Sin Versus Sins

Sins vrs Sin

God dealt with our sins directly by means of the Blood so that they no

longer come to remembrance. But when it comes to the matter of sin

and deliverance from its power, we find that God deals indirectly. He 

does not remove the sin but the sinner. The vehicle of sin, the body,

is unemployed. 

(The verb katargeo translated “destroyed in Romans 6:6

does not mean ‘annihilated’ but ‘put out of operation, made 

ineffective’, and is from the Greek root argos, which means 

‘inactive, not working, unprofitable.’  

This word is translated as ‘idle’ in Matt 20:3,6 of the unemployed

laborers in the market place.) 

Sin, the old master is still about, but the slave who served him 

has been put to death and so his members are unemployed. 

Thus we can say that ‘deliverance from sin’ is a more scriptural idea 

than ‘victory over sin.’ The expressions ‘freed from sin’ and ‘dead unto

sin’ in Romans 6:7 and 11 imply deliverance from a power that is still very

present and very real--not from something that no longer exists.

In 1John 1:3-9 John boldly writes: ‘whosoever is begotten of God doeth no

sin...he cannot sin,’ which is a statement that is often wrongly understood 

and thus misleading. John is saying that to sin is not the nature of that which

is born of God. The life of Christ has been planted in us by new birth and its

nature is not to commit sin.

So it is a question of choice of which facts we will count upon and live by:

the tangible facts of daily experience or the mightier fact that we are now

‘in Christ.’ The power of His resurrection is on our side, and the whole

might of God is at work in our salvation (Romans 1:16), but the matter still

rests upon our making real in history what is true in divine fact.

Watchman Nee. The Normal Christian Life

PERSONAL

I don’t know if these blogs are for you or for me. I first read this book of Nee’s

just after college and it is underlined from end to end. BUT, as I go back into

the book, I find a depth of truth I did not comprehended then. My prayer for

me as well as for you, dear reader, is that God will give us revelation of His 

truth so that we can walk in it.