Most people, Christians and otherwise, need no persuasion to recognize the fact that we, the entire human race, are
corrupted by sin. It may be termed something else in other cultures, other faiths, but regardless, it is the same for
all of us. Please note, I said "most people". I have actually met Christains that claim they sin only once a month,
and sometimes once every 90 days.
If you are one of these, PLEASE! Remove yourself from my abode, your halo is reflecting off my monitor screen and
giving me a headache! I once worked with a diminutive Indian long ago that was a Hindu, I guess. Frankly, I wasn't
keen on spiritual matters in those days, so I ignored it. He had two unnerving habits; First of all, he apologized
for EVERYTHING!
It was humorous, at first. He'd call in if he was stopped in traffic to say how sorry he was. Whoever answered the
phone would announce, loudly, "Danny just called, just wanted to say he's sorry!", and everybody would double over
with laughter. The second annoying thing he did was wash, not just before or after a meal, but on the hour. The poor guy
spent more time in the john than at his job.
In retrospect, it was cruel of us to make light of little Danny, and his pitiful countenance. And this is the lead in
for the point I want to drive home, none of us is above sin of some kind, and many of the sins we commit are unknown to
us. In Danny's case, he was in a lather to do good, be good. But his striving was all self-righteousness, and meant nothing.
For the rest of us, it was heartless and unkind to make fun of the man. In fact, after a steady diet of Danny for a month,
we dreaded to see him coming. You can imagine why.
The Bible nails down sin for us in the Doctrine of Hamartiology, a word derived from the Greek; "Hamar", meaning..(guess what!)
sin! Speaking for myself, I was shocked to learn that some things that I considered virtues are sins. But this section
isn't designed to teach you sin. To the contrary, most of us are all too aware of our corrupt nature.
We deal with sin on a daily, even hourly basis, and I won't burden you with more bad news. So what I have to say will stay
under the "good news" heading.
Well, almost all...for the beginning of my tale is bad news indeed. We are born with sin in us, dead to God, though alive in
the flesh. In fact, the life we have in this body is but one of the lives God gave man, for when He made Adam he "breathed
into his nostrils the breath of lives, in the plural. Don't bother looking it up. This is just one of thousands of
translations that mislead us.
Adam was created with a body, soul AND spirit. He was a "tricotomous" creature. It was only after he and the woman sinned
that they became "dicotomous", with a body and soul only. It is the loss of the spirit that renders us dead to God, and
conversely, when we regain our spirit, at the moment of spiritual birth, we become what God intended us to be once again,
tricotomous.
Another poor translation makes it clear that man was created with a human spirit;
"But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day
that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die." (Gen 2:17)
The highlighted words in this verse are a mistranslation. The autograph says "dying, you shall die" here, and allude to
the fact that when Adam and the woman died spiritually, they would subsequently die physically. This is explanation enough
to better understand the many scriptures which refer to sin as "death", refering to the demise of the human spirit.
"Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that heareth my word, and believeth on him that sent me, hath
everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation; but is passed from death unto life." (John 5:24)
Please note, in this verse the redeemed soul "passes from death to life", not from the death of the body to resurrection,
which will occur at a future time, but at that moment, even as Christ said the words. This then is a reference to the
birth of the spirit, our "second life" which was lost to us in The Garden.
"Whom God hath raised up, having loosed the pains of death: because it was not possible that he should
be holden of it." (Acts 2:24)
Here again, the "pains of death" refer to suffering of the living, therefore, a death that has already occured, even as
they are alive physically.
"Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men,
for that all have sinned:" (Romans 5:12)
"For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord." (Romans 6:23)
"O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?" (Romans 7:24)
This next verse is speaking of the damned, those wretched souls who will abide in fire forever. Note, that they will
experience a "second death", that being the death of their body, for they have already lost their spirit, which is the
first death;
"He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches;
He that overcometh shall not be hurt of the second death." (Rev 2:11)
One more principle involving the death of the spirit, and that is the death of our Lord on the cross. It was not His
physical death which delivered us, but His spiritual death. All four gospels cite the words of Jesus when He said; "It
is finished." This simple statement is actually much more powerful in the Greek, but for the time being we will emphasize
the fact that Jesus pronounced His work completed while He was yet physically alive.
So what is it that I refer to when I say "slave market of sin"? And, assuming you may already have an accurate knowledge
of this phrase, or can guess pretty well, what can I have to say that is good news, considering the glum reality we have
looked at so far?
The good news is that we have been redeemed from the slavery of sin, which condition we were in prior to being saved. You
may not be aware that the unsaved cannot deny the lust to sin. No system of discipline, no religious ritual, even the
strongest will power, cannot resist the urge to sin. This isn't to say we cannot refuse to sin now and then, or even
develop the strength to stop commiting one category of sin consistently, but we cannot live a sinless life. But, faith
in Christ changes that! Consider this verse;
"For to be carnally minded is death; but to be spiritually minded is life and peace." (Romans 8:6)
When He saved us, God executed a whole category of miracles, did you know that? They were unseen, unheeded, except as we
may have the knowledge we are saved, and rejoice in it. But these miracles happened, but in a far, far place...eternity in
the third heaven. One of them was redemption, whence the Lord "purchased us" as slaves, then set us free.
"For ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God's." (1Cor 6:20)
At long last, I come to the great news! Even in this body of corruption, while we remain in this world, we can escape the
bonds of sin. God has made this possible by two miracles; The first, we are imputed His Righteousness, and we have it even
in this body, and second; we have been given an "escape hatch", a means by which we can be purified instantaneously of sin.
And, when this hatch is utilized, we come into fellowship with God, pure, unblemished, without sin.
This "escape hatch" is the verse; 1John 1:9...but wait, I fear I have confused you. There is another factor at work in our
lives as Christians. We have God's Righteousness (+R), but we yet abide in this corrupt body, and we still sin...often. So what
gives here? Do we have have +R, or not?
Here lies some slippery terrain, because things get complicated when we're dealing with a creature who lives in a body
of corruption (which will motivate us to sin until we shed it), but has been given God's own +R, and therefore, is
capable of attaining, effortlessly, a state of sinlessness, even though the corruption of the body is intact. Let's sort
this out.
You've heard the idiom, "wearing two hats"? It means a person has two unique functions, say perhaps, having two jobs. He
wears one hat as a plumber, then drives a taxi all night wearing another hat. The hat analogy may or may not be literal,
which is to say, there may not be a hat involved at all, but the intention is to portray one person with two separate, unique
activities. This is the case with Christians. We wear two hats; one "carnal", which is a state of sin, brought on by a sin
we commit; the other is "spiritual", a state of purity, sinlessness. There will come a time, in a resurrection body, when
we will be sinless forever, but in this life, we switch from one to the other as we sin, and then recover from sin.
The carnal state is caused by a sin, and in it we are separate from God. We have no communion with Him, and to the extent
that we remain carnal, we suffer dicipline and torment which gains momentum every day, every hour. We are vulnerable to
all manner of forces, those inner thoughts and the actions of others, which generate misery, despair, self pity, bitterness,
jealousy, hatred, to name a few. Each of these sins brings a number of cyrses into our lives. We may sublimate to escape,
and some people are adept at blocking suffering with some form of entertainment, or social activities, but we will eventually
pay the piper.
"For ye are yet carnal: for whereas there is among you envying, and strife, and divisions,
are ye not carnal, and walk as men?" (1Cor 3:3)
"Because the carnal mind is enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law of God,
either indeed can be." (Romans 8:7)
Carnality, the same old sad story that man has bourne since the beginning; But with the spiritual birth come a new man,
a man with the ability to call upon the power of God to banish carnality, and be lifted onto a higher plane;
"There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh,
but after the Spirit" (Romans 8:1)
"For they that are after the flesh do mind the things of the flesh; but they that are after the Spirit
the things of the Spirit." (Romans 8:5)
"Having therefore these promises, dearly beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh and
spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God." (2Cor 7:1)
"This I say then, Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfil the lust of the flesh." (Gal 5:16)
Thus, having established that there are two exclusive states of existence for us, one or the other, but never both at once,
we must learn the technique for regaining spirituality, and the mechanics of same.
First, the mechanics; Fellowship with God is the only way for us to go, for not only does it yeild exquisite rewards in
eternity, but in this life we can attain God's happiness(+H) and a wealth of blessings which attend it. The "event" which
charactarizes spirituality, and in fact is the sponsor of the "spirituality" designation for this higher manner of life, is
The Filling of the Holy Spirit. I will hasten to distinguish between the "endwelling" of The Spirit,
and the "filling", the former in the body, the latter in the soul. Enwdwelling occurs at salvation, and is an everlasting
presence within us; while filling is temporary (in this life), because we lose it each time we sin.
The filling of The Spirit is the status we must sustain, and I say this becasue it is a matter of volition. We can
choose for or against it. Obviously, there is extreme advantage in choosing for fellowship, and these benefits are found
in many of the sections of this site.
Knowing then that we can be sinfull, or sinless, and we have a choice as to which, the question remaining is; "How do we
get the filling of the Spirit?" I thought you'de never ask!
We gain fellowship with our "escape hatch", remember? This is how we vanquish sin from our soul and gain the spiritual
state. We call this technique, Rebound. Click on this link for a complete explanation of
rebound and it's many advatages. The "trigger" that activates rebound is 1John 1:9.
"If we [cite] our sins He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and [purify] us of all
[wrong doing]."
(1 John 1:9)
"This I say then, Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfil the lust of the flesh." (Gal5:16)
This is the complete package, then, the miracles which God performed at our salvation to provide us freedom from the bondage
to this flesh, the sin nature, and make it possible to have blessings in this existence we can not possibly realize by any other
means, spiritual in nature, and everlastng in duration.