FREEDOM FROM SIN

- my personal testimony, brother Donald Wilson

A few short years ago I discovered that (at very least)

SALVATION IS FREEDOM FROM SIN!

• Yes, I discovered this after 40 years or more of experiencing the opposite!
  Of course I know that most of Christendom today, would fight such a truth both tooth and nail.
  
  And every Sunday morning the (unholy) 'faithful' gather (in a proverbial stone-proof 'glasshouse’) to be fed what really is a faithless gospel: that we are yet sinners, fast-bound in our sins and nature's night like any other sinner in town. And to think otherwise is to be 'more holy than thou' and of course judgmental of others; casting stones!
  
  And the burden of the message thereafter is to instil some sort of comfortable hope of salvation in the name of God's unfailing love, unconditional grace, Christ's all-atoning blood, and 'once saved you are always saved!'

• Pray dear God, where is the problem?
  This question has of late exercised my heart and mind substantially, especially when I find that God's holy word from cover to cover preaches exactly the opposite! - a truly good-news saving gospel:
  
  'Sin shall no longer have dominion over you, for you are not under the law (which made nothing perfect) but under grace (which sets me free from the law of sin and death - that when I would do good, evil is present with me); made free-from sin and become servants of righteousness.' (Romans 6:14,18, 7:21 Hebrews 7:19.)
  
  
  MY PRINCIPLE DISCOVERY
  My searching has led me in particular to discover two vital and life-changing truths:
  1. The Biblical definition of sin.
  2. Salvation from sin is by faith - believing/accepting the truth (as opposed to a lie) of who Jesus really is and what He has done - effective on our acceptance.
  
  
  So, WHAT IS SIN?
  Strictly speaking, sin is what we are. rather than what we do (or don't do).
  
  However, what we are is always manifested by what we do. Jesus said, "A tree is known by his fruits.' (Matt.7:20)

• Hence, in practice the definition ‘sin’, is usually applied to what we do/don't do.
  
  More particularly, the Bible teaches two entirely different categories of sin:
  
  1. Unwilful sin', that is,
  a. doing that which we do not know to be wrong, which Jesus said is not a moral issue, but an indication of the need of enlightenment:
  'If I had not come and spoken unto them, they had not had sin; but now they have no excuse for their sin.' (John 15:22)
  
  b. unwittingly (at the moment of) doing what we on hindsight know to be wrong;
  e.g. David's experience: 'Afterward, David's heart smote him,' when he cut off a piece of Saul's garment. (1 Samuel 24:5)
  
  2. Wilful sin - disobedience/rebellion, that is, doing that which at the time we know to be wrong (by God's standards) but doing it anyhow! though with excuse! James (4:l7) said; 'To him who knows to do good and does it not, to him it is sin.'
  
  Also, Jesus' comment above is applicable.
  Therefore for this we are accountable, blameworthy, and have need to repent - not so much of the act, as what the act reveals us to be - a rebel, unconverted, lost in sin! In effect, not believing/accepting the new-life package in Christ.
  
  A LETHAL MIX
  But, failure to define, and therefore, the mixture of, the two categories of sin, is definitely the devil's business (apparently as much as it is the church’s!).
  For, this confusion of rebellion/unconversion with innocence is in effect to represent rebellion as innocent and inevitable! Or at worst it is something we continually 'repent' of (whatever that means), though continue doing under test - all in this name of ‘grace’(whatever that means).
  
  
• Actually, this ‘at-worst’ scenario was my helpless position for many years! and one I now know is not salvation, though every devil in town hates me for saying so - which of course only goes to reveal that the devil is very religious indeed!
  
  Yes, when the dear Lord saved my ‘soul’, He saved me from religion fundamental, evangelical, Pentecostal as it might have been.
  
  
  SALVATION BY FAITH
  'Oh what a salvation this, that Christ now liveth in me!' as my heart is open to Him as He really is, what He has really done and is doing.
  
  The blessed truth I have found is that I cannot have faith-acceptance of, faith-surrender to, Christ and my position in Him, without it causing me to be a new creature, involving confession & repentance from all known sin, so that I am free and continue to be free from known sin.
  
  Now would you shoot me down in flames for that?
  
  Or by some irreligious stretch of the imagination, would you not say that was truly 'good news'? - or should I ask the heathen to get my answer?
  
• Why bring the gospel down to a plain of continuing in sin, expecting grace to abound?
  Jude saith that we should be dedicated to 'earnestly contending' against that. So why aid and abet it, is my question to Christendom today.
  
  THE SINFUL ROOT
  Yes, is not such a sin-soft gospel the root & branch of the ‘church’ and ‘christendom’ right up to today? And without nursing such an unholy hope, indeed boasting of it, would it not collapse, naturally, from the lack of natural support?
  
  It is my privilege to tell you that I collapsed 7 years ago, and have never regretted it. In fact I fully recommend it, though painful as it was.
  
  It was simply that I got real with God and found that He got real with me.
  
  MY TRUE FREEDOM
  So today I am free - free to serve God His way in spirit and in truth - in the newness of the Spirit and not in the oldness of the letter of a religion of my own making with its incumbent sinful 'body of death!'
  
  No, there is now no condemnation as I continue in Christ Jesus and walk not after the sinful first-birth flesh-control, but after the life-giving Spirit-control up to the light I have. (Romans 8:1. Galatians 5:24-25)
  
  As long as I am real, I know that anything less is rebellion/sin, and ‘the wages thereof is still death,' especially for one 'who has tasted of the heavenly gift, and was made partaker of the Holy Ghost, and falls away, repentance being impossible while bringing forth thorns and briars.’ (Hebrews 6:4-8. 10:26-31, 2 Peter 2:20-22)
  
  TRUE SALVATION FOR ALL
  I have found that a pass into the I church I is usually not a pass into the kingdom of God, just as being 'born-again' is not always more than a still birth, or a birth of a hybrid creature, a lukewarm mix of hot and cold,
  new cloth to an old garment, new wine in an old wine-skin, seed on stony ground, in fact a weed seed which thrives on stony ground, a defacto relationship with Christ!
  
  But the Lord still invites us one and all, especially the professing Christian, to repent and believe the 'whole-counsel-of-God’s gospel which is the power of God unto salvation if we will but believe/accept/surrender to/obey that gospel.'

• And the true fruit will follow the light as it is given.
  
  Praise be to such an all-prevailing and gracious God and Saviour in and through our Lord Jesus Christ. To Him be all the glory for ever and ever. Amen.
  
  OH BLISS OF THE PURIFIED

• ‘Oh, bliss of the purified! bliss of the free!
  I plunge in the crimson tide open for me;
  O'er sin and uncleanness exulting I stand,
  And point to the print of the nails in His hand.’
  
  ‘Oh, sing of His mighty love,
  Sing of His mighty love!
  Sing of His mighty love....
  Mighty to save.’
  
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