How bad and how long can a Christian sin?

The Question of Persistent Sin and Assurance

This, for how long and how badly can a Christian sin and not be lost and not demonstrate him or herself to be unregenerate, or let me frame it again. So, can Christian sin really badly for a long time and still be in Christ Jesus?

This is something that we wrestle with in our experience because we've all seen people in our own local churches, perhaps, who have sinned maybe heinously. They remain in a posture of sinning for an extended season of time, or maybe even we ourselves have gone through seasons like that in our lives or are in one presently, and we think, man, if you only knew what was going on in my life, in my mind, in my heart, or if you knew how long this has been a problem, you would question my salvation because I know myself and I'm certainly questioning whether or not I'm a Christian.

So, that's the question is, can somebody sin so badly that it means they are necessarily not a Christian, or can somebody remain in sin for so long that it means that they are necessarily not a Christian?

That's what we're going to talk about. That's right.

Resting in Christ, Assurance, and the Struggle with Sin

Yeah. Yeah, this is a good conversation. It falls into the whole theme of theocast, which is resting in Christ and helping people find assurance and joy. Peace and assurance, yeah. So, a lot of times when someone is asking me this question, it's not because someone wants to stay in sin.

It's not because they are justifying their sin. We are talking not about unbelievers. That's important to make that distinction. We're talking about people who are actually struggling with their sin. They don't want to sin, and they are sinning.

Or, they have done something in the past, and they don't know, you know, can God forgive me for this? And to jump into the deep water right away, I apologize if this is maybe a little too much. I mean, why not, John?

Past Abortion, Guilt, and the Need for Pastoral Care

Yeah, but I've had to deal with ladies who, before they were a believer, before they came to Christ, they had an abortion, and it just horrified them when they realized what they had done and why they did it.

And they just thought, man, I don't know. Can God forgive me for taking a life? That's how they saw it. And it was, you know, one, not a simple conversation, not an easy conversation. And so, this is where, you know, when we think Christianity is so A-B-C, one, two, three, it's clean-cut railroad tracks, there's no debris or problem.

And then a tornado comes and rips it through your life, and now your life is not what you thought it was going to be. So, there's a couple of places. One, I'm going to go to—I know that you, JP, are going to do this as well, but I'm going to read to us real quick the confession, the Latter-Baptist Confession, which is also taken from the Westminster Confession.

Repentance, the Covenant of Grace, and the Limits of Sin

And it says in chapter 15 .4, it says, Repentance must continue throughout our lives because the body of death and its activities—so it is everyone's duty to repent each specific known sin specifically.

Meaning that, hey, listen, Scripture makes it very clear. We know this from 1 John. We know this from 1 Timothy 1, 13 and 15, that we are going to struggle with sin. We'll get into this a little bit later with Paul and Romans.

But then the next point I think is so helpful here. It says this, so 15 .5, God has made full provision through Christ in the covenant of grace to preserve believers in their salvation, so to preserve them.

Thus, although there is no sin so small that is undeserving of damnation, which is true, any sin against God is as if you make yourself equal with God. That's why Adam and Eve were kicked out of the garden.

It wasn't because they ate an apple. They attempted to make themselves equal with God. Every sin is that attempt. Yet there is no sin so great that it will bring damnation on those who repent. This makes the constant preaching of repentance necessary.

Of course, this is Romans 6 .23 and other passages that we could quote.