“…and every branch that bears fruit, He prunes it so that it
may bear more fruit.” (John 15:2b).
Before we transition
into John 15:3, I want us to ponder what I’ll term “deep sin”, for I consider
that the conviction of “deep sin” is an element of our Father’s pruning. I
realize that many dear folks reading this will be unfamiliar with the
difference between “sins” and “sin” within the context of the Bible –
especially Romans. While we tend to focus on the things we do, whether righteous
or unrighteous, whether good or bad, the Scriptures focus on who we are – in Christ
or in Adam, saint or sinner, a righteous
person in Christ or still an unrighteous person outside of Christ, a
person justified and complete in Christ or a person not justified and outside
of Christ, a New Creation in Christ or still a person dead in trespasses and
sins.
The Cross of
Christ, the Atonement, not only deals with forgiveness for the things we have
done, but it also brings us to the end of ourselves and raises us up in newness
of life in Jesus Christ. Hence we see justification, the forgiveness of sins,
in Romans up to 5:11, and then from 5:12 – 8:39 we see that we have been given
a new identity in Jesus Christ through the Cross – we have died with Him and we
have been raised with Him; and our relationships with sin, our old selves, and
the Law, have been severed by our death with Jesus Christ.
Yes, of course
the things we do matter, let us not be stupid about that – but who we are
matters more because the things we do flow out of who we are, or who we think
we are – only God knows our hearts. Before we know Christ, we are not sinners
because we sin, we sin because we are sinners. Yes, of course conviction by the
Word and the Holy Spirit regarding individual sins matters, let’s not be stupid
about that either – but conviction about who we are outside of Christ matters
more, because our nature and identity is always the heart of the issue.
Our actions can
distract us, whether those actions are good or bad, what matters is whether we
are being conformed to the image of the Firstborn Son; that image resides deep
within us and works itself out from the inner recesses of our being. This is
one of many reasons why Jesus says that without Him we can do nothing, we can
bear no real lasting fruit – whose Life is living in us and flowing through us?
This is always the question.
When I say that
our actions can distract us, what I mean is that a professing Christian who
only focuses on the things he does, his actions, and never confronts the issue
of his core nature – inside and outside of Christ – never gets to the heart of
the matter, and in this sense he remains a child. And let me say, that as
painful as conviction of our sins may be, that they bear no comparison to the
conviction of the deep sin of who we are outside of Jesus Christ – for the
nature that produces sins, the core of the tree of death, is hideous and we can
only “see” it in the measure that our Father allows us as He gives us grace and
assurance.
Put another way,
of course Jesus died because of the things we did, because of our sins – His blood
covers and cleanses us, His blood is, in some mysterious fashion beyond our
comprehension, the perfect and complete satisfaction and offering for our sins.
But Jesus also died because of who we were – because of our deathly sinful and
self-centered nature – for the sins we did were the result of the people we were,
and unless our old nature was put to death and we were raised to newness of
life in Christ, we would remain eternally dead (Ephesians 2:1 – 10; see also
Galatians 2:20 and 2 Cor. 5:14 – 21).
To have our sins
forgiven without a change of identity, a change of life, without being given
new life within the Vine, would hardly be good news, it would not be a Gospel –
for we would still have no hope of eternal life, no hope of union with the
Trinity, no hope of the restoration of the image of God that was defaced in the
Garden. (Justification is primarily forensic, sanctification is both forensic
and organic; in sanctification Christ’s righteousness is both Imputed and
imparted in our union with Him.)
To understand
justification is to understand that we are set free from guilt and condemnation
to live in unbridled koinonia with the Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit, and
with one another in the Body of Christ. The veil of the Temple has been rent
and we are to freely live in the Holy of Holies.
What then of
what I term “deep sin”?
We’ll have to
pick this back up, the Lord willing, in our next reflection.
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