Victory Over Sin

The Son of God has as surely delivered us from the power of sin as freed us from the guilt of sin.

What was impossible for us, God did in that He condemned sin in the flesh.

When I speak of sin here, I do not mean our past stained with all kinds of sins. In a child of God, this is covered by the precious blood of Jesus Christ. However, I mean sin, which daily would use our members as instruments to exercise its power in our mortal body. Now when I say to a child of God: “You no longer need to bear the burden of your sin. Jesus paid for it all when He gave His life as a guilt offering for you. Every child of God can joyfully and faithfully affirm this truth.” However, I go one step further and say: “You are also done with the power of sin, the sin by which you are tempted daily,” then many a child of God would look upon me mournfully and say: Unfortunately, this is not my experience! It is true that I struggle against sin, and often I have managed to overcome in my battle against sin; but I have never experienced a constant victory over it. I have yet to experience what the Bible promises and what many profess to have. I am not even sure whether a Christian can even really attain such a perfect redemption in this life.

Dear child of God! I once was just like you, but I was not satisfied with being partially redeemed.

I wanted a full redemption, as the scripture promises, and I fought to the shedding of blood to attain it; but in vain, for I did not understand what it meant when is says that “the righteous shall live by faith.” Everything he has is only by faith, he ceases to possess it the instant he stops believing. The moment is still very clear to me when I was on my knees before God’s face seriously considering whether I should keep going, or whether I should just withdraw completely. I had just enough Christianity to make me unhappy. I wondered would it not have been better to have no life at all, than to live a life where I am constantly falling in sin? A life of sinning one moment and repenting the next, sinning and repenting over and over. It had got to the point where I even doubted the possibility of being completely free, and regarded with suspicion those who talked about it, while I said to myself: Of course, it is just theoretical, they don’t really have victory in practice.

But God, who is rich in mercy, had mercy on me and gave me light by His spirit and word. Now I can confess that I have peace and rest, which is much deeper and surpasses all the unrest and turmoil I experienced a few years ago.

This is how it happened: I came across Romans 6 and when I read it, I received light on this chapter from above. What had been obscure and closed to me for a long time became, at once, transparent and clear and so precious that it seemed to me like a whole new gospel. Each verse which makes hearts fail them in fear and confusion was to me as a piece of bread from heaven or as a ray of light from a higher world. I saw and ate the honey, just like Jonathan in the forest, and my eyes became clearer and clearer. It became crystal clear to me: Here, and here alone is the way upon which you can go from victory to victory. Here is the secret to a life of victory.

Without understanding and living out Romans 6 it seems to me that it is impossible to be a Christian without being able to sing with Arrebo in his hymn “. . . with joy we sing, praises ring, in victory’s tabernacles dwell.” This is surely the way a Christian should be.

And I am convinced that there is nothing the devil is more focused on than trying to hide the truth about living a victorious life. He has no objection to people preaching sanctification to people as long as they avoid the truths in Romans 6. He is sure that he will soon find all such “sanctificationists” lying exhausted by the roadside. There is nothing more exhausting and debilitating than the struggle to win with one’s own fleshly strength that which only the holy Son of God was able to achieve. Such a position is therefore very dangerous, for discouragement shuts peoples ears. We could summarize the entire sanctification with Paul’s words: “Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him.” As far as we have fellowship with Christ’s death, we also have communion with His life.

For a child of God, the main goal is to die, i.e. he must face all things as one who has died. This is also the main point of Romans 6: Our old man has been crucified with Christ; we died to sin, and therefore justified from sin, i.e. free from it, it has no more claim over us—and so you should also consider yourselves dead to sin.

However, this “being crucified and dead with Christ” is not to be understood as if it was a death that had occurred and had removed all the temptation to sin in the world, like bodily death would. No, it’s a new state of faith. Verse 11 shows this clearly enough when it says: “Consider yourselves therefore.” Here is the good fight of faith, which will not win anything by its own strength, but enters into that which Christ has won for us. To be crucified means to be put out of business. A person who has been crucified cannot touch their hands or feet. This is the way it is for those who are crucified with Christ; but as soon as they depart from this state, they are back to where they were before. If you leave the “old man” where he is, he will die; but if you keep bringing him out, he will be revived and become alive again.

As I said, you can only keep this new state by faith. This does not mean, however, that you die every day; but just as Christ died once for sin, so do we with Him. On the other hand, this death is approached step by step, as the light from the Spirit increases, new areas of sin are revealed to us; as soon as they are revealed to us, they must be put to death.

Practice is needed here; one does not acquire this skill in a day; one must also learn to be patient with oneself and not forget that even Abraham, the father of faith, had to learn to trust in God. Genesis 12—13). However, this should not be used as a pillow to rest on, but rather as comfort in times of discouragement and despondency. We must not forget that God’s children are also born as little children and are need training and growth. Here are some more points that we must not ignore if we want to get lasting victory over sin:

1. We must be determined to separate ourselves from everything that is connected to sin.

It is not enough to lament about the iniquity in the tabernacles of your heart. The tables of the money changers and the seats of those who sold doves must be overturned. We must include the flesh and our own self when we talk about “sin,” for to be carnally minded is enmity against God, and our own “I” must be accursed. He who is still joined to it is still in bondage to sin.

Self-life and sin-life are quite inseparable.

Why are there so many who do not achieve victory over sin? They still love sin. They do as Saul did; they spare Agag and the best of the sheep, the oxen, the fatlings and the lambs. They don’t follow the Spirit. In this way they—like Saul—lose the anointing and are unfit to attain it.

Obedience to the Spirit, as one has received Him, is the way to attain the fulness of the Spirit.

Only when you use the light you have, will God give more light according to this law: “For whoever has, to him more will be given, and he will have abundance.”

God still gives as He did before, if He can only find vessels to fill. What kind of vessels does the Holy Spirit fill? People who do not desire to become great speakers in the kingdom of God, but who want to be baptized and become nobodies. Such as will lay themselves down as sacrifices on the altar because God only sends fire when there is a sacrifice on the altar. It is said of Him who had the Spirit without measure who, through the eternal Spirit, offered Himself without spot to God (Hebrews 9:14). If you are ready to make the sacrifice, you will find God more than ready to respond with fire.

The Spirit is given to those who obey Him. Without God’s Spirit it is impossible to triumph over the flesh. Romans 8 tells us that we put to death the deeds of the body by the Spirit, i.e. keep mortifying the flesh. The Spirit shows us that the flesh is of no use, and that we should expect nothing from that quarter, it is doomed to destruction. It is a great folly to seek victory with carnal weapons. Flesh against flesh can only lead to defeat.

2. We must truly be under grace, as is written in Titus 2:11.

The whole of our being must be permeated and refined by fire with grace, so that the temptations and struggles, when the storm is upon us, no longer have a hold over us. Just as the snow that falls in the month of May and immediately melts on the warm earth, so unkind, harsh judgments, scorn and contempt for our fellow man, will no longer find any earth to rest upon in our heart that has been warmed by the Spirit. For it is a mercy if a man, bound to God in his conscience, endures hardship, even though he suffers unjustly. If we could only recognize it as grace, how many defeats would we spare ourselves and others for!

But here is the sickness of the saints!

3. We must bear the chastisement of the Spirit, i.e. walk in the spirit.

Walk in the Spirit, and you shall not fulfil the lust of the flesh (Galatians 5:16).

When dangerous inclinations stir in one’s heart, we instantly declare, I am dead to sin. It is on this ground that victory is won. Do not wait until its flames burn bright, but put to death with the first inkling of sin, put your foot on the neck of the evil lust, tear out the eye that offends, cut off the hand that causes you to fall.

We can make our lives easy or hard, depending on the way we fight this battle. He who walks in the Spirit learns to stamp out the temptations as they sprout up and gets a commanding view of the enemy. He knows where a single glance, a forbidden thought, or a single inclination could take him.