24.D.5. What Happens When a Christian Sins?

a. Our Legal Standing Before God Is Unchanged: Though this subject could be treated later in relation to adoption or sanctification within the Christian life, it is quite appropriate to treat it at this point.

When a Christian sins, his or her legal standing before God is unchanged. He or she is still forgiven, for “there is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus” (Rom. 8:1). Salvation is not based on our merits but is a free gift of God (Rom. 6:23), and Christ’s death certainly paid for all our sins—past, present, and future—Christ died “for our sins” (1 Cor. 15:3), without distinction. In theological terms, we still keep our “justification.”

Moreover, we are still children of God and we still retain our membership in God’s family. In the same epistle in which John says, “If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth in not in us” (1 John 1:8), he also reminds his readers, “Beloved, we are God’s children now” (1 John 3:2). The fact that we have sin remaining in our lives does not mean that we lose our status as God’s children. In theological terms, we keep our “adoption.”

b. Our Fellowship With God Is Disrupted and Our Christian Life Is Damaged: When we sin, even though God does not cease to love us, he is displeased with us. (Even among human beings, it is possible to love someone and be displeased with that person at the same time, as any parent will attest, or any wife, or any husband.) 

Paul tells us that it is possible for Christians to “grieve the Holy Spirit of God” (Eph. 4:30); when we sin, we cause him sorrow and he is displeased with us. The author of Hebrews reminds us that “the Lord disciplines him whom he loves” (Heb. 12:6, quoting Prov. 3:11–12), and that “the Father of spirits … disciplines us for our good, that we may share his holiness” (Heb. 12:9–10). When we disobey, God the Father is grieved, much as an earthly father is grieved with his children’s disobedience, and he disciplines us. A similar theme is found in Revelation 3, where the risen Christ speaks from heaven to the church of Laodicea, saying, “Those whom I love I reprove and chasten; so be zealous and repent” (Rev. 3:19). Here again love and reproof of sin are connected in the same statement. Thus, the New Testament attests to the displeasure of all three members of the Trinity when Christians sin. (See also Isa. 59:1–2; 1 John 3:21.)

Hebrews 12, together with many historical examples in Scripture, shows that God’s fatherly displeasure often leads to discipline in our Christian lives: “He disciplines us for our good, that we may share his holiness” (Heb. 12:10). Regarding the need for regular confession and repentance of sin, Jesus reminds us that we are to pray each day, “Forgive us our sins, as we also have forgiven those who sin against us” (Matt. 6:12, author’s translation; cf. 1 John 1:9).

When we sin as Christians, it is not only our personal relationship with God that is disrupted. Our Christian life and fruitfulness in ministry are also damaged. Jesus warns us, “As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me” (John 15:4). When we stray from fellowship with Christ because of sin in our lives, we diminish the degree to which we are abiding in Christ.

The New Testament writers frequently speak of the destructive consequences of sin in the lives of believers. In fact, many sections of the epistles are taken up with rebuking and discouraging Christians from sin that they are committing. Paul says that if Christians yield themselves to sin, they increasingly become “slaves” of sin (Rom. 6:16), whereas God wants Christians to progress upward on a path of ever-increasing righteousness in life. If our goal is to grow in increasing fullness of life until the day we die and pass into the presence of God in heaven, to sin is to do an about-face and begin to walk downhill away from the goal of likeness to God; it is to go in a direction that “leads to death” (Rom. 6:16) and eternal separation from God, the direction from which we were rescued when we became Christians.

Peter says that sinful desires that remain in our hearts “wage war against your soul” (1 Peter 2:11)—the military language correctly translates Peter’s expression and conveys the imagery that sinful desires within us are like soldiers in a battle and their target is our spiritual well-being. To give in to such sinful desires, to nurture and cherish them in our hearts, is to give food, shelter, and welcome to the enemy’s troops. If we yield to the desires that “wage war” against our souls, we will inevitably feel some loss of spiritual strength, some diminution of spiritual power, some loss of effectiveness in the work of God’s kingdom.

Moreover, when we sin as Christians we suffer a loss of heavenly reward. A person who has built on the work of the church not with gold, silver, and precious stones, but with “wood, hay, stubble” (1 Cor. 3:12) will have his work “burned up” on the day of judgment and “he will suffer loss, though he himself will be saved, but only as through fire” (1 Cor. 3:15). Paul realizes that “we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may receive good or evil, according to what he has done in the body” (2 Cor. 5:10). Paul implies that there are degrees of reward in heaven, and that sin has negative consequences in terms of loss of heavenly reward.

c. The Danger of “Unconverted Evangelicals”: While a genuine Christian who sins does not lose his or her justification or adoption before God (see above), there needs to be a clear warning that mere association with an evangelical church and outward conformity to accepted “Christian” patterns of behavior does not guarantee salvation. Particularly in societies and cultures where it is easy (or even expected) for people to profess to be Christians, there is a real possibility that some will associate with the church who are not genuinely born again. If such people then become more and more disobedient to Christ in their pattern of life, they should not be lulled into complacency by assurances that they still have justification or adoption in God’s family. A consistent pattern of disobedience to Christ coupled with a lack of the elements of the fruit of the Holy Spirit such as love, joy, peace, and so forth (see Gal. 5:22–23) is a warning signal that the person is probably not a true Christian inwardly, that there probably has been no genuine heart-faith from the beginning and no regenerating work of the Holy Spirit. Jesus warns that he will say to some who have prophesied, cast out demons, and done many mighty works in his name, “I never knew you; depart from me, you evildoers” (Matt. 7:23). And John tells us that “he who says “I know him’ but disobeys his commandments is a liar, and the truth is not in him” (1 John 2:4; here John speaks of a persistent pattern of life). A long-term pattern of increasing disobedience to Christ should be taken as evidence to doubt that the person in question is really a Christian at all.

 Grudem, W. A. (2004). Systematic theology: an introduction to biblical doctrine (pp. 504–506). Leicester, England; Grand Rapids, MI: Inter-Varsity Press; Zondervan Pub. House.