do we have to sin?
So I am in this Bible Study. I LOVE the women in the bible study, but I HATE the book. I usually love anything that I read, but I am reallllllly struggling with this author. I think she's boring and I think she's flat out wrong sometimes...but I guess that is just my opinion!
Anyways, today in BS we were discussing one of the questions in the book and I have been thinking about it all morning. I'm not sure how I feel about it. It's hard for me to come to a conclusion in my mind...
This was the quetsion...Do we have to sin?
She quoted Romans 6:6,7,14 - "6For we know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin— 7because anyone who has died has been freed from sin.... 14For sin shall not be your master, because you are not under law, but under grace."
So then she was saying because we are not held by sin anymore because Christ did away with it - so we are free from it. Sin isn't our master, our controller anymore because we are under grace.
Now that's nice and all, but here is where I am struggling. I still sin! All the time. Every day. Maybe every minute of every day. I definitely don't feel free from it and I won't until I get to be in heaven. I feel like Romans 7 has a different take on this issue.
"14We know that the law is spiritual; but I am unspiritual, sold as a slave to sin. 15I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do...17As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me. 18I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. 19For what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing."
Soooooooooooo....
What the heck? We are freed from sin, but we are also held to sin because the sin in us keeps doing things that we don't want to do. So I'm wondering how sin isn't our master anymore, but I still feel it controling me. Am I reading these passages way out of context? or am I just a little nuts right now and not thinking clearly? i would LOOOOOOOOOOOOVE thoughts on this from some of you wiser than I! I feel stuck
Anyways, today in BS we were discussing one of the questions in the book and I have been thinking about it all morning. I'm not sure how I feel about it. It's hard for me to come to a conclusion in my mind...
This was the quetsion...Do we have to sin?
She quoted Romans 6:6,7,14 - "6For we know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin— 7because anyone who has died has been freed from sin.... 14For sin shall not be your master, because you are not under law, but under grace."
So then she was saying because we are not held by sin anymore because Christ did away with it - so we are free from it. Sin isn't our master, our controller anymore because we are under grace.
Now that's nice and all, but here is where I am struggling. I still sin! All the time. Every day. Maybe every minute of every day. I definitely don't feel free from it and I won't until I get to be in heaven. I feel like Romans 7 has a different take on this issue.
"14We know that the law is spiritual; but I am unspiritual, sold as a slave to sin. 15I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do...17As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me. 18I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. 19For what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing."
Soooooooooooo....
What the heck? We are freed from sin, but we are also held to sin because the sin in us keeps doing things that we don't want to do. So I'm wondering how sin isn't our master anymore, but I still feel it controling me. Am I reading these passages way out of context? or am I just a little nuts right now and not thinking clearly? i would LOOOOOOOOOOOOVE thoughts on this from some of you wiser than I! I feel stuck
posted by jmjana @ 11:44 AM
5 Comments:
At 1:29 PM,
Anonymous said…
Definitely not chiming in as the wiser one here, just chiming in...
We are no longer a slave to sin...I take this to mean we no longer serve it. It no longer has rights over us because we are saved by grace. Before Christ, there were all sorts of atonement that sin required, but now that has been done for us.
I don't take any of this to mean that we don't sin or won't feel tempted and controlled by sin at times (or lots of times, as the case often is). Similarly, while a slave maybe no longer serves a master in the sense of being owned by a master, he/she may still choose to do things for the master by choice. There is a history - a relationship - there. I think this is what happens when we sin. We have a choice, but sometimes it doesn't feel like it because the sin is sooo tempting and perhaps so familiar. But whether we make the choice to sin or not, we aren't owned by (or selling ourselves over to) sin. Christ has our ownership papers.
Anyway, just my thoughts. I'm sure there are many places to shoot holes in my reasoning, so anyone feel free to shoot away!
At 1:39 PM,
stef shaffer said…
a- i am not wiser then you, but ill give my crazy thoughts
b- thanks for your comment
c- here is what i THINK... and i have erased my thoughts a couple of times bc its hard for me to explain... so here it goes... k so do i HAVE to sin? no i dont think so. BUT do i even realize all the places i do sin? no. therefore, how can i choose not to sin in the places i dont realize i am sinning? see i think little by little throughout my life, God will show me more of Himself, and more of myself.. and at that point when i see that little part of my sinfulness, i CAN choose "dignity or depravity" (allender words), meaning, to not sin or to sin. i think that sin is so engrained into who i am and how i think, that its like part of a script in my life i just follow not even realizing it- therefore in a sense, i am too immature to help but sin... but "God calls us to rewrite" therefore SLOWLY reveling that sin in us, and those scripts we have lived by for so long, and shows us a new way. at that point i think we can choose not to sin in that area. but gosh, if we didnt struggle through all that, i dont think glory would make sense to our little minds. dont know if that makes any sense at all... does it?
At 1:04 PM,
ylmurph said…
either way...I thought this was interesting:
"Are you a slave to sin who struggles to love God or are you a lover of God who struggles with sin?"
"We must present ourselves to
God by defining ourselves as lovers of God and not by our struggle. Yes
we acknowledge struggle...but we are not defined by our struggle"
At 1:22 PM,
Anonymous said…
Good word, Sean.
At 2:26 PM,
jmjana said…
thanks for the thoughts guys. i just really struggle with coming to clarity on some things. not that we have to, but i want to. and like i said the other day, i feel like the more we know the more confusing it gets! thanks for the input...
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