Fighting Sin and Temptation

A Real War and a Sure Victory

You trusted Christ, and something truly changed. You love things you never loved before. Then an old temptation comes back, or a new one shows up, and you wonder whether anything happened at all. If that is you, take heart. You are not strange, and you are not alone. Every believer who has ever lived has felt this war.

“This I say then, Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfil the lust of the flesh. For the flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh: and these are contrary the one to the other: so that ye cannot do the things that ye would.”GALATIANS 5:16–17 · KJV

The flesh in this passage is more than your body. It is the fallen, self-serving bent of human nature that remains in a believer until he sees Christ. The Holy Spirit now lives in that same believer, and the two are contrary the one to the other. That is why the Christian life often feels like a fight. Before you were saved, you followed sin without much argument. Now something in you pushes back. Being aware of your sin and alarmed by it is evidence that the Spirit is at work.

Is the Man of Romans 7 Saved?

Paul describes this struggle from the inside: For the good that I would I do not: but the evil which I would not, that I do (Romans 7:19). Some godly teachers read this as a man under the law who has not yet come to Christ, because a saved man has power over sin. Others answer that a lost man does not delight in the law of God (Romans 7:22), so this must be a believer. We take the second view. Romans 7 describes the war between the flesh and the spirit in a man who loves God's law and hates his sin. The chapter ends in thanksgiving: I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord (Romans 7:25).

Temptation Is Not Sin

Being tempted is not the same as sinning. Jesus was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin (Hebrews 4:15; see The Humanity of Christ). Temptation becomes sin when we welcome it and act on it, and James traces the steps.

“But every man is tempted, when he is drawn away of his own lust, and enticed. Then when lust hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin: and sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death.”JAMES 1:14–15 · KJV

God may test His children, and He may allow temptation to come, but allowing something is not approving of it. God cannot be tempted with evil, neither tempteth he any man (James 1:13). The pull comes from our own lust. Lust leads to sin, and sin leads to death. The time to stop it is at the start.