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Dear Dr. Betters:
I am new to your website but have listened to you on radio. I enjoy your teaching of God's word. My understanding and question is:
When we are saved by grace through faith we are transferred from the kingdom of darkness ruled by Satan into the kingdom of light ruled by Christ. This is our position. We are no longer under the bondage of Satan yet, in experience, we still sin. Is sin then, a choice we make?

Pastor Betters responds:

This is a great question and one with which even the greatest Christian who ever lived, the Apostle Paul, struggled. The signature passage for this is found in Romans chapter 7. Here Paul struggles, almost in a "jibber jabber" sort of way, with why he sins. Take a moment to carefully read that passage before continuing. Before we come to faith in Christ and are saved we live according to the desires of our flesh. This word, flesh, means our fallen nature corrupted by sin. Our flesh is our will, intellect, thought processes, emotions, senses, etc. Sin damages and corrupts our spirit by what we look at, listen to, say, think, and act upon. In other words, great damage is done to our spirit before we come to faith in Christ. We carry not only the burden of our sins but also the guilt that comes with those sins. In Romans 7 Paul refers to this as the flesh, or our corrupted being, the old man, the old nature. Before Christ we are dead in our sins living only after the corrupted flesh, incapable of saving ourselves. Our moral choices are filled with this same corruption so that our good works become as filthy rags in the sight of God (Isaiah 64:6).

But after we come to Christ our sins are forgiven. Christ even removes the guilt of our sins. The great question then is why do we sin after we are saved? Because our flesh is still damaged goods and our spirit often falls prey to that old nature. The process by which we overcome sin as Christians in this life is the work of the Holy Spirit Who day-by-day, moment-by-moment, and even second-by- second conforms us more and more to the image of Christ. This process, sanctification, is by God's grace as He enables us to make Godly choices. Before we were saved we did not have the power, will, or faith to change by ourselves because we were enslaved to the old man. Luther referred to this as the "bondage of the will." We desired to do nothing to please God and our so-called good works could not save us.

But salvation frees us from that enslavement in this way - we no longer desire for the flesh to rule over us after we trust Christ. The power to change is now indwelling us in the Person of the Holy Spirit. Sin ought to cause the believer great sorrow. We make moral choices every day as Christians whether or not to sin. In fact, that is one mark of genuine salvation. Sure, we will in this life struggle with the fallen flesh. But now we possess a power to overcome. Sin can have no more dominion over me. Instead of condemning us for our sins and casting us into hell, God lays our sins on the back of Jesus and punishes Him on the cross. Jesus spent the equivalent of an eternity in hell to redeem us from the pit.

When as Christians we do sin we must "agree" with God (that is what the word "confess" means in 1 John 1:9) that we have sinned and repent in faith, that is, exchange an evil behavior for its counterpart of good (see Colossians 3). For some of us this struggle is great, especially with life-dominating sins. In such cases God will often discipline us but never condemn us. Why? Because Christ has already been condemned for our sins. Even though Paul struggles in Romans 7 with doing the right thing and ends on a note of despair, he opens Romans 8 with a glorious pronouncement - "There is now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus…" That is our assurance.

In His Grip,
Dr. Chuck Betters

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