You are correct. That is the way I was taught it too. When the Holy Spirit comes in .. all sin goes out. Sin cannot stand in the presence of the Holy Spirit.
People can still do stupid stuff, but the “sin nature” is gone.
Thank you...yes indeed and anything other than that is an attempt at watering down the very awesome power of what Jesus and God did for us. I will not stand for it on this thread about a very noble and blessed ma.n
CyberAnt, do you think that the Apostle Paul believed that the "sin nature is gone"? Because when I read his epistle to the Christians in Rome, it sure sounds like he understood that the sin nature was still there along with the new spirit nature and that there is a spiritual battle that "wars" within us between the old and new natures. We HAVE been freed from the slavery to sin that our old nature obeyed and we have the Holy Spirit within us to give us the power to resist temptation and desire to live for God in holiness. But it is a mistake to presume that we will NEVER have to deal with sin in our lives after we are born again by faith in Christ. I John 1:8-10 talks about the truth that if we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, but if we acknowledge the sin we do and confess it to God, He will forgive us and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. Insisting that one NEVER sins again this side of heaven is a figment of their imagination. Even Paul, after 25 years of being a Christian says:
We know that the law is spiritual; but I am unspiritual, sold as a slave to sin. I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do. And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good. As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me. For I know that good itself does not dwell in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. For I do not do the good I want to do, but the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing. Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it. So I find this law at work: Although I want to do good, evil is right there with me. For in my inner being I delight in God’s law; but I see another law at work in me, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within me. What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body that is subject to death? Thanks be to God, who delivers me through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I myself in my mind am a slave to God’s law, but in my sinful nature a slave to the law of sin. (Romans 7:14-25)
Paul also spoke of the battle ALL Christians face while we are still in our flesh bodies and how we can live in victory in Galatians 5:16-18
This I say then, Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfil the lust of the flesh. For the flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh: and these are contrary the one to the other: so that ye cannot do the things that ye would. But if ye be led of the Spirit, ye are not under the law.
We are given the indwelling Holy Spirit to be led by Him so that we have the strength and desire to not give in to the flesh and sin, this is a life-long process of "sanctification" where we learn to walk in holiness as we are being conformed into the image of Christ. Like you said, "People do stupid stuff.", yes we sin, and it's part of the flesh and the old nature that hangs around and which we will not be rid of completely until we are home with the Lord in heaven. There's a verse that speaks about how we are called to be a "living sacrifice holy and pleasing to God" and a joke on that that says, "The only problem with a living sacrifice is it keeps trying to crawl off the altar." We should be aware that the temptation to sin, the trials and tribulations of life and the wiles of the devil will all work to take our eyes off of Christ, but we must strive to run our race with patience, keeping our eyes on the goalline and the prize. One day we will cease from our labors and will never strive with the sin nature again, when it is finally destroyed, and this mortality will put on immortality, this corruption will put in incorruption and we WILL be changed.
The problem I see with Roy Masters' insisting that REAL Christians never sin again is that we ALL know we still do. Now, hopefully we aren't killing people, robbing banks, prostituting ourselves or worshiping idols, but, though we think of these as the bad sins, in reality there are many other ways that we sin. Jesus spoke to the Pharisees, a snooty religious group that thought they were perfect and everyone else was garbage. He gave them some insight about how God looks at sin. Though a Pharisee could say he never committed adultery, Jesus said if he looked at a woman and lusted after her, he HAD committed adultery. Though he claimed he never murdered anyone, Jesus said if he called his brother a "fool" he HAD committed murder. WHOA! No wonder they didn't like Jesus! He was letting them in on a very important point - it isn't the "letter" of the law that God judged holiness by but the "spirit" of the law. The law, Paul said, was given as a "schoolmaster" to bring us to the knowledge of the fact that we ARE sinners and of our need for a Savior - Jesus Christ.
That same measurement is STILL in place, CyberAnt. Though we might say we don't sin because we don't commit the bad stuff, God lets us know that we STILL have sin in our lives. The difference with believers in Christ is that ALL our sins have been paid for by the blood of Christ - HE paid the penalty for our sins and that is the ONLY way that we could ever be saved. It is by God's grace through faith that we are saved and not of ourselves, not of our works, so that no one can boast. The sin nature is "dead" in the sense that it is no longer our slave master, but as long as we are in these flesh bodies, it will still rear its ugly head from time to time and we must always strive to be victorious over it through the Spirit, who strengthens us. Paul said who would free him from "this body of death?", it is Christ, and through Him we can serve God and bring glory to Him.