How can one live without sin?
Your question reminds me, by contrast, with that of the Apostle Paul: "How shall we, that are dead to sin, live any longer therein?" (Romans 6:2)
In that question we have the answer to your question. It is possible to live free from sin, only by being dead "for he that is dead is freed from sin." (Romans 6:7)
Read the article in last week's Present Truth, entitled, "A Story of True Love," (See the first Article included in the Appendix: "A Story of True Love.") and there you will learn something about death to sin. But let us read further about living without sin: "Whosoever is born of God does not commit sin; for his seed remains in him; and he cannot sin, because he is born of God." (1 John 3:9)
Here we see that the remaining of the seed in the one born of God is that which makes it impossible for him to sin. What is that seed? We have the answer: "Being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the Word of God, which lives and abides for ever." (1 Peter 1:23)
The good seed is the Word of God, and it is incorruptible and everlasting. Whoever is born of that Word must be of the same nature as the Word, namely, incorruptible and eternal. So we read that by the promises of God we are made partakers of the Divine nature, and that: "He that does the will of God abides forever." (1 John 2:17)
The new birth is not a thing of a single moment. It is not, like the birth from the flesh, an event to be looked back on and commemorated at regularly recurring intervals; but it is a continuous thing. It is something always present. The seed by which we are generated abides in us, if we are indeed born of God, and the mystery of the incarnation is continually being enacted.
The life of Jesus, the inward man, is made manifest in our mortal flesh, and is renewed day by day. "For we which live are always delivered unto death for Jesus' sake, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our mortal flesh. ... For which cause we faint not; but though our outward man perish, yet the inward man is renewed day by day." (2 Corinthians 4:11,16)
If we grasp the fact that God does not beget us, and then give us an independent existence, as do earthly parents, but that He is our dwelling place, and that, like Christ, we are to abide "in the bosom of the Father," (John 1:18) we shall see the possibility of living without sin. No one who believes at all in the birth from above could for a moment harbor the thought that one could sin in the moment of birth. But when we see that the new birth is a continuous process, we can see how impossible it is for such a one to sin at all. "Above all, taking the shield of faith, wherewith we shall be ableto quench all the fiery darts of the wicked." (Ephesians 6:16)
Here we have the same thing: "Faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God." (Romans 10:17)
The Word of God hidden in the heart and forming the life, is a shield which guards one against, not a few, but all of the assaults of the adversary. The whole armor of God makes one able to stand against the wiles of the devil. "We know that whosoever is born of God sins not; but he that is born of God keeps himself, and that wicked one touches him not." (John 5:18)
The shield of faith keeps the child of God, so that the devil cannot touch him. Thus it was that Jesus overcame in the wilderness of temptation. Every temptation was met and destroyed by the Word of God. So of the people of God in their contest with the same enemy we read: "And they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony." (Revelation 3:11)
The whole matter is summed up in this: "I am crucified with Christ; nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me." (Galatians 2:20)
But boasting is entirely excluded by this process. "Behold, his soul which is lifted up is not upright in him; but the just shall live by his faith." (Habakkuk 2:4)
The man who lives a sinless life in Christ can no more boast of his sinlessness than he can sin; for boasting is sin. "If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us." (John 1:8)
This naturally leads to the next verse: "If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness." (John 1:9)
Confessing our sins, we are freed from sin; and continual confession means continual freedom. It is not continual sinning and continual cleansing, but continual confession and continual cleansing. A knowledge of our sinful nature, of the sin that continually lurks in our mortal flesh, waiting to spring upon us, and devour us, leads to constant trust in God, whose righteousness is our salvation.
Then if one asks you: "Is it possible for a man to live without sin?"
You may answer: "It is quite impossible for a man, but an easy matter for God in man."
If one says: "Do you live without sin?"
The reply should be: "Not I, but Christ."
And Christ is my life. There is continual, glorious victory over sin and Satan, for every one who lives by faith in God. No matter in what form the temptation comes. "In all these things we are more than conquerors though Him that loved us." (Romans 8:37) "Thanks be to God, which gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ." (1 Corinthians 15:57)--Present Truth, September 27, 1900.