash­ioned, far from every­day life, unreach­able and fit­ting only very few, spe­cial people.

Is this true or does the Bible rather say that a holy life is insep­a­ra­bly linked with our rela­tion­ship with God?

This is the mes­sage we have heard from him and declare to you: God is light; in him there is no dark­ness at all. If we claim to have fel­low­ship with him and yet walk in the dark­ness, we lie and do not live out the truth. But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fel­low­ship with one anoth­er, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, puri­fies us from all sin. (1 John 1:5–7)

Indeed, God’s com­mand to be holy serves to pre­pare us for eter­ni­ty. With­out this, we can­not have fel­low­ship with him who is absolute­ly holy—neither now, nor in eter­ni­ty. Holi­ness is not a kind of entrance exam for heav­en, an exam which God could change if he want­ed; rather it aris­es out of God’s very being as well as our own.

The pas­sages men­tioned above empha­size the absolute holi­ness of God and the sub­se­quent neces­si­ty of allow­ing our WHOLE life to be puri­fied by God. They also empha­size the neces­si­ty of giv­ing up every sin. The atti­tude of want­i­ng to be holy as God is holy char­ac­ter­izes a Chris­t­ian. Many reli­gious peo­ple do not real­ly strive for this goal. How­ev­er, through God’s sal­va­tion and the strength he gives us if we turn to him, we can take up the fight against sin with hope.

All Scrip­ture is God-breathed and is use­ful for teach­ing, rebuk­ing, cor­rect­ing and train­ing in right­eous­ness, so that the ser­vant of God may be thor­ough­ly equipped for every good work. (2 Tim­o­thy 3:16–17)

The Holy Scrip­ture shows us the way of right­eous­ness, espe­cial­ly in the words and lives of the prophets, and of Jesus and his dis­ci­ples. It teach­es us what sin is and how we can over­come it.

Holy life requires fight against sin

God made man in his image. When man sinned, his being was dis­tort­ed and his rela­tion­ship with God and fel­low man got dis­turbed. Sin sep­a­rates peo­ple from God and leads them to a life of self­ish­ness and loneliness.

That is why Jesus uses such rad­i­cal pic­tures to describe how strong­ly we should hate and reject sin.

And if your hand caus­es you to sin, cut it off. It is bet­ter for you to enter life crip­pled than with two hands to go to hell, to the unquench­able fire. […] And if your eye caus­es you to sin, tear it out. It is bet­ter for you to enter the king­dom of God with one eye than with two eyes to be thrown into hell, (Mark 9:43 and 47)

This is not an emp­ty threat made by Jesus in order to fright­en us. Jesus wants to show a spir­i­tu­al real­i­ty. Sins change peo­ple, deceive them, hard­en them and take away their long­ing for God and for what is good–sin sep­a­rates peo­ple from God. In Colos­sians 3:5 Paul describes this:

Put to death there­fore what is earth­ly in you: sex­u­al immoral­i­ty, impu­ri­ty, pas­sion, evil desire, and cov­etous­ness, which is idolatry.

Sin starts in our atti­tudes and thoughts. That is where the roots for the result­ing actions lie.

But I say to you that every­one who looks at a woman with lust­ful intent has already com­mit­ted adul­tery with her in his heart. (Matthew 5:28)

“You have heard that it was said to those of old, ‘You shall not mur­der; and who­ev­er mur­ders will be liable to judge­ment.’ But I say to you that every­one who is angry with his broth­er will be liable to judge­ment; who­ev­er insults his broth­er will be liable to the coun­cil; and who­ev­er says, ‘You fool!’ will be liable to the hell of fire. (Matthew 5:21–22)

So who­ev­er knows the right thing to do and fails to do it, for him it is sin. (James 4:17)

Sins of omis­sion are often not assessed by peo­ple as strong­ly as the Bible does. Fre­quent­ly we come across peo­ple who see sins such as not endeav­or­ing for broth­ers and sis­ters in faith or not read­ing the Bible as insignif­i­cant. These sins show the lack of rela­tion­ship with God very clearly.

There is no excuse for sin.

No temp­ta­tion has over­tak­en you that is not com­mon to man. God is faith­ful, and he will not let you be tempt­ed beyond your abil­i­ty, but with the temp­ta­tion he will also pro­vide the way of escape, that you may be able to endure it. (1 Corinthi­ans 10:13)

Vic­to­ry over sin was com­mand­ed and con­sid­ered pos­si­ble even in the Old Testament

The LORD said to Cain, “Why are you angry, and why has your face fall­en? If you do well, will you not be accept­ed? And if you do not do well, sin is crouch­ing at the door. Its desire is for you, but you must rule over it.” (Gen­e­sis 4:6–7)

With great love and mer­cy God approach­es every­one who strug­gles to dis­tance them­selves from sin and entrust their life to him. How­ev­er, the wrath of God is great upon those who do not call their sins by their name (Matthew 3:7–8) and excuse them­selves with their own weak­ness, because:

Behold, the LORD’s hand is not short­ened, that it can­not save, or his ear dull, that it can­not hear; but your iniq­ui­ties have made a sep­a­ra­tion between you and your God, and your sins have hid­den his face from you so that he does not hear. (Isa­iah 59:1–2)

that no one is sex­u­al­ly immoral or unholy like Esau, who sold his birthright for a sin­gle meal. For you know that after­wards, when he desired to inher­it the bless­ing, he was reject­ed, for he found no chance to repent, though he sought it with tears. (Hebrews 12:16–17)

For­give­ness of sin is a great gift. It is impor­tant to be aware of its great val­ue. We can­not treat it like a cheap bar­gain because Jesus gave his life in order to save us from our sins. That is why we should live our lives as peo­ple who are saved from sin, and not as those who cling to sin.

know­ing that you were ran­somed from the futile ways inher­it­ed from your fore­fa­thers, not with per­ish­able things such as sil­ver or gold, but with the pre­cious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb with­out blem­ish or spot. (1 Peter 1:18–19)

Free from sin

Psalm 32:3–5 and Proverbs 28:13 express that con­fes­sion of sins is the only way to find for­give­ness and freedom.

Who­ev­er con­ceals his trans­gres­sions will not pros­per, but he who con­fess­es and for­sakes them will obtain mer­cy. (Proverbs 28:13)

It is impor­tant and good to con­fess our sins to God, but true regret is shown by bring­ing them to the light before peo­ple as well. If we live in the truth, we should also walk in the truth before our broth­ers and sisters.

If we con­fess our sins, he is faith­ful and just to for­give us our sins and to cleanse us from all unright­eous­ness. (1 John 1:9)

Not only when we start our life with Christ is it impor­tant to leave behind us every­thing that tied us to the world and to bring our sins to the light but also through­out our Chris­t­ian life we should con­fess our sins to our broth­ers and sis­ters and pray for one anoth­er so that we can be made holy, as James writes in his let­ter in chap­ter 5:16. It is not the task of spe­cial­ly trained ministers/counselors to bear the respon­si­bil­i­ty for the con­fes­sions of the believers—ministers who are then sworn to secre­cy. No base for such prac­tice can be found in the Bible. On the con­trary, the deep trust in all fel­low believ­ers and the wish of stand­ing before oth­ers as I tru­ly am before God should be a tes­ti­mo­ny of God’s act­ing in the Church. Only in this way is it pos­si­ble for broth­ers and sis­ters to real­ly help each other—in lay­ing our sins open before one anoth­er, receiv­ing for­give­ness, being car­ried in their prayers and also in sup­port­ing each other’s sanc­ti­fi­ca­tion by encour­age­ments and admonitions.

In John 13:2–17 Jesus washed his dis­ci­ples’ feet and in doing so set an exam­ple of how we should serve one anoth­er. He showed his great love by hum­bling him­self before peo­ple who were them­selves enslaved by sin. We should learn from him to become small before one anoth­er and to bear one anoth­er in love. By this we will grow in sanc­ti­fi­ca­tion our­selves and can help oth­ers to grow as well. Serv­ing one anoth­er can­not be sep­a­rat­ed from car­ing for the sal­va­tion of others—taking care that they grow in faith, become mature and that no sin hin­ders them from being close to God.

God made each Chris­t­ian able to sup­port oth­ers so that the whole body can be built into a holy tem­ple (Eph­esians 2:21). Thus he gives the respon­si­bil­i­ty to care for each oth­er to every mem­ber of the whole Church. Therefore:

Strive for peace with every­one, and for the holi­ness with­out which no one will see the Lord. (Hebrews 12:14)