Introduction

     The thoughts expressed in this book explore the deep things of God—things that can only be spiritually discerned. These things pertain unto your perfection and how we get to that perfected state.  These deep things of God explore what He desires to do with us, His sons and daughters, after He takes us to where he wants us to be.  And all of this will be done right here on earth.

     This book has been written as a tool for the future manifested sons and daughters of God.  Its subject matter is of a mature spiritual nature.  It is not for children who are “tossed to and fro with every wind of doctrine.”  This book is for those who have been called to partake of the strong meat of the word.  It is for those who are tired of “playing church” and want the real plan of God operating in their lives.

     The inspired author of the book of Hebrews had much to say concerning perfection, but it was difficult to teach his readers, for they were “dull of hearing” and “slow to learn.” What he had to say was not what they thought in their own wisdom to be true.  For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you again the first principles of the oracles of God; and you have come to need milk and not solid food…Therefore, leaving the discussion of the elementary principles of Christ, let us go on to perfection, not laying again the foundation of repentance from dead works and of faith toward God…Hebrews 5:12; 6:1. NKJV.

     And so it is today.  As long as the first principles of Christ’s teachings are not solid as a rock in a person’s life, the deeper things will not be understood by them.  The foundation of any house must be solid, built upon the Rock. 

     This book is for those who have a solid foundation in the first principles of Christ’s teachings: repentance from dead works and faith toward God.  It is for those who are “going on unto perfection.”

     I can already hear the cries coming forth. Perfection?  Did you say perfection?  Wait a minute.  You are talking about perfection, and I am still grappling with sin in my life?  No way.  No one can be perfect. 

     A typical response, and yet, the Savior Himself told us to “be perfect as your Father in heaven is perfect.”  The apostle Paul says that God’s gifts to us were the apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors, and teachers.  And they are for the “perfecting of the saints…till we all come…unto a perfect man…and no more children, tossed to and fro” (Ephesians 4:11-14).

     Many sincere Christians earnestly desire to walk with their Master like this, yet they cannot even think about their own perfection while still grappling with the sin question in their lives. They will justify their circling Mt. Sinai by saying, “Nobody can be perfect.  You can’t be like Jesus!”  To which I will reply, “Okay, but will you let me be like Paul or Peter or John?”  They are the ones that taught that we are to go on to perfection and not be children anymore in the word. 

     Yet, many questions abound in many hearts concerning sin.    What is sin?  What do we do about it in our lives?  Can we overcome it in our lives?  Is it possible to have the victory over sin while still here on earth?  How do these questions relate to “repentance from dead works and faith toward God”?

What is Sin?

     What is sin?  Sin is the breaking of the law.  Whosoever committeth sin transgresseth also the law: for  sin is the transgression of the law. I John 3:4.  “But which law?” someone will ask. There are hundreds of laws in the Bible and hundreds more made by man.  Which law is John talking about?  It is the ten command-ment law of God.  How can we be sure?  Paul clears up the matter irrefutably.  I had not known sin, but by the law: for I had not known lust, except the law had said, Thou shalt not covet. Romans 7:7.  “Thou shalt not covet” is one of the Ten Commandments.  Coveting or desiring your neighbor’s possessions is prohibited in the Ten Commandments, given to Moses on Mt. Sinai.  So sin is the breaking of these ten commandments.

     And we have all broken them.  All have sinned and  have come short of the glory of God.  Our old carnal fleshly nature is corrupt and sinful and depraved.  A person cannot please God if they are led around by its selfish ways.  Paul flashes back to this sordid state in Romans 7, letting the reader know that someone out there does understand what it means to be in bondage to the sinful nature.  When we were in the flesh…You mean when you were in that old carnal nature?  You mean, Paul, that you are not now in the flesh?  …the motions of sins, which were by the law, did work in our members to bring forth fruit unto death. Romans 7:5.  For when we were controlled by the sinful nature, the sinful passions aroused by the law were at work in our bodies, so that we bore fruit for death. Romans 7:5, NIV.  He goes on in that chapter to relate the utter confusion and frustration that a sinner feels when they want to do good, but the sin within them prevents them from being the righteous person they really desire to be. 

     Preachers for ages have erroneously taught that Paul was talking about his sinful present state at the time of the writing of the letter to the Romans.  No!  The apostle Paul  had  seen  the  risen Savior, had been on at least two missionary journeys over the space of twenty-four years, had raised the dead, healed the sick, and cleansed the lepers—no, we had better get this right—Paul in Romans 7 was not speaking about himself in 57 A.D!  He was flashing back to that time when he was a slave to sin.  He was sharing in the sinner’s sad plight, with great empathy.  He was feeling a sinner’s seemingly hopeless condition without the Savior.  He is explaining in Romans 7:14-24 just how hellish it was to be in the bondage to sin.  He has flashed back and writes in the present tense in order for the reader to feel the immediacy of the horrendous bondage the sinner is in.  He mentions being in bondage to sin, a slave to sin and sinning.  The thing that he hates to do (sin) is the thing he does.  In this sinful state he has no power in and of himself to stop sinning, even though he knows that it is wrong and wants to stop it.  That is bondage; that is a slave to the sinful nature.

     But just before Paul’s description of a sinner caught in the bondage to sin, he contrasts two states of being.  When we were in the flesh, the motions of sins which were by the law, did work in our members to bring forth fruit unto death.  But now we are delivered from the law…Romans 7:5-6. He contrasts the two states.   “When we were” in bondage to sin, and “now we are delivered”—these are the two contrasting conditions of a human being.  One is before the Spirit of God comes into a life, and the other is after.     

Our Old Nature Must Die on the Cross

     So how does one get out of the bondage of sin and sinning?  How do we deal with this sin problem in our lives?  The scriptures say that  “He shall save His people from their sins.”  How does this happen?  Can we ever get in a “right” state with God?  What must we do?  There is only one thing to do with the carnal sinful self and that is to confess our depraved state, identify it with Christ on the cross, and let it die.  There is only one way for the body of sin to be destroyed for the old sinful Adamic nature; it must be crucified.  But we cannot really do anything to bring this on.  It is a total work of God that has already been done—at the cross.  We cannot do anything to deserve this wonderful deliverance from this death caused by sin and sinning.  All He wants us to do is believe what He has already done to deliver us from the bondage of sin.

     First, we must know this one thing: our old man, our old ego, our old self, our old nature, our old heart, our old carnal nature, the flesh, the depraved body of sin within us—it is put to death with the sacrificial Lamb.  Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with him, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin. Romans 6:6. 

     Paul did not say that our old sinful nature was going to be taken care of some day when we all get to heaven.  No!  He said that it is dead, already put to death on the cross!  That is not a misprint or a mistranslation.  The sacrificial Lamb of God took our sins upon Him at the time of His death.  He was our scapegoat, as when the Levitical priest laid hands on the goat transferring the sins of the people onto it.  Christ died as a sinful lost man that day, for He “was made to be sin for us, who knew no sin that we may be made the righteousness of God in Him” (II Cor. 5:21). 

     He wants us to believe this—that our sinful nature died with Him on the cross, and that we were buried with Him, and that we were raised up with Him as well.  For if we have been planted together in the likeness of his death, we shall be also in the likeness of his resurrection. Romans 6:5.

     Is this hard for us to believe?  Is it hard to have faith in this teaching?  Yet the elect will believe this word.  The others will fall as the children of Israel did through unbelief.  For you see that God is not asking us to do anything except believe what He has already done for us.  He first believed in His work in us long before we got here on this earth. 

Entering the State of Being Right with God

     And if we believe His word on this, then He will reckon a righteous status unto us. He will lay to our account that we are righteous in His eyes.  For it is God who makes the dead-in-sin come to life and imputes righteousness unto them because they believe Him.  Even God, who quic-keneth the dead, and calleth those things which be not as though they were.  Romans 4:17. 

     Our part is to surrender our old sinful selves unto the cross.  Because of our faith in His redemptive sacrifice by surrendering unto death our own sinful heart, then He says, “You are now my child, and you are now righteous in My sight.  You are welcome into my arms of love and mercy.  Just walk in it by forgiving others and doing my words.  For it is not you that are doing it, for you are dead now, my sons and daughters.  It is the Spirit of the living God that I have dispatched into your hearts.  It is the Spirit of Christ within you who I recognize as the one motivating spirit of your life.  And soon you will be able to truthfully say what Paul said to the Galatians.”  I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me. Gal. 2:20.

          When we simply believe His apostle’s word and identify  our  depraved  carnal  nature with the Lamb that

day, and surrender to the punishment of death to that old selfish way of life, then He is pleased.  That faith pleases Him very much, for we believe the report that He has given us concerning the Savior. 

     “Righteousness” is the upright walk in God’s ways and laws.  If one is righteous in God’s eyes, then He approves of their walk of faith.  Our old carnal Adamic nature can never please God, for it cannot keep the ten commandment law.  But there was one who did, even the Savior Himself.  Our part is to just believe that He is living within, for He is the Spirit, and His Spirit within keeps us in that righteous condition in God’s eyes.  Remember that He is the one who “calls those things that be not as though they were.”  He believes in His own sacrificial power; He can’t go back on it.  If we believe what He believes about us in our redeemed position with Him within, then we are walking in faith.

     But, oh, some are so afraid that they are going to sin, or that someone will use this precious truth as cheap grace and as a license to sin.  Some think that if they believe this, that they can do anything and it will be all right with Him—that we can continue sinning since His grace will pick up the tab.  No!  That is not what God is saying at all.  Shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound?  God forbid.  How shall we, that are dead to sin, live any longer therein?  Romans 6:1-2. 

     The true delivered ones believe that their old carnal nature has been crucified with Christ, and that they have been buried with him, and are now risen with Him to walk in a newness of life.

How He Rids Sin from Our Lives

     How do we get rid of sin in our lives?  Get rid of the “we” in the question and we will get rid of the sin.  For the

Answer  to  the sin problem is the knowledge that we have everything we need to completely overcome it in Him.  He is the head of all powers in heaven and in earth.  He has power over evil spirits and wicked intents.  He is totally in control of Satan, who is the prince and power of the air.  Satan could only do what God allowed him to do in the first chapter of the book of Job.  When His Spirit lives within us, then we have everything needed to completely overcome sin in our life.  And you are complete in Him, which is the head of all principality and power.  Colossians 2:10.

     He conquers sin in us when we just believe by faith that He has taken out our old hearts and given us new hearts.   When we believe the word of His apostle that He has performed a spiritual operation on us, we are de-livered from sin.  For through the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ, God has performed an invisible spiritual operation on our old carnal heart and has gotten rid of our old sinful nature thereby.  The operation is a spiritual circumcision.  “Circumcision” means “cutting all the way around.”  First, He cuts our old sinful heart out, all the way around.  Then we are buried with Him in the baptism into His death.  In God’s eyes He buries you with Christ, interring our old carnal nature with the sacrificial Lamb.  Then, we believe that we are raised up with Him to walk in a brand new life with His Spirit as our life within. 

     This is all by faith.  We cannot see Christ literally dying and being buried, and we cannot see our old carnal, sinful self die, either.  We must simply believe having not seen these things, receiving this truth by faith.  When we do this, God looks on us with approval, for faith pleases God.  In whom also ye are circumcised with the circumcision made without hands, in putting off the body of the sins of the flesh by the circumcision   of   Christ:   buried  with  him  in  baptism,  wherein  also ye  are risen with  him  through  the faith of the operation of God, who hath raised him from the dead.  And you…hath he quickened together with him, having forgiven you all trespasses.  Colossians 2:11-13.

Belief in the Resurrection is the Key

     Our victory hinges on our faith in the resurrection of the Savior—not that the resurrection historically happened, but that along with Him we were raised up from the dead as well.  Then we can believe that we, too, can “walk in a newness of life.”  We can then believe in His resurrection in us!  His resurrection is our resurrection, for it is now Him living in us.  All we have to do is believe it.

     Our belief in this truth puts us right with God.  He looks down on us and says, “Well done,” and then He imputes our belief as righteousness onto our account with Him.  He “reckons” us as righteous.  He counts us righteous in His sight, apart from our clamoring around trying to keep the law.  Only Christ can keep the law.  Therefore, when we believe that it is Him living in us, we then in God’s eyes are right with Him.  We believe having not seen with our eyes, and this pleases God.

     We can never please Him by trying to clean up our old carnal nature and thereby trying to keep the ten commandments on our own strength.  This does not please Him, for it cuts Him out of the action and does not acknowledge Him for our deliverance.   It is an attempt to clean up our lives without Him and His way of doing it.  After realizing that we cannot keep the law successfully, we must confess our sins and surrender to our own deaths.  We must put our old lives on the cross with Christ. 

     We  then  believe  in  God’s  word when He says He will give  us  a “newness  of  life” where  old  things  are passed away and where all things are become new.  How can we fulfill that if we are still in the bondage to sin?  This newness of life comes as we believe that it is in us.  All we have to do is believe what has already been done.  We cannot “do” anything for this new life.  It is a gift from Him.  We can do nothing for this new life, except believe in what Christ has done for us, and now in us. 

     For the culminating spiritual feat of Christ is Him coming down into our inner being, giving us a new heart, a new spirit.  This is what God wants for us—a new life.  But it won’t come by us working for it.  It will not come as a reward but as an undeserved gift.  All of our striving here on earth to “do this” and “don’t do that” in order to please Him will never work.  For our deeds of the old man cannot please Him.  It is our walk of faith as Christ in us doing this or that—that is what pleases God.  We must die to bring the life of Christ to life within us.  This is what God looks down on and is pleased.  In His eyes, this is what really counts. 

     And yet, this is only the beginning.  This right state with Him is just the first step on the road to completeness in Him—on the road to perfection. 

     Since we are now risen with Him, we are in a position to seek those things that are above.  If we listen carefully, we just may be able to hear Him say, Come, let me show you a more perfect way…