Are you a sinner or saint?

The religion of Protestantism and Catholicism have hammered the “fact we are just sinners” saved by our works into our innermost being.   Either by adherence to the long list of rules and penances or by virtue of the specific words of a prayer said down at the altar.  Both require much additional grieving and tears to validate the experience.  Well yes, evangelical teaching calls it “by grace”, but you must say that special  prayer to activate the salvation so it still really depends on your actions to make it stick.

But Jesus.  The two most powerful words in the English language.

He came for us in our delusional state of sin and erased all the charges religion levied against us.   From the beginning, He had separated us from sin as far as the east was from the west.  Our salvation and sanctification were settled back before we were born.  Our problem was not sin but our blindness to the fact that we were already free from its death grip.  We had always been redeemed from the curse of the law made the very righteousness of God in Christ.

I know it’s hard to grasp ahold of the fact that we really are saints and not “just sinners saved by grace”.    As a sinner saved by grace we are still a sinner who has to continue working to believe and achieve holiness. Whereas living from the revelation of who we truly are as saints makes victorious life not just a possibility but an actual experience to be lived out.

So, if condemnation comes against you and brings doubt about your identity?  Remember that you are truly a saint redeemed by the finished work of the cross.  You are empowered by the Holy Ghost to walk free from the bondage of sin and the old life.  There is therefore now no condemnation for us who are in Christ Jesus!