Can we become sinless with Jesus living in us?

Holiness, Perfection, and the Limits of Sanctification

We get a lot of questions here at Karma, and one of them we get quite a bit, actually, is how holy or how perfect can we become with Jesus living in us? Well, that's a good question. And the answer is, well, you can and you can't.

It depends on how you look at it. It depends on how you answer it. You see, the thing is, it says in 1 Peter 1 .16, God says, Be holy because I am holy. Well, God wants us to be holy. He wants us to be righteous.

He doesn't want us to sin. He wants us to live in a good way. All right, no problem there. But how possible is it? How good can we get as Christians with the Lord living in us? Well, it depends. You see, the more you yield yourself to Jesus, the better off you're going to be.

The more you give to Him, all those little areas of your life, all those little secret, little dark things about sin that you don't want anybody to know, as long as you give them to the Lord over and over and over, you start moving more and more and more towards the Lord Jesus Christ.

And in that sense, you become more holy. But I've got to make sure you understand, we don't become more holy in our own selves. It's not something that we possess. See, holiness is something that belongs to God.

See, God is what is holy. Holiness is this inability to sin. Holiness is perfection. It's wondrous purity. And God alone possesses that. But can we get to the point as Christians where we're basically not really sinning that much anymore?

Sanctification in a Fallen Body

And the answer is, well, no. You see, the problem is that we live in a fallen world and a fallen body. Now, you know, I'm a man, and I've got my body's falling apart here and there. And I've got these thoughts I shouldn't have.

I've got these ideas I don't want to have and certain temptations that come to me. And I'm never going to say that I'm going to be absolutely perfect, at least not in this flesh, at least not before the resurrection of my body when Jesus Christ comes back.

So, you know, I can get more and more like Jesus, and this is called sanctification. I can become more like him. I can seek his face and become better and better. But I'll never reach that perfect place of pure holiness where I just don't sin anymore.

Resurrection, Final Holiness, and Justification by Faith

Now, I'm going to understand something, though. You see, when Jesus comes back, however, when he comes back and our bodies are resurrected, then we're not going to have that sin nature in us anymore. We're going to be in the very presence of God.

And in that context, in that sense, well, I believe that we're not going to be able to sin anymore because that's going to be taken care of. But on this side of the return of Christ, well, the answer is sorry, folks.

The answer is no, we can't become perfect. We cannot become holy. The best we can hope for is that Jesus will give us what we need. Jesus will carry us through those things, those areas where we fail.

He will be the one who continually forgives us. He'll be the one who continually upholds us. He will be the one we're going to have to look to all the time, every way, every day. And we have to understand that our justification, our justification, that is our legal declaration by God upon us, declaring us righteous in his sight, the righteousness of Jesus is reckoned to our account.

We have a righteousness that's not our own, Philippians 3 .9. That is eternal, and that is permanent, and that is good. But this other area called sanctification, becoming more like Jesus, that's where it gets more difficult.

That's where we deal with the struggle with sin. Now, whether or not you sin a lot or don't sin much, I mean, not that we want you to sin, but whether or not you struggle a lot or struggle a little with various areas, it has no bearing on whether or not you are justified, no bearing on whether or not you're saved, because that is the work of God alone.

Striving to Be More Like Jesus Until the Resurrection

But your work, your work is sanctification. Your work is becoming more like Jesus. So just got to remember this. We're never going to be perfect in our bodies the way we are now, but that doesn't stop us from striving, from trying to be more like our Lord Jesus Christ, who's given us so much in the cross.

Because of what he's done, we're forgiven, and we can always look forward to the hope in Jesus Christ the coming day, when our bodies will be resurrected, and then we won't be sinners anymore. Praise God.