“But thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ” (1 Corinthians 15:57). “Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you” (James 4:7).
By John David Hicks
Scott* had driven a long way to see me. As we sat in my living room, he shared his sins, failure, and how he felt he betrayed his family, church, and God. He knew better than to sin, but did it anyway. He lived with constant condemnation.
Now Scott was emotionally sick, full of guilt and shame. He blamed God for not helping him. He had always tried to be a good Christian but failed. He had been a Christian for more than 20 years. He was an adult Sunday school teacher and served on the church board. Yet he continually fell short of God’s word and purpose for his life. Each time he failed he would confess his sin and promise God that he would do better. Yet he could not break the cycle of failure.
So eventually Scott concluded that only in heaven would he have “full salvation.” He made up a theology of sinning every day in word, thought, and deed that he could live with. Scripture says, “Where sin increased, grace increased all the more.” “Grace will take care of my sin and failure,” Scott would say to himself.
The turning point came as he studied Romans 6: “What shall we say, then? Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase? By no means!” Scott prayed and asked God for a confirmation in Scripture. “He who does what is sinful is of the devil, because the devil has been sinning from the beginning. The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the devil’s work” (1 John 3:8). This brought more condemnation to him. He knew his life was an embarrassment to the Gospel.
Scott knew the Bible teaches a victorious life in Jesus Christ over the world, the flesh, and the devil. Although this was not his experience, he reasoned that God would not tell us to do something without giving us power to do it. Then he read my articles on righteousness—that you cannot have “victory” in the Christian life until you have the “power.” And you cannot have the “power” until you first get the “authority.” The “authority” comes from knowing who you are in Christ.
Many Christians are defeated because they are crying out for power before they have the authority. Scott had now come to me for help. This is what I shared with him, and God gave him the “victory of righteousness” that he so longed for and craved.
Like many pastors, I have counseled many Christians to “live by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the sinful nature” (Galatians 5:16). I usually turned to Romans 6-8 and offered Watchman Nee’s counsel that we must identify with Christ and reckon ourselves dead to our sinful self and alive to God—thus allowing the resurrected life of Christ to live in and through us. The starting place is faith, but soon you will see a paradox, that faith without works is dead.
The sanctified life does not de-humanize us. The New American Standard Bible translates Galatians 5:16, “Walk by the Spirit, and you will not carry out the desire of the flesh.” The strength is not in us, but in the indwelling Holy Spirit. Walking in the Spirit is walking in relationship—in the same direction with the same purpose. A pure heart emptied of self and filled with the Lord is the fulfillment of this walk.
I told Scott that Romans 7 describes what he was going through—all his resolve to do good ends in failure. He’s not the first to cry out, “Oh wretched man I am; who can deliver me from this law of sin and death?” Paul’s answer: “Thank God—Jesus Christ can!” Our identification with Jesus Christ in His death, resurrection, and ascension makes victory possible to us by faith.
In Romans 7, God has laid the foundation for your deliverance:
- The power of sin is in the law of sin and death. You are married to it. The Law reveals your sin, your carnal nature, and the righteous demands of God’s holiness.
- The Law shows your inability to save yourself and the impossibility to please God in your own strength. Your performance will never measure up.
- In Christ your identification in His death and resurrection dissolves the Law so that it no longer has power over you. Your marriage to the Law has ended. You have died to it.
- The Law has given you the realization of your failure and now it makes you ready to receive God’s grace of victory—life in the Spirit.
Only when you come to the end of yourself can you enter into the life of God in Christ. Jesus said in the Sermon on the Mount: “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 5:3). Blessed are the bankrupt; blessed are the wretched. The realization of your helplessness is the foundation of grace. As long as you think you can do it yourself, you will live in Romans 7. Paul’s question is not “What must I do?” but “Who will deliver me?”
1 Timothy 1:5 (nkjv) tells us what God wanted to achieve with the Law: “Now the purpose of the commandment is love from a pure heart, from a good conscience, and from sincere faith.” The end of the Law was love and faith. Romans 8:3 tells us that the Law could not accomplish this in us. So God did it in Christ. And that is what Paul told Timothy: “And the grace of our Lord was exceedingly abundant, with faith and love which are in Christ Jesus”
(1 Timothy 1:14). Though the Law could not provide us with love and faith, grace was “exceedingly abundant” to do it.
You’ll find the details of this deliverance in Romans 8. Both salvation and sanctification come through Jesus Christ. He has supplied everything you need.
It starts with verse 1: “Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.” Scott had been living under condemnation. God convicts us of sin to give us grace to change. Satan condemns us to defeat us.
Christ’s victory is found in verses 2-6: “Through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit of life set me free from the law of sin and death. For what the law was powerless to do in that it was weakened by the sinful nature, God did by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful man to be a sin offering. And so he condemned sin in sinful man, in order that the righteous requirements of the law might be fully met in us, who do not live according to the sinful nature but according to the Spirit…. The mind (mind-set) of sinful man is death, but the mind (mind-set) controlled by the Spirit is life and peace.”
God sent His Son Jesus to fulfill the Law and then to die to it—the only way to die to sin and the Law is to die to your performance and abide in Jesus. Before, your mind-set was controlled by the flesh, but now it is controlled by the Spirit. A mind-set motivates your life. It determines your choices; shapes your values; affects your view of people, God, and life. “Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 2:5 nkjv). This new principle of life in Christ liberates you from the old principle of sin and death that caused sin to condemn you.
When you die to the Law, you trade in all your self-righteous, moral principles, good works, and religious rituals for the righteousness granted to you through faith in Jesus Christ.
Your part is to receive by faith God’s gift of salvation and victory. According to James 4:7, as you submit to God, by faith resting in His victory that is in you, then you are to “Resist the devil and he will flee from you.” As you exercise your will to resist the devil, he will flee from you. This is a “living” faith demonstrated by works. True faith acts on what it believes. Thus, the faith that saves is a working and obedient faith.
My friend Scott said to me, “But I thought it was Christ and me trying to keep the Law that won the victory?” It’s not believing plus keeping the Law, but faith in Christ alone that saved you and faith in Christ alone that will keep you. Justification does not require the works of the Law; but it does require a living faith that has works. It’s obedience to Christ. “If anyone loves me, he will obey my teaching. My Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him” (John 14:23). It starts with love—a relationship. To enter the kingdom of heaven you must accept Jesus as your Lord (ruler, master) and do what He says. You may say that you have accepted Christ as your Savior, but the true test of your faith is do you obey Him (Matthew 7:21-27; Luke 6:46)?
According to 1 Peter 1:22, you purify yourself by obeying the truth. James 2:24 affirms this: “You see that a person is justified by what he does and not by faith alone.” “But thanks be to God that, though you used to be slaves to sin, you wholeheartedly obeyed the form of teaching to which you were entrusted. You have been set free from sin and have become slaves to righteousness” (Romans 6:17-18).
When Adam sinned, it started by questioning God’s love and then he withdrew his surrender and obedience. He was now out for himself; he wanted to be in control and be like God. With self on the throne of his heart, he could only trust himself. For God to redeem us and save us from the consequences of sin, He must undo what sin has done. Thus, the opposite of sin, which finds God’s fervor and brings redemption with God, is surrender, obedience, trust. The Bible word for this is faith! No wonder, “without faith it is impossible to please God” (Hebrews 11:6).
The Bible clearly teaches that sin is overcome by faith in Christ alone. Jesus is “our righteousness, holiness and redemption” (1 Corinthians 1:30). Peter said that God is the one who “purified their hearts by faith” (Acts 15:9). And in Acts 26:18 it is affirmed that the saints are sanctified by faith in Christ.
The Jews strived for righteousness but could not obtain it, “Because they did not strive for it on the basis of faith, but as if it were based on works” (Romans 9:32 nrsv). The Christian life is received and lived by faith. It is by faith that you overcome “the world, the flesh, and the devil.” It is by faith that you “put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to fulfill its lusts” (Romans 13:14). “For everyone born of God overcomes the world. This is the victory that has overcome the world, even our faith” (1 John 5:4).
It is Christ in you that makes you an overcomer. That can only happen when the selfishness of the human heart is cleansed by faith.
When you “Humble yourselves before the Lord,” dependent on the Christ that is in you, “He will lift you up.” God forces salvation on no one; this is a free gift of God and must be received or rejected by an act of your will. The Gospel calls men to believe in Christ (John 3:16). “As for you, the anointing which you received from Him abides in you, and…teaches you…[to] abide in Him” (1 John 2:27 nasb). By abiding I receive strength. Jesus says in John 15:5, “If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing.” Your striving to live the victorious life leaves God out; so apart from Him, “you can do nothing.”
This life of faith is not a will-less life. You will to receive by faith what only God can accomplish. It is not Jesus Christ plus your efforts, but Jesus Christ plus your receiving! “But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God” (John 1:12 nrsv). This receiving believes in His name and His word and then power is released. That alone is what frees you from the power and dominion of sin and gives you victory in life. You recognize that God is doing for you what you cannot do for yourself (Colossians 1:28; 1 John 4:4).
When the Galatian Christians fell into this trap of performance, Paul said: “This is the only thing I want to find out from you: did you receive the Spirit by the works of the Law [that’s your striving], or by hearing with faith? Are you so foolish? Having begun by the Spirit, are you now being perfected by the flesh? So then, does He who provides you with the Spirit and works miracles among you, do it by the works of the Law, or by hearing with faith? It was for freedom that Christ set us free; therefore keep standing firm and do not be subject again to a yoke of slavery…. But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not carry out the desire of the flesh” (Galatians 3:2-3, 5; 5:1, 16 nasb).
This victory of righteousness comes only through Jesus Christ and is maintained by continuing to receive it by faith. “So then, just as you received Christ Jesus as Lord, continue to live in him” (Colossians 2:6). How do you continue to live in Him? “The righteous will live by faith” (Romans 1:17).
Scott said to me, “My problem is faith. If I just had more faith, I would see miracles and have the victory over sin.”
I told him as a Christian you already have faith. Nowhere in Scripture are Christians told to have more faith. They already are believers. Non-Christians are told to believe, but not Christians. You have been given grace and faith that does not come from yourself; it’s God’s gift (Ephesians 2:8-9).
When the disciples asked Jesus to increase their faith, He told them that if they had a mustard seed faith—just a speck of faith—they could move a mountain. They did not need more faith. They just needed to use the faith they already had.
If you are a Christian, you have more than a speck of faith. You don’t fight to win the victory; Jesus has already won the victory. Accept it. Receive it by faith (Ephesians 3:20-21).
John Wesley did not want to confess sanctification because he saw his own weakness, imperfections, faults, and failures. He knew he had a pure heart, but he was not perfect. However, God told him that he had to confess sanctification if he wanted it—sanctification is received by faith. “With the mouth confession is made unto salvation” (Romans 10:8-10). Without the confession of faith, Wesley knew that he would have no victory, assurance, or boldness in his faith.
Faith in the Scriptures is never defined intellectually; it is described. The Bible describes faith as a certainty in your spirit that is born out of a relationship. This faith is not an ascent to some doctrine but a reality on which you will risk your life. Paul said, “I know in whom I have believed,” not what I have believed. It’s a deliberate commitment to a person, Jesus Christ, even when you can’t explain what is happening around you. Out of the relationship, faith gives you confidence in the certainty of God. Because Paul knew in whom he believed he could say, “I…am persuaded that He is able to keep what I have committed to Him until that Day” (2 Timothy 1:12 nkjv).
Paul describes this victory in Colossians 3:3-4, “For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God…who is your life.” You chose to try to live life by your power and ability or let Jesus Christ live the victorious life through you. When you choose the flesh, you will sin, be defeated, and fail repeatedly.
To understand this, let’s go back to the basics of our Christian faith. Salvation is a free gift from God. “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—not by works, so that no one can boast” (Ephesians 2:8-9). Salvation is not only freedom from the penalty of sin but also freedom from the power of sin.
You become a Christian by receiving God’s gift of salvation. But throughout history many Christians have received freedom from the penalty of sin and judgment in hell, but not freedom from the power of sin to live a victorious life over sin. They have been deceived by the devil into thinking that it was their agonizing effort and performance to the Law that would give them the victory.
This power of righteousness that transforms is “found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ—the righteousness that comes from God and is by faith” (Philippians 3:9). That’s the key, faith in Christ. Let Jesus live the Christian life through you. Paul says it again: “Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself up for me” (Galatians 2:20nasb).
Paul asked the Galatians, “Are you so foolish? Having begun by the Spirit, are you now being perfected by the flesh” (Galatians 3:3 nasb)? That’s Satan’s trap. The heart of the sin nature is control. The only answer to sin is the lordship of Jesus Christ. To break the power of sin there must be something more powerful than your love for sin and self. Most Christians want to be free from the sin, but they also want to be in control. Control will make you a slave to sin and self. In Scripture, the sheep must be separate from the goats because the goats want to be in control. Control is the issue with being hot or cold, or being on the narrow road or the broad road, or building on the rock or sand. Your obedience to Jesus will cause you to lose control; it may provoke conflict with your most cherished values and widely held beliefs.
The opposite of God’s agape love is the sinful self (Romans 7:10-20). The impurity of selfishness can only be purged by the fire of the Holy Spirit. The impurities that resist the fire must be fired again and again until all dross is consumed (Luke 3:16; 1 Thessalonians 5:19). The power to overcome sin will never come from your determination to be in control. The victory over sin can only come from total surrender to God. The Law has humbled you and shown you your helplessness.
When you fall back into the same pattern of sin over and over again, the problem is incomplete surrender. It’s like giving over most of the keys to the landlord when he calls for them, but keeping back one to a room you want access to. Who do you think you are trying to kid? You cannot hide anything from God, the Master Landlord.
General William Booth, the founder of the Salvation Army, said, “The greatness of a man’s power is the measure of his surrender.” Oswald Chambers put it this way: “What is needed in spiritual matters is reckless abandonment to the Lord Jesus Christ, reckless and uncalculating abandonment, with no reserve anywhere about it.” But this surrender and obedience can only come out of knowing that you are loved unconditionally. The apostle tells us the reason we love God is that He first loved us (1 John 4:19). When you know you are loved, you can love back. Jesus said, “If you love Me, you will keep My commandments” (John 14:15 nasb).
God desires to restore man’s spirit back into the image of God (Romans 8:29). This takes place when you are completely yielded to the Holy Spirit and respond to His leading (Colossians 1:26-28). Physical obedience brings spiritual release (Romans 1:5). Private victory releases public authority and victory (Matthew 12:24-35). But rules and regulations without the divine union of the heart result in bondage.
Romans 12:1-2 is the key; I like J.B. Phillips translation: “With eyes wide open to the mercies of God, I beg you, my brothers, as an act of intelligent worship, to give him your bodies, as a living sacrifice, consecrated to him and acceptable by him. Don’t let the world around you squeeze you into its own mould, but let God re-mould your minds from within, so that you may prove in practice that the plan of God for you is good, meets all his demands and moves towards the goal of true maturity.”
Only the surrendered heart knows what it means to be in Christ. With the acceptance of God’s love, surrender and obedience is now automatic, and you will win the battle with sin every time. This abiding life produces fruit and lets you participate in what Christ has done, is doing, and will do. Jesus’ life in you makes you fruitful (John 5:26; 15:5). As the life of God pushes out the activity of selfishness, you will have life without limits (John 3:34; 10:10).
This is the New Covenant that God promises with Israel. “I will put my law in their minds and write it on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my people.… For I will forgive their wickedness and will remember their sins no more” (Jeremiah 31:33-34).
Notice that victory is won through your affections. When you become addicted to the sins your flesh loves, a greater love must take over and compel you. Only a love relationship with the desire to do God’s will can change you. “For Christ’s love compels us, because we are convinced that one died for all, and therefore all died [to sin and self]…that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for him who died for them and was raised again” (2 Corinthians 5:14-15). Because you are loved, this consuming love for God becomes a driving passion for holiness. Intimacy of relationship creates the love, surrender, and obedience to the Lord’s commands and freedom from the power of sin.
To the woman at the well Jesus described it this way: “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life” (John 4:13-14). Again, “‘If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, streams of living water will flow from within him.’ By this he meant the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were later to receive” (John 7:37-39).
Thirst speaks of your desires. Jesus satisfies your desires, longings, and affections.
This love overcomes sin by producing a stronger desire to do God’s will. The key to David’s life was that he wanted to do God’s will. God “raised up David to be their king, concerning whom He also testified and said, ‘I have found David the son of Jesse, a man after My heart, who will do all My will.’” (Acts 13:22 nasb). When Joseph ran from the temptation with Potiphar’s wife, he honored the word of the Lord when he said, “How then could I do such a wicked thing and sin against God?” (Genesis 39:9). Joseph’s desire to do the will of God helped him escape with a pure heart, and God honored him.
At the end of this age when Satan the tempter is tossed into hell, we will not experience temptation in the heavenly world. There will be no devil to tempt you. That is why the desire to do God’s will is the key to victory both in heaven and earth. That was Jesus’ desire. “I do not seek My own will, but the will of Him who sent Me” (John 5:30 nasb). “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven” (Matthew 7:21). “Whoever does God’s will is my brother and sister and mother” (Mark 3:35). “If anyone chooses to do God’s will, he will find out whether my teaching comes from God or whether I speak on my own” (John 7:17). “The world and its desires pass away, but the man who does the will of God lives forever” (1 John 2:17).
There are five steps that motivate you into action and establish your destiny. They can be positive to achieve God’s calling on your life, or negative to destroy your life. Satan uses the negative side to tempt you. (I will deal with temptation in the next article.) For now, look at the positive side. The first step is thought. Your thoughts move into imagination, the second step. Imagination feeds desire, the third step. Desire powers action, the fourth step. Repeated actions establish the fifth step, habit. A habit will determine your character and destiny.
To overcome temptation you must stop it at the first two steps. If the temptation reaches desire, the motivation will move you into action where it is difficult to stop the sin. But the reverse is also true. When your thoughts, imagination, and desires are centered on the Lord, your actions and habits establish your character and destiny. Your choice to guard your heart will determine your victory (Proverbs 4:23). The command of Scripture is to “take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ” (2 Corinthians 10:5). The commitment Israel made to Joshua must be yours: “We will serve the Lord our God and obey him” (Joshua 24:24).
I wrote in the beginning of this article that the starting place is faith, but soon you will see a paradox—that faith without works is dead. Abiding in Christ is truly all you need to do to bear fruit, but abiding in Christ takes diligence and is sometimes hard work. Surrendering to Christ is indeed what brings victory—but daily dying to self (Luke 9:23) is a surrendered life and hard work. You must be constantly dependent on God.
Picture how this victory in Christ works. On my Web site I wrote my testimony on how I became a Christian and lead most of my friends to the Lord. I want to close with this truth that I learned as a teenager:
After I gave my testimony to my old “gang” at school and in my neighborhood, I was confronted about my use of bad language. Swearing was such a habit for me I did it without thinking (James 3:9-10). I made a deal with the guys: “If I swear, you can hit me.” They thought it was great fun to get me to come out with a dirty putdown of someone and then hit me when I did. After failing a few times, I reaffirmed my sincerity to quit swearing and told them they should hit me 25 times if I failed again. By the end of the day my arms were so sore I could hardly lift them.
On the third day, I did OK until I was on the bus on my way home from school. I slipped and swore. They hit me again, but the devil hit me harder. I had failed again. I was so discouraged. I knew I could not live the Christian life. Others could, but not me. I prayed and told God that I would have to give up; it was hopeless. I had tried everything. I felt God say, “Have you tried everything?”
“You know, Lord, how sore my arms are. I just cannot overcome.”
Again God said, “Have you tried everything?”
“Yes, Lord,” I said. “You know my heart. I want to be a Christian, but I am too weak. I can’t live the life.”
Then God said, “Then let Me live it in you” (1 Thessalonians 1:5).
From that day to this I have not used any of those words again! I discovered that the Christian life is God living the life through us. God gave me a promise in 1 John 4:4, “You, dear children, are from God and have overcome them, because the one who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world.” It is not our strength or struggles but His power and grace that enable us to live the life He has called us to live (Philippians 4:13).
“Don’t you know that when you offer yourselves to someone to obey him as slaves, you are slaves to the one whom you obey—whether you are slaves to sin, which leads to death, or to obedience, which leads to righteousness? But thanks be to God that, though you used to be slaves to sin, you wholeheartedly obeyed the form of teaching to which you were entrusted. You have been set free from sin and have become slaves to righteousness” (Romans 6:16-18).
“His divine power has given us everything we need for life and godliness…. For this very reason, make every effort” (2 Peter 1:3, 5).
God says that you have everything you need. Picture that you have been given a gigantic warehouse with all the tools, equipment, supplies, materials, and money to build anything. You even have a skilled foreman with his men to help you and counsel you. God has given you the entire inventory that you will need “for life and godliness.” You are a steward of all that God has given. “For this very reason, make every effort” (“giving all diligence” kjv) to discipline yourself. Don’t waste your life but use it wisely; step out by faith and dream big. Paul instructs Timothy, “Command them to do good, to be rich in good deeds, and to be generous and willing to share. In this way they will lay up treasure for themselves as a firm foundation for the coming age, so that they may take hold of the life that is truly life” (1 Timothy 6:18-19).
The victory of righteousness is that Jesus Christ defeated and conquered our enemy on the cross and in His resurrection. He is now seated at the right hand of the Father with all authority and power.
As a Christian you are in Christ; you died with Him, arose with Him, and are seated with Him at the right hand of the Father. You are a part of the body of Christ here and in heaven. Jesus is the head of the church; we are His hands and feet. God asks, “Can your hand say to your foot I don’t need you?” We need one another and we must be obedient to the head, Jesus Christ. Many are defeated because they will not come under the head’s authority and become part of His body the church for the support and encouragement we need.
The principle for overcoming sin in your life and living a victorious life is stated simply in Scripture. There must be a commitment to God and others in the body of Christ—accountability to God and to a small group of believers. God has designed the Christian life so that you cannot live it without Him or others.
The story of the feeding of the 5,000 illustrates your surrender and obedience. When you bring your loaves and fishes, what little you have the Lord multiplies a thousand fold. But first you must bring what you have and offer it freely. By seeking first His kingdom and His righteousness, everything else is added to you (Matthew 6:33). That is why Paul writes: “We are more than conquerors through him who loved us” (Romans 8:37).
This is the victory of righteousness!
*Scott is a composite of several individuals that I have counseled regarding these matters.