Blessed assurance: In Christ, our righteousness is everlasting and cannot be undone by sin

Every Christian preacher will tell you that no matter how many righteous things you do, unless you become born-again, you are still a sinner; you are not yet “children of God.” This truth is absolute and in line with John 1:12 which says of our Saviour Jesus Christ- “But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, to those who believe in His name:”

But somehow, many preach that after we are born-again and we sin, we automatically are no longer children of God; that we who believe Christ fall out of fellowship with Him when we sin unless we catch that sin and confess it in order to be “re-righteous.” This is not the gospel of Christ. This is where many religious people get stumped because they still see righteousness as a work and not a gift and the state of being of all who are in Christ. There is no blessed assurance in this wrong belief of being righteous only until your next sin; only fear that “the devil can attack or Rapture might happen before I realize and confess my sin.” Romans 5:19 says 

“For as by one man’s disobedience many were made sinners, so also by one Man’s obedience many will be made righteous.”

Believer, something is terribly wrong when the message that we are hearing tells us that we cannot undo what Adam did in making the whole world sinners, but we can undo the finished work of Christ in making the sinner righteous. This is to have a higher regard for Adam!

From Romans 5:19, we see that acts of sin is not what makes people sinners. People are made sinners because of the old/sin nature inherited from Adam by all mankind. This old nature is a state of being that cannot be altered by the good or bad things that one does. When activated by human effort at keeping the law, it causes acts of sin to proliferate (bearing fruit to sin) as it is written in Romans 7:5-

“When we were controlled by our old nature, sinful desires were at work within us, and the law aroused these evil desires that produced a harvest of sinful deeds, resulting in death.”

This “law aroused these evil desires” ties in with Romans 6:14- “For sin shall not have dominion over you, for you are not under law but under grace.” Under law, sin has dominion and multiplies. To have the old nature is to believe that one has to keep the law in order to be righteous, which Romans 3:20 says is impossible. It is to reject the finished work of Christ in making the sinner righteous by HIS obedience, not ours. Sin is an increasing factor here. But somehow, many keep preaching the law as the path to righteousness. The letter kills.

Christ died to rid of us this old/sinner nature that was inherited from Adam by all mankind. In Him, we are a new creation. God put our sin on Him so that we might have His righteousness that we do not deserve, as it is written in 2 Corinthians 5:21- “For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.”

With this new righteousness nature, we are dead to the law, not under law but under grace. Christ fulfilled the righteous requirements of the law for us. We are righteous not because we obeyed the law but through believing Jesus. We never stood the chance of attaining righteousness on our own, “For no one can ever be made right with God by doing what the law commands....” Romans 3:20.

Also Romans 3: “27 Can we boast, then, that we have done anything to be accepted by God? No, because our acquittal is not based on obeying the law. It is based on faith. 28 So we are made right with God through faith and not by obeying the law.”

Like the sinner nature, this new creation nature also cannot be altered by the good or bad things that one does because we did nothing to earn it to begin with. But see the result of Christ’s finished work in our lives in Romans 7:4-

“So, my dear brothers and sisters, this is the point: You died to the power of the law when you died with Christ. And now you are united with the one who was raised from the dead. As a result, we can produce a harvest of good deeds for God.”

We GET TO bear fruit to the Spirit and not by human effort. But see the result when we try to keep the law in order to get right with God in Galatians 5:4 - "For if you are trying to make yourselves tight with God by keeping the law, you have been cut off from Christ! You have fallen away from God's grace."

In summary: the old/sin nature is inherited from Adam by being born of the flesh. Everyone is born into the world with this nature. It is a state of being that, when activated by law, produces works of the flesh.Doing good or bad deeds cannot change this nature. Even people who profess Christ can have this old nature because they deny the power of Christ in making the sinner righteous and cling on their own righteousness from works of the law - filthy rags according to Isaiah.

Likewise, our new nature as new creation in Christ is a result of our being born of the Spirit (born-again.) It is a state of being that makes us produce fruits of the Spirit, because “no longer I who live but Christ that lives in me.” Our good or bad deeds here can NEVER change our status as children of God. Rather, because we are under grace, sin does not have dominion over us. See Romans 5:17-

“For the sin of this one man, Adam, caused death to rule over many. But even greater is God’s wonderful grace and his gift of righteousness, for all who receive it will live in triumph over sin and death through this one man, Jesus Christ.”

Not even sin can separate us from the love of Christ. Matthew 1:21 says “And she will have a son, and you are to name him Jesus, for He will save His people from their sins.” To His children that do sin, He is Saviour. He judges us righteous forever because the righteousness that we have in Him is not ours but His.