Freedom from sin and the role of faith by Charles Finney.

Charles Finney on freedom from sin and the role of faith.

(From the 30 day devotional ‘Spiritual Power’).

Throughout my ministry I have found many believers in the miserable state of the bondage described in Romans 7 – To the world, the flesh, or the devil. It is a life of sinning, then resolving to reform, then falling again. What is particularly saddening is that many ministers give perfectly false instruction upon the subject of how to overcome sin. Their advice goes like this: “Name your sins, resolve to abstain from them, and fight against them until you overcome them. Set your will firmly against a relapse in sin, pray and struggle, and persist until form the habit of obedience and break all your sinful habits.” While it is usually added that the believer must not depend upon his own strength, but pray for God’s help, the fact is that they teach sanctification by works, and not by faith. All such advice is worse than useless, and often results in delusion. It has lost sight of both what really constitutes sin and of the only practical way to avoid it. In this way the outward act or habit may be overcome and avoided, while that which really constitutes the sin is left untouched. Sin is not an involuntary feeling or desire; it is a voluntary act or state of mind. Sin is that voluntary, ultimate preference or state of committal to self-pleasing out of which the volitions, the outward actions, purposes, intentions, and all the things that are commonly called sin proceed. We may suppress this or that expression or manifestation of selfishness by resolving not to do this or that, and praying and struggling against it. We may resolve upon an outward obedience, and work ourselves up to the letter of an obedience to God’s commandments. But to eradicate selfishness from the heart by resolution is an absurdity. Should we cloister ourselves away in a cell and crucify all our desires, so far as their indulgence is concerned, we have only avoided certain forms of sin; but the root that really constitutes sin and desires in the outward life, by the force of resolution, only ends in making us whitened sepulchers and delusional, for we cannot love God with all our heart in this manner.

All self efforts to overcome sin are utterly futile and unscriptural. Believers are said to have “Purified their hearts by faith” (Acts 15:9). Acts 16:18 affirms that saints are sanctified by faith in Christ. Romans 9:31-32 affirms that the Jews did not attain righteousness “because they pursued it not by faith but as if it were by works.” The biblical doctrine is that Christ saved His people from sin through faith; that Christ’s Spirit is received by faith to dwell in the heart. It is faith that works by love. Love is wrought and sustained by faith. By faith believers overcome the world, the flesh, and the devil; quench the fiery darts of the enemy; and keep the flesh and carnal desires subdued. By faith we fight the good fight, not by resolution. It is simply by faith that we receive the Spirit of Christ to work in us to will and to do God’s good pleasure. He sheds abroad His own love in our hearts, and thereby enkindles ours. Only the life and energy of the Spirit of Christ within us can save us from sin, and trust is the universal condition of its working within us. How long shall this fact be mistaught? How deeply rooted in the heart of man is self-righteousness and self-dependence? So deeply that one of the hardest lessons for the human heart is to renounce self-dependence and trust wholly in Christ. When we open the door by implicit trust, he enters and takes up His dwelling with us and in us. By shedding abroad His love He quickens our whole souls into sympathy with Himself and purifies our hearts through faith. He sustains our will in the attitude of devotion. He quickens and regulates our affections, desires, appetites and passions, and becomes our sanctification. The bible teaches that by trusting in Christ we receive an inward influence that stimulates and directs our activity; that by faith we receive His purifying influence into the very centre of our being; that through and by His truth revealed directly to the soul He gives life to our whole inward being into the attitude of loving obedience; and this is the way, and the only practical way, to overcome sin.