We believers in the Lord all have such a feeling, the Lord Jesus has cleansed our sins, but we are still bound by sins, living in the state of sinning during the day and confessing our sin at night, but cannot extricate ourselves from it. For instance, we still disobey and resist God under the dominion of conceit and arrogance, deception and crookedness, selfishness and contempt, greed and evil etc. corruptions; we still can follow the trends of the world, pursue wealth and fame, and enjoy the pleasures of the flesh; we are also able to often tell lies and deceive God and people; we still can misunderstand, complain about and even betray God when we encounter the natural and man-made disasters, persecutions and tribulations; we believe in the Lord for many years, make sacrifices and expend ourselves, but our intention is only to make a deal with the Lord and exchange for God’s blessings and the chance to enter the kingdom of heaven… I was once confused by it a lot: The Lord’s precious blood did cleanse our sins, but why do we still sin often? Later, a passage of God’s word solved my confusion.
God says, “For all that man may have been redeemed and forgiven of his sins, it can only be considered as God not remembering the transgressions of man and not treating man in accordance with his transgressions. However, when man, who lives in a body of flesh, has not been set free from sin, he can only continue to sin, endlessly revealing his corrupt satanic disposition. This is the life that man leads, an endless cycle of sinning and being forgiven.” “When the demons were cast out of man and he was redeemed, this meant only that he was wrested out of Satan’s hands and returned to God. However, without being made clean or changed by God, he remains as corrupt man. Within man still exist filth, opposition, and rebelliousness; man has only returned to God through His redemption, but he has not the slightest knowledge of God and is still capable of resisting and betraying Him. Before man was redeemed, many of Satan’s poisons had already been planted within him and, after thousands of years of being corrupted by Satan, he has within him an established nature that resists God. Therefore, when man has been redeemed, it is nothing more than a case of redemption in which man is bought at a high price, but the poisonous nature within him has not been eliminated. Man that is so defiled must undergo a change before becoming worthy to serve God.”
From God’s words, we can see what the Lord Jesus did was the work of redemption. Hence, through believing in the Lord Jesus, we are only forgiven of our sins and are qualified to pray to God and enjoy God’s grace. However, the redemptive work is not to purify man, so the Lord’s precious blood hasn’t removed our sinful nature at all. We still have many Satan’s corruptions and venom within our heart, like “I am my own Lord throughout heaven and earth,” “Let those who comply with me thrive and those who resist me perish,” “Heaven destroys those who don’t look out for themselves” and so on. Living based on these Satan’s venom, we gradually have our sinful nature formed within. With it, our ideas, views and perspectives of looking at things become more and more evil, and we also become more and more lawless, wantonly reckless, evil and greedy, conscienceless, supercilious and disobedient… Just because of these corruptions, we all can’t stop ourselves from sinning, resisting God, and rebelling against God.
The Bible prophesies, “I have yet many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. However, when He, the Spirit of truth, is come, He will guide you into all truth: for He shall not speak of Himself; but whatever He shall hear, that shall He speak: and He will show you things to come” (John 16:12-13). “He that rejects Me, and receives not My words, has one that judges him: the word that I have spoken, the same shall judge him in the last day” (John 12:48). “For the time is come that judgment must begin at the house of God” (1 Peter 4:17). “Who are kept by the power of God through faith to salvation ready to be revealed in the last time” (1 Peter 1:5). From these prophecies, we know that the Lord will come back in the last days to express the truth and do the judgment work to solve our sinful nature and corruptions. Then we can get rid of sin and evil completely and be cleansed. Thus, if we want to remove our sinful nature and get cleansed, we still need to experience a further step of God’s salvation work, which is just the “salvation ready to be revealed in the last time” in the Bible. Only by accepting God’s judgment work of the last days, can our sinful nature be cleansed completely. Then, we are able to become the people obeying and worshipping God and be taken into the good destination by God.
