God is Going to Judge Your Sexual Sin ~ blog

I am not sure I know one person who has not heard this lie.  I think it comes from a very dark and evil place.  When we have given in to sexual sin so many times that it has become an addictive behavior that has us entangled, in prisoned and enslaved.  For some of us it has been years and for others, decades. For many, it began around the age of 10 – 12 years of age.

The effect of believing this lie is powerful. It causes us to feel like God has abandoned us.  We can even believe that if we were at some point actually saved … that we have lost our salvation and will go to hell forever when we die.  And if that is now the case then why not just keep giving ourselves over to sexual sin?

Then we read passages like these and they only solidify the lie in our thinking;

“No one who is born of God practices sin, because His seed abides in him; and he cannot sin, because he is born of God.”  1 John 3:9

“Now the deeds of the flesh are evident, which are: immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmities, strife, jealousy, outbursts of anger, disputes, dissensions, factions, envying, drunkenness, carousing, and things like these, of which I forewarn you, just as I have forewarned you, that those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.” Galatians 5:19-22

You could build a very strong case that those of us who have become ensnared in sexual sin must not be Christians or if we were, we must have lost our salvation. The Church has argued this for centuries.  I hope to convince you that these verses are being misinterpreted and certainly contradict what we know to be true about the Gospel of Grace.

Notice that in the New American Standard Bible translation the word “practice / practices” is used.  Now listen because this is very important.  This verb is in the present tense.  It is not like me saying I am going out to practice my golf swing.  Which I may do on occasion.  It refers to someone doing something continuously.

Kenneth Wuest, who was a Biblical Greek New Testament scholar and is still very well respected in Christian circles of scholars writes this on the word practice;

• Practice in the present tense always speaks of continuous action.
• “Everyone who has been born out of God, with the present result that he is a born-one (of God), does not habitually do sin.”

I could quote numerous outstanding commentaries on this and they all say the same thing.  What these verses are saying is that a Christian will not continuously commit sin.

It is not saying that a Christian never sins.  That would mean that none of us are Christians because all of us do sin.  However, we are not totally given in to it.  Although one having this addiction will be in the battle of their life fighting against it.  But the very fact that you want to stop and are trying to stop is evidence that you are a believer.

I also like to remind those who incorrectly interpret 1 John 3:9 and believe that it is teaching that a true believer does not sin that the Apostle John begins his letter with these words;

“If we say that we have no sin, we are deceiving ourselves and the truth is not in us.”   

 ^“If we say that we have not sinned, we make Him a liar and His word is not in us.”

The other thing I want to mention on this idea that those who commit sexual sin are going to hell is that it destroys the idea of what God’s Forgiveness is all about and tries to diminish what Christ accomplished on the Cross where all the wrath of God was placed on Jesus for all sins for all time.  All our sins … even all of our sexual sins have been completely paid for by Christ’s death on the Cross.

It bears reading in context but here is what we are told in Hebrews 10:12-14;

“But when this priest had offered for all time one sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God, and since that time he waits for his enemies to be made his footstool. For by one sacrifice he has made perfect forever those who are being made holy.”

All the judgment for all people and for all the sins of the world for all time fell on Jesus and His death has paid for all of your sins … even all of your sexual sins.

God has not and never will abandon you.  Does this mean I can continue to sin sexually and there will be no consequences?  Absolutely Not!!!  There will always be consequences.  Sin brings with it its own destructive consequences and God, as our loving Father will also discipline us for our sins.

But they will not condemn us to hell and cause God to reject us so that we lose our salvation. He has made us a member of His family and we are in His family forever not based on our works or ability to be good but because of His unconditional love that moved Him to choose us and to adopt us eternally as His children.