Sinner or Saint?
How My Understanding of These Labels Has Changed Since Leaving the Charismatic Movement
Something strange I picked up when I was very Charismatic, was the idea that Satan can implant thoughts in your mind to make you think wicked things. I remember hearing the phrase: “Not all your thoughts are your own.”
At the time, I found this idea really insightful. When temptation came, it was time to rebuke the devil, because that sinful impulse was implanted by him. Because, of course, a saint doesn’t think about sin anymore!
Where Is This Sin Coming From?
The weird thing is that the Bible has way more references to the deceptive, sinful nature of the human heart & it’s effects on our thinking than it does to the devil’s influence on our thinking.
While in Charismatic churches, I can’t recall a single teaching about the nature of my heart & it’s sinful inclinations coming from the pulpit. It was always a message about the devil trying to implant wickedness in my heart.
I was told to guard my heart and mind against evil, but I wasn’t taught that evil had origins in the human heart.
“But the things that come out of a person’s mouth come from the heart, and these defile them. For out of the heart come evil thoughts — murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false testimony, slander.”
Matthew 15:18–19
In Matthew 15, Jesus points to the heart as a production facility of sinful thoughts.
See also, the book of Jeremiah:
“The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it? “I the Lord search the heart and examine the mind, to reward each person according to their conduct, according to what their deeds deserve.””
Jeremiah 17:9–10
Though I believed the gospel message that Jesus died for sinners, I also believed that my sinful thoughts were somehow perpetrated upon me by the devil.
I actually remember it being sort of frowned upon to refer to believers as sinners in the Charismatic/Pentecostal circles I was in. The phrase “sinner saved by grace” was looked down upon as being the mantra of a powerless, weak Christian who didn’t “know their identity in Christ.”
As a hyper-Charismatic, your identity in Christ isn’t a sinner saved by grace- No! You’re to see yourself as a Saint, royalty, even. A new creation, who no longer had a nature that enjoyed sin whatsoever.
You could choose sin, but it was tantamount to resurrecting your old nature from a grave yard and putting him on parade. It was vile, unnatural, unbecoming.
The Biblical text shows believers being called saints. I’m not denying that title. However, these same saints are called out in various portions of scripture by the Apostles & the Lord Jesus as being entangled in unbelief, sinful behaviors, ungodly attitudes, and quasi-pagan practices.
They are confronted as people whose hearts are still prone to wander & produce wickedness even after receiving Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
“Don’t smoke, don’t chew, and don’t hang out with those who do.”
I can look back to my early years under Pentecostal teaching and see where I struggled with massive disappointment, fear, and anxiousness when I would sin. It absolutely crushed me.
I imagined some prophetic person would come up to me in the middle of church and lay my secret sins on display. As a young believer, early in my sanctification process, I felt shame and fear while in church because I was hyper-aware of every sinful thought that my mind produced.
The messaging I received was not of grace and help in a time of need. I didn’t hear about the process of sanctification.
Instead, I received the very on-brand message that I needed a fresh filling of the Holy Spirit in order to keep sin at bay. Maybe I wasn’t baptized in the Spirit yet? Did I speak in tongues yet? Did I prophesy yet? Did I fall over laughing yet?
After all, if you entertained temptation, you probably didn’t have the Spirit and you were just putting that dead old man on parade. Better to hide that corpse and hope nobody smelled it when you said hello on Sunday morning.
Imparted vs Imputed Righteousness
I had been taught that the righteousness of Christ was imparted to me, and I could eventually be perfect in thoughts and in deeds.
Imparted righteousness is the idea that you are given the righteous nature of Christ. You share the righteousness of God as if you were one being with Him. The sanctification process involves you living with less and less sin as you attain a fully formed revelation of your identity as a saint and your appetite for sin dissolves completely.
Now, I understand righteousness is imputed to me, and I am only seen as righteous because of Jesus, the only perfect One.
Imputed righteousness is the idea that righteousness is credited to the believer, though it is not their true nature. It is the nature of Christ, put on like a cloak, that hides the sinner from the judgment of a truly righteous God. The sanctification process looks like living with more and more faithfulness to Christ, dying to self in order to lessen the severity of sin’s hold.
“For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.”
2 Corinthians 5:21
This idea that I could attain perfection meant that I had to do better, work harder, be more disciplined in study, be more engaged in worship, know my identity with even more certainty, have more faith, break more curses, loose more blessings…
A big fat list of works, that’s what I needed!
Now, I embrace the fact that there are two laws at work within me. This inward battle between the law of God and the law of sin is described in the book of Romans.
I embrace my need to lean on Jesus and come to Him for mercy. Only He can forgive my failures, only He can wash my sin away. Only His strength is sufficient for me.
(A link to Romans 7 is pinned below. I would quote it, but there’s too much good, meaty teaching to try to carve a pithy saying out of it.)
Sinner or Saint?
Before, my sinful thoughts, words, and actions were evidence to me of my powerlessness in spiritual warfare against the devil & my failure to live up to my title of Saint.
Now, my struggle with sin is a humbling reminder that I don’t deserve the gift of salvation. It is a product of a heart that is still prone to wander. A moment of temptation is a moment that bids me to submit to the Lord.
Sin doesn’t crush me like it used to when I was under Charismatic & Pentecostal theology. There is a godly sorrow that accompanies sin, but it leads me to Jesus- not a list of works and mystical experiences to make myself better.
We all struggle with this reality- We are torn between what we were before Christ & what we will be when we see Him face to face.
A sinner, saved by grace. A saint, not by my own merit, but clothed in the righteousness of Christ.
Thanks be to God through Christ Jesus our Lord!
(Seriously, see Romans 7)
