Should Christians Struggle With Sin?

The World’s Better Theology of Sin

Sometimes I think the world has a better theology of sin than we do. They describe it as this, we're just human. They understand humanity equals struggle, weird cravings, things that aren't natural. In their psyche, they understand there are certain things that aren't natural, and because of that, it's part of being human.

When we become Christian, that seems to get flipped as if, well, now that the Spirit lives within me, and now that I've been transformed, the cravings are supposed to be gone away with, which doesn't make any sense.

I think there are a couple of things that you're going to hear us touch on and help you explain. One is a sinner-saint reality, a very important theological concept where you have the Spirit and you are still in the flesh as far as your body.

Paul describes this in Corinthians as a new kind of creature that has never existed before. There never existed a sinful creature with the Spirit indwelling in them. So we're a new kind of creature. We misinterpret that as new creation, meaning that all things have passed away, behold, all things are new, therefore you should not struggle and have these cravings.

Secondly, there's the concept that closely ties into this, which is that we are not this way because we sinned. In other words, we act and therefore we have to come. We are this way because we've been born this way.

This gets into what you were going to touch on, Justin, which is Ephesians chapter 2. It really unfolds the state in which we are born, and that becomes the natural cravings by which we struggle with.

Born in Sin and Dead in Trespasses

Justin Perdue. Absolutely. We're dealing here with a biblical understanding of the fall of man and a biblical understanding of what it means to be born into a condition or a state of sin. The place that we're going to start, as John already said, is Ephesians chapter 2.

The language of Paul there, especially in the first three verses of Ephesians 2, is very helpful and is a great launching point for us here. So Ephesians 2, 1 and following read this way. And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience, among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath like the rest of mankind.

Just a few comments there. We were dead in our trespasses and sins, so this speaks to what we are naturally. This was another podcast for another time. We weren't just sick in need of healing. We weren't just broken in need of fixing.

We weren't just dirty in need of cleansing. We were dead and needed resurrection. I mean, that's what the gospel provided. But then Paul talks about what is true of all people naturally. We follow the course of the world.

So in that sense, we do what everybody else does. We are like a leaf or a piece of debris being carried down a stream. You know, we just kind of do things because it's the normal thing. Like we see a crowd and we're drawn to it.

We're like sheep who just kind of follow along and don't even know why we're doing it. You know, that's true of us in this world. We are following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience.

Well, who is that? If we're following the course of this world, who determines the course of this world? Well, it would be the prince of the power of the air, namely Satan, the ancient serpent who is the devil, who Paul calls the God of this world in 2 Corinthians 4.

So we're enslaved to Satan in that regard. And finally, he says, we all lived amongst the sons of disobedience. We all lived as sons of disobedience in the passions of our flesh. So he's talking about passions, lusts, cravings, desires of our fallen flesh, carrying out the desires of the body or the desires of the flesh, literally in the Greek, and of the mind, right?

And we're by nature, children of wrath like the rest of mankind. So again, to your point, this is not something that we become. This is something that we are in our nature, in our essence, as fallen children of Adam.

And so what we're talking about in part today is we're thinking about sin and how it manifests itself in our lives.