Commissioned: Jesus Saves: From Brokenness to FreedomSample

Understanding Sin

Saint Paul’s letter to the Romans contains his clearest teaching about our slavery to sin and how we can be set free. Here are some of the things he teaches us:

We are all sinners. We were created to live in loving relationship with God and with others, and none of us do that consistently. Some sins are worse than others, but comparing sins is useless before God. His standard is holiness, and none of us measure up to it.

Knowing what is right does not set us free from sin. Some of us might know God’s law better than others, but this by itself does not help us become better people. This is why some people hate religion so much—they see religious people who can quote the Bible or the catechism, but who are still sinners. But the law was never designed to set us free from our sin, but only to make us aware of our sin.

There is a battle between right and wrong going on inside every one of us. We can know what is right, and still not do it. We can even want to do what is right and not do it! Sometimes we do the very thing we hate. This is because there are two things going on in us at once. In our deepest selves we want to do what pleases God, but there is something within us that keeps us doing it, that draws us into disobedience. This constant battle caused even Saint Paul to cry out, “Miserable one that I am! Who will deliver me from this mortal body?” Our problem is not that we don’t know right from wrong, and it is not that we don’t want to do what’s right. Our problem is that we are fighting against a power within us that we cannot overcome. We are slaves to sin. We need to be set free!

Only Jesus Christ can set us free from sin. We need a power greater than our own to overcome sin. When we are “in Christ” his power sets us free from sin. The law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus sets us free from the law of sin and death. Thanks be to God! We’ll focus on this in our next two studies.

Stop, think and pray:

Let’s think about the places in our lives where we have fought against sin…and lost. Let’s acknowledge to God that we are not able to win these battles. Let’s reaffirm by faith that our baptism placed us “in Christ,” and let’s ask for the Holy Spirit to break the power of sin in those tough areas of our lives.