“Do you know what your problem is? Your problem is that you don’t love God!”
Do you have any idea how much trouble you can get into with those words?!! At Pastor in the Pub yesterday, I had a fellow suggest that we “step outside” and he’d show me how much he loved God! Such is the deceiving power of sin, that we can convince ourselves that we love God — and that it is some outside force (or split personality) that “makes” us sin.
John Owen makes the useful distinction between the “dominion” of sin and the “indwelling” of sin in the believer. Sin shall not have dominion over the believer — but it still dwells in us. Okay, that’s not particularly original to Owen — Paul said it first!
But too often we don’t want to admit that sin has even taken up residence in us. “I’m a good person,” said my acquaintance, “I love God and I pray regularly.” But his actions make clear that sin has residence — at least!
So — what do you say? You may suspect that sin has dominion — that the person you are talking to is (in fact) unregenerate. But he insists that he believes in Jesus, that he loves God, that he is a believer. What do you say? I take comfort in knowing that whether sin has dominion over him — or whether sin merely has a very strong presence in him – the solution is the same! Repent and believe the gospel! Whether it would be the first time or not doesn’t really matter. If he has been living in bondage to sin, under the dominion of the devil, then he needs to repent and believe the gospel. If he is a “believer” who has been ensnared in sin for many years, then he needs to repent and believe the gospel. Either way, he has believed a lie and he has devoted himself to the service of something other than the Triune God, and he needs to repent and believe the gospel!
Of course, this will have a host of practical consequences as well. Repentance and faith must then work itself out in new obedience — your new identity in Christ must also be reflected in the new community, the “one new man” including both Jew and Gentile that God has established in Christ. This is why Jesus said to make disciples, “baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit [new identity], and teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you [new community].”
