Sinner or Saint?

For the “law” of the Spirit of life flowing through the anointing of Jesus has liberated us from the “law” of sin and death. Rom 8:2

I have often heard people of God saying, “I am a sinner saved by grace”, which sounds really humbling, but I really want to challenge this thought as I feel it is unscriptural.

To me it’s all about our identity and living out of that identity. After all, the bible teaches us that what we believe in our hearts about ourselves is what we are. (Prov 23:7)

When we were saved, we became new creatures in Christ, the old passed away and the new came (2 Cor 5:17). By the Holy Spirit, we now walk in the newness of life, with new God given desires, His law written on our hearts and a new spirit within us. (Eze 11:19)

To keep confessing that we are sinners focuses us on the law of sin and death and our failures which brings condemnation.  It is a bit like AA where participants introduce themselves by saying, “Hi, my name is....and I am an alcoholic.”  They never lose their identity as an alcoholic, or indeed in some cases, their struggle against it. Not only this, but when we identify as being a sinner, we are more easily able to condone our sin, because after all, that is who we are. We allow ourselves to let some sins pass by unchecked such as “gossip” in the disguise as need for prayer. Grace does not give us the liberty to sin.  Grace empowers us NOT to sin. Our sins should grieve us, especially as we know the absolute horror of sin and that the only way out of sin was the equally horrific death the sinless One, Jesus Christ had to suffer.

For if we have become united with him in the likeness of his death, we will certainly also be united in the likeness of his resurrection.

We know that our old man was crucified with him so that the body of sin would no longer dominate us, so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin.

(For someone who has died has been freed from sin.) Rom 6: 5-7

There is a big difference between a sinner striving not to sin and a saint striving for holiness. A sinner can strive in the flesh not to sin, which is totally hopeless and will hence focus on their failings which brings condemnation and death.

You will find that the common identity tag given for believers in the New Testament is saint, not sinner.  When we focus on having been crucified with Christ and living out of the newness of life having been raised with Him, we can live our life by faith in Christ, walking in holiness.

Through our union with Him, we have experienced circumcision of heart.  All the guilt and power of sin has been cut away and is now extinct because of what Christ, the Anointed One, accomplished for us. (Col 2:11)

We no longer wilfully want to sin. We have a circumcised heart with new desires to please our Father and the power of sin has been given a death blow. So why would we want to confess that we are still sinners?

We have to work out our salvation with fear and trembling, so there is an aspect of us having to do something, but that something is, being dependent upon the empowering grace of the Holy Spirit and having faith in the finished work of the cross.

Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him.

We know that since Christ has been raised from the dead, he is never going to die again; death no longer has mastery over him.

For the death he died, he died to sin once for all, but the life he lives, he lives to God.

So you too, consider yourselves dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus.

Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its desires, and do not present your members to sin as instruments to be used for unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God as those who are alive from the dead and your members to God as instruments to be used for righteousness.

For sin will have no mastery over you, because you are not under law but under grace. (Rom 6: 6-14)

This scriptures I’ve used do not sound like we are still sinners saved by grace but in fact are telling us that we are no longer enslaved by sin and that sin no longer has dominion over us.  Our focus should be the life we now share with Christ, fully alive to Him and His desires, dead to sin and it’s trappings. Our new identity is that of saints who are empowered by the Holy Spirit, and by God’s Grace, walk in holiness being directed, taught and sanctified by the Comforter, God’s Spirit of Grace who indwells us.

This does not mean that we will no longer sin.  We will. But we no longer want to sin and our hearts will be very responsive to the conviction of the Holy Spirit when we do transgress God’s Law and grieve the Holy Spirit.

In these instances, we need to be quick to repent.  Sin should grieve us. This should be the new attitude we have toward it as we seek to walk in holiness.

Maybe the saying should be changed to, “I was a sinner BUT I have been saved by grace and I am now a saint led by grace”.  It may not sound as humbling but I think it is closer to truth and focuses us on the new identity we have where we can live from a heavenly perspective as children of the Most High and Holy God.