Sin and the new man

The life of the believer is unique in many ways.  One is the manner in which he must consider his sin.

The follower of Christ is a new man — a new creature possessing a new life in Christ.  And yet he still battles the flesh and sin on a daily basis — his only release being his transfer ticket into the presence of God’s glory in heaven.

How then shall he reflect on his sin and new life?  Shall he despair and grieve over his sin, or shall he ignore his sin, claiming the washing and cleansing of Christ’s blood for his every misdeed and failure?  Many believers waver between these two extremes, most often failing to come to a Biblical balance.

To this quandary Robert Murray M’Cheyne speaks.  Writing in his diary, he notes his response to sin on two separate occasions:

[I was] Much broken under a sense of my exceeding wickedness, which no eye can see but Thine.  Much persuasion of the sufficiency of Christ, and of the constancy of His love.  Oh, how sweet to work all day for God, and then to lie down at night under His smiles!

Much sin, weakness, and uselessness; much delight in the word also, while opening it up at family prayer.  May God make the word fire.

Here is a man who understands his position before God as a believer — his sin should produce appropriate grief and sorrow, yet it is further sin to stay in that grief as a believer.  The blood of Christ is applied to that sin and God looks on that believer with the same pleasure He has in His Son — because His Son’s righteousness has been imputed to the believer!

So how should a believer view his sin?  With appropriate and honest self-examination and sorrow.  And then He should delight in the fellowship of the Savior and Father and Spirit who have saved him and are sanctifying him.  In short — be sorrowful for sin and delighted in God.