By Ezekiel Kimosop
During my days as an undergraduate student at the University of Nairobi in the late 1980s, I met a brother who confessed to me that he had attained a stage in his walk with God that sin was no longer an issue for him. He claimed that he could not commit sin and that the Devil was aware of this fact!
I was temporarily jolted from my seat on hearing this strange testimony. I was fairly young in the faith at the time but I knew a thing or two on sin and forgiveness.
I tried reasoning with the brother that it is impossible for a believer to attain spiritual perfection on earth. The brother would hear none of that. He argued that God deals with each believer differently and that our measure of faith and spiritual revelation varies from one believer to another.
The brother was an evangelist and, to my knowledge, was mature in the faith. I often admired his mastery of the Scriptures.
That incident disturbed me a lot for some time until I met a pastor who addressed the issue comprehensively based the teaching of the Bible. He concluded that the doctrine held by the brother was not founded on biblical truth.
After several years, I met the brother again and by the grace of God, his error was no longer evident in his teachings. Unfortunately, I came to discover that he held another controversial doctrine!
The brother attributed Christian suffering to God's judgment on the believer for known sins that he had committed. He admitted that God punished him on a number of occasions because he was disobedient in failing to heed His voice. He could not reconcile the idea that a loving God could subject His children (believers) to trials and afflictions. He argued that Christ has already nailed all our sins to the cross.
Again, I engaged the brother in a biblical conversation on the issue. Luckily for me this time, I had both the discernment and the courage for taking on his error. I was convinced that the brother's doctrine was totally inconsistent with biblical truth.
I tried to canvas my objections to his doctrine using the Scriptures such as Psalm 34:19; James 1:2-4; 1 Peter 4:12-19. Unfortunately, the brother would hear none of that. He even went on to reject the authority of the Book of Job on Christian suffering saying the book was not binding on the New Testament believer!
After engaging the brother in long conversation threads, he still stuck to his guns. He could not cede any ground. I abandoned the engagement. The brother still subscribes to this false doctrine to this day.
My view is that no believer, not even Mary the mother of Jesus, was or is without sin. Only Christ alone was and is sinless (2 Corinthians 5:21).
We live in a fallen sinful world which is under the presence and influence of sin. Besides, our bodies are susceptible to sinful inclinations. We cannot therefore fully satisfy God's divine standards even with the best of our efforts.
Only when we shall be raised in our heavenly bodies and dwell in the presence of the risen Christ in heaven shall we be truly without the influence or presence of sin.
Meanwhile, we ought to confess our sins whenever we come before the Lord in prayer. The Lord's prayer recorded in Matthew 6:9-15 is explicit on the significance of Christian confession.
To deny human sinfulness is to deny the authority Scripture.
1 John 1:8-10 says "If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say that we have not sinned, we make Him a liar, and His word is not in us."
We should therefore confess our known and unknown sins so that our heavenly Father may cleanse us from sin by the power of Christ's shed blood.
Yes, there's none without sin but Christ.
Shalom
© Ezekiel Kimosop 2020
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