When a Christian sins, transgresses the law, he is building up that
which he has destroyed.
He is acting as though he were back under the law.
He is doing the deeds of the old man that has been crucified with
Christ.
He is denying the resurrection life of Christ which is in him.
He is walking after the flesh and not after the Spirit.
He is back on the basis of working instead of resting in the finished
work of Christ.
He is under the works of the law instead of the hearing of faith.
He is not standing fast in the freedom wherewith Christ has set him
free.
There is but one thing to be done in order to get back at once under
grace and the faith life,――confess the sin and take cleansing in the
blood of Jesus. This is wholly of Grace; no Christian would be so
foolish as to try to atone for his sin or to help the Lord Jesus do
a complete work of cleansing.
It is exactly the same sort of folly that leads the Christian to seek
to add his own effort in the business of winning victory over the next
temptation that assails him. “_If we live by the Spirit_ [if we have
been born again by the Spirit], _by the Spirit let us also walk_” (by
the same supernatural power let us live day by day and hour by hour,
letting God do it all by the Spirit) (Gal. 5:25).
God’s new spelling for “obey” is “believe.” And, as Mr. Trumbull put it
to a Christian who was grieving because she did not have the faith to
believe, “The faith for salvation is the faith for victory.” Faith is
just believing the word of God.