Sign or Sin?

Colossians 2.13-14: And you, who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses, by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This he set aside, nailing it to the cross. 

This is the logical problem that kills me every time. On the one hand, for the child of God bought by Christ, "all our trespasses" have been forgiven. Sin has been totally paid for, so no matter what we do, Christ's blood has already covered it. Every sin I've ever committed or will ever commit has been nailed to the cross. We are forgiven—past, present and future.

On the other hand, "everyone who is sexually immoral or impure, or who is covetous (that is, an idolater), has no inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and God" (Eph. 5.5). And "you will recognize them by their fruits" (Matt. 7.20).

So, which is it? Do I have to act a certain way in order to be saved and stay saved?

Something occurred to me this morning as I was driving, and I'll say it in a really shocking way, just to get my point across. (So don't misunderstand me yet, I'll explain what I mean.) For everyone who has been bought by Christ, the question of sin, in a condemning, if-you-do-this-you'll-go-to-hell sense, isn't really an issue anymore. 

I think the key to understanding this is 2 Peter 1.10: be all the more diligent to make your calling and election sure. Peter had just made a list of a bunch of qualities that we should strive to have—faith, virtue, knowledge, self-control, etc. And after making his case for the value of such characteristics, he describes striving after these things as "making your calling and election sure". In other words, if you think you're saved, prove it—by practicing these things.

Grace is ours freely. We do nothing to earn it—we couldn't. It is God's to give, and He gives it freely and as He will. And when He does, when He causes us to be born again, this new life always has an effect. It changes our way of thinking. Not all at once, but changes are there. 

Peter says that there are certain characteristics, certain habits, that go with calling and election. It's just natural, like excitement goes with Disneyland, or like popcorn goes with movies. They just work. 

Nothing we can do will ever add or detract from our salvation: All things are lawful. That's the entire point of the letter of Paul to the Galatians. But there are certain acts that just go, and others that don't. So if you see yourself manifesting things that don't go, and not manifesting any of the ones that do, you may be proving that your salvation is in poor health, or even non-existent—you may be doing the exact opposite of "making your calling and election sure". 

The sins we commit—their frequency, their intensity, their repetition—are no longer sins in the same sense. For the unconverted, sins are condemning. They will serve as punitive evidence against them when they stand before God. For the converted, sins are no longer condemning, but they are revealing—they serve as signs for the child of God. They are signposts that tell us the health of our faith is wavering; evidently we haven't been working out our salvation with fear and trembling. 

When we see these things, we needn't necessarily be afraid for our salvation, but we should definitely take note. They are signs of our spiritual health, and we should read them and react violently—for the same reason the man who feels a pain in his right arm reacts violently: because it's an early warning sign of a heart attack. He doesn't shrug it off and say, "It's no big deal, I can master this heart attack." He runs to the doctor.