By faith and regeneration in Jesus Christ, you have been delivered from the power of death and set free from every bondage, and have received a new life in Christ. The blood of Christ has cleansed you from all your sins and iniquities and made you holy and righteous. Through the redemptive work of Jesus Christ, you have become a new creation and have been reconciled with God the Father. Jesus has restored your relationship with the Father. Now that you have become a new creation, what does this mean for the law? Does the law of God no longer apply to you or does it? Because the Bible says in Romans 3:31 that those, who have become a new creation will establish the law by faith. What does this mean? How do you establish the law by faith?
The new creation in Christ walks in the Word of God
Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away, and all things are become new (2 Corinthians 5:17)
When you are baptized in Christ and received the baptism with the Holy Spirit, you have become a new creation. The Holy Spirit dwells in you, whereby the will of God is written upon your renewed heart.
After the new birth it’s important to renew your mind with the Word of God, so that through the Word you will get to know God and His will and your mind will line up with the Word of God (Read also: Why is renewing your mind necessary?).
When you believe in the Word, you shall speak the words of God and become a doer of the Word.
By doing the Word you shall become the living word of God on earth and walk as a son of God (this applies to both males and females (Read also: The hearers versus the doers).
You shall walk as a son of God by faith according to the Word and the Spirit and establish the law by faith.
If your spirit is raised from the death and the Holy Spirit dwells in you (the new man), you shall no longer walk after the flesh but after the Spirit (Read also: Let the dry bones come alive).
As long as you walk after the Spirit, you shall walk in obedience to God in His will, instead of walking in disobedience to God, whereby you shall not be a partaker of sin.
Do Christians stay sinners?
If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say that we have not sinned, we make Him a liar, and His word is not in us (1 John 1:8-10).
It is often said, that you are a sinner and that you always stay a sinner. 1 John 1:8-10 is cited to substantiate this saying.
However, it’s always important to read the scriptures in the whole and right context, instead of picking a few words or a sentences and give an own interpretation.
In 1 John 1:8-10 John was referring to the old man; the Adamic nature. In verse 8 and 10, John referred to those, who were the old man, but were full of themselves and thought they were perfect and and a good human being and not as a sinner, who lives in a fallen state in disobedience to God and rebellion against God, and said that they didn’t have sin and needed salvation.
In verse 9, John refered to those, who were the old man but were convicted of their sins and repented and confessed their sin and because of that they were forgiven and cleansed by the blood of Jesus of all unrighteousness.
It’s about people, who didn’t know Jesus and were not born again, because in the previous verses the following is written:
This then is the message which we have heard of Him, and declare unto you, that God is light, and in Him is no darkness at all. If we say that we have fellowship with Him, and walk in darkness, we lie, and do not the truth: But if we walk in the light, as He is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanses us from all sin (1 John 1:5-7).
Every person is born as a sinner
It’s correct, that every person is born in sin and therefore everyone is born as a sinner. There is no one excluded! No one is born holy and righteous on this earth. The only Person, Who was not born as a sinner was Jesus Christ.
Jesus became a Partaker of flesh and blood, but Jesus was not born of the seed of man but Jesus was born of the Seed of God and was holy and righteous.
But as soon as you get saved by faith in Christ then by the blood of Jesus Christ your sins will be washed away. You will be cleansed by His blood from all your sins and iniquities.
When you become born again through the baptism in water and the baptism with the Holy Spirit, you receive a new nature; God’s nature, and become separated from sin.
The sinful nature, which is present in the flesh, has been crucified and you have exchanged the Adamic nature for the nature of God (Read also: ‘The painful process known as dying‘)
Jesus delivered you from every bondage of darkness
Jesus delivered you from the oppression of the devil and placed you in Him. You received the Holy Spirit, so you could live a holy life, just like Jesus walked in holiness and lived a holy life, by doing the will of the Father.
If you say, that you are and will always remain a sinner, then you actually say that God’s work of redemption wasn’t sufficient enough to make you holy and righteous. You say, that the work at the cross and the blood of Jesus, which was shed, wasn’t powerful enough to remove the sins and iniquities and deal with the sinful nature (Read also: ‘Do you always remain a sinner?‘ and ‘God’s work of redemption‘)
If you are truly born again and the Holy Spirit abides in you, you will no longer persevere in sin.
It is very sad to hear, how many people believe this lie, which is preached from many pulpits. And because of this lie, many people keep living in the bondage of sin, thinking and believing that they will always remain sinners and never become holy and righteous, and therefore they keep walking in sin.
Abusing the grace of God to live in sin
They keep walking in sin, living like the world, while they use the grace of God as a license to sin and make it alright to persevere in sin. Because they are unspiritual, they don’t know that they still live in the bondage of the devil and sin and death. They think they are free, but the reality is, that they are not! Their flesh is still alive and they are still spiritually oppressed and bound by the devil.
There are many people, who have changed the truth and the grace of God into a lie and a false grace. Only because many people are not willing to give up their sinful nature; their old lives and put off the old man (Read also: ‘What is grace?’ and ‘‘Lost in the sea of grace’).
They are not willing to crucify the works of the flesh, because they enjoy and love the works of the flesh.
Therefore they have mixed the truth of God with the subtle lies of the devil. But by mixing the truth of God with the lies of the devil, the gospel will become of no effect.
When you become a new creation, it is not alright to keep living in sin and use the precious blood of Jesus Christ to make it alright (Read also: The cross a place to die or place to sin and ‘Can you keep sinning under grace’)
What is the secret to establish the law?
Paul wrote in Romans 3:31: Do we then make void the law through faith? God forbid: yea, we establish the law.
Have you been made righteous by the law, by works? NO! You have been made righteous by the blood of Jesus Christ and through faith and regeneration in Him.
But the secret is, that as you walk by faith according to the Word after the Spirit, you will automatically establish the law (the moral part of the law).
Because when you receive the Holy Spirit, you receive God’s nature and His will inside of you. The will of God and His commandments are written upon your heart (Read also: ‘What happened 50 days after Passover?’)
The Holy Spirit will teach and guide you into the truth of God’s Word. You do not have to follow all kinds of statutes, sacrificial laws, food laws, and rituals and become religious.
Because when the Holy Spirit dwells in you, you will walk by faith after the Word and the Spirit in God’s will and establish the law through your faith.
The Holy Spirit guides you into all truth. The Bible doesn’t say, that the Holy Spirit will guide you into all sins.
The Holy Spirit is holy and can’t have fellowship with sin. If you keep sinning then the Holy Spirit can’t stay in you, because you will grieve the Holy Spirit. As it is written, the light can’t have fellowship with darkness, because the light has nothing in common with the darkness.
The new man has a new heart
For I will take you from among the heathen, and gather you out of all countries, and will bring you into your own land. Then will I sprinkle clean water upon you, and ye shall be clean: from all your filthiness, and from all your idols, will I cleanse you. A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you: and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you an heart of flesh. And I will put my spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes, and ye shall keep my judgments, and do them (Ezekiel 36:24-27)
God revealed to Ezekiel, the promise of the Holy Spirit and the new creation. God prophesied through the mouth of Ezekiel, that He would cleanse you from all filthiness; your iniquities and sins, and put His Spirit within you, so that you will have His nature and walk automatically in His commandments and do His will upon this earth. By doing His will, you walk in faith and establish the law (Read also: The commandments of God vs the commandments of Jesus and ‘The commandments of God and the commandments of the devil‘).
The new man walks in righteousness
Jesus has taken care of the sin problem by His redemptive work at the cross. You have been delivered from your sinful nature and are clothed with the nature of God.
God poured out His Spirit upon those, who believe and have been made righteous in Christ. So that they will be able to walk in righteousness and represent Jesus Christ and the Kingdom of God upon this earth.
You have become an ambassador of the Kingdom of God. You will do the will of God instead of your own will. Instead of being disobedient to (the moral part of) the law and walking in rebellion against God, fulfilling the lusts and desires of your flesh, you will establish the law through faith.
Whether you will be able to establish the law depends on one thing and that is: “Is your love for Jesus stronger, than your love for your self and for your sins?”
The new man shall become as his Master and shall even do greater things
Let no man say to you, that you will always remain a sinner. Don’t believe it, when someone says that you will never become like Jesus. Because that is a lie from the devil! Jesus said Himself, that you can become as your Master and do even greater things than Jesus, because Jesus went to the Father (Matthew 10:25, Luke 6:40, John 14:12)
Don’t believe the lie either that says that the law doesn’t exist anymore. The priesthood, sacrificial laws, rituals, etc. are indeed part of the Old Covenant, but the commandments of the Lord that represent His will (the moral part of the law) still apply. Because God is the same; Yesterday, Today, and Forevermore. Therefore God’s will and His nature will never change.
For whom He did foreknow, He also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the firstborn among many brethren (Romans 8:29).
Jesus made you holy and righteous by His blood and redemptive work. The Father has given you the Holy Spirit, the same Holy Spirit that lived in Jesus Christ. So you have the ability to become like Jesus. When you become like Jesus, you will walk by faith in holiness and righteousness, doing the will of God. When you walk by faith in the will of God, you will establish the law.
‘Be the salt of the earth’