The Good News About Sin: A Fresh Look At An Old Problem

By Brenton Williams

In this book the author takes a fresh and innovative look at the old subject of sin. The first section looks at basic attitudes and what was lost when men fell into sin – fellowship, likeness, and partnership. It goes on to show that these are the things God wants to restore to us.

The second section looks at the process God uses to bring us into those things. The reconciliation process starts at our conversion, but is meant to continue throughout our earthly life.

The third section sets out to redefine sin. Sin is no longer connected to the Law which has been destroyed. The author explores a new way to reveal the righteousness given to us by God and looks at how we change to become like Him.

The fourth section studies the importance of embracing truth and how that sets us free from old ways and the final section looks at the importance of becoming mature believers.

This book is not a theological treatise. It is more like a hands-on manual for dealing with the remnants of sin left in our lives after conversion. Some of the contents will be controversial, but the author trusts that anyone reading the book will weigh and test the truths it contains and judge the truth of its contents for themselves.
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• Language: English
• Publisher: Brenton Williams
• Release date: Nov 19, 2012
• ISBN: 9780473208660

Brenton Williams

Brenton Williams was born in 1947 to non-christian parents and, apart from attending a local Sunday School, had no Christian faith or beliefs.He met his wife, Coral, in 1970 who was a member of The Salvation Army and converted that year. He joined The Salvation Army as a member and in 1975 felt a call from God to full-time ministry. He and his wife trained and became Salvation Army Officers for 11 years moving around New Zealand to various posts.His search for truth led him to question some of the tenets of the Army and in 1984 he left The Salvation Army to start a small charismatic group where he still ministers today.The truths in his books are based on first-hand experience and a desire to discover a real and true faith. Central to that is a close and intimate personal relationship with Jesus Christ. His heart desire is to help other believers come to know Jesus as a friend and lover and thereby prepare them for an eternity of wedded bliss with their chosen bridegroom.

Book preview

Synopsis

Author’s Preface

Introduction

Part One – God’s ambition

Chapter 1 – Basic attitudes

Chapter 2 – What was lost

Chapter 3 – Fellowship

Chapter 4 – Likeness

Chapter 5 – Partnership

Chapter 6 – Reconciliation

Part Two – The reconciliation process

Chapter 7 – The word

Chapter 8 – Repentance

Chapter 9 – Faith

Chapter 10 – Identification [death]

Chapter 11 – Identification [resurrection]

Chapter 12 – Gaining the inheritance

Chapter 13 – The reverse process

Part Three – Redefining Sin

Chapter 14 – The old system

Chapter 15 – Old ways don’t work

Chapter 16 – Abolishing the law

Chapter 17 – The new system

Chapter 18 – Redefining sin

Chapter 19 – Sin is now personal

Chapter 20 – Changing systems

Chapter 21 – Becoming like Jesus

Part Four – Embracing Truth

Chapter 22 – Finding freedom

Chapter 23 – Embracing truth

Chapter 24 – Holding fast the word of truth

Chapter 25 – Speaking the truth in love

Chapter 26 – Deception

Chapter 27 – True or false?

Part Five – Towards the Future

Chapter 28 – One with my Lord

Chapter 29 – Stable and steady

Other books by Brenton Williams

Author’s Preface

Why do we need a book about sin? Surely enough has been written, preached, and said about it since Adam and Eve started the problem. By now, we should know what sin is and what can or can’t be done about it. Anyway, isn’t sinning a negative thing? Shouldn’t we focus on things that are true, pure, and lovely? Wouldn’t a book about sin only point out what we already know? There can’t be any new ground to cover, can there?

There are some excellent reasons for writing a book about sin. First, sin is the source of all our problems with God. Eliminate it and we’ll have perfect fellowship with him forever. That’s a good reason for finding out all we can about it and acting on what we find out. Secondly, it’s perhaps the single-most misunderstood subject in the world. Ask anyone and they’ll soon tell you what sin is, but the answers you receive will vary greatly. What is sin to one faith isn’t to another. Some declare that drinking is sinful. Others believe the opposite. The Christian view differs from the Muslim interpretation and so on. Where does the truth lie?

It’s time to take a fresh look at an old subject. Instead of merely repeating centuries of preaching, we will try to develop a new perspective on sin. We will even be so bold as to try to redefine sin by looking at it from a different angle. By the end of this book, you might even have to throw out all you thought you knew about sin and start again.

Before we start, you must understand that this book won't do several things for you. It won’t give you a list of things that are sinful — you’ll have to find out for yourself what is sinful and what isn’t. It definitely won’t help you to look at others and judge their sinfulness. In fact, if you follow what it teaches you might become the most tolerant and forgiving person you know. Neither will its contents magically cure your sin problems — they might get worse rather than improve, initially. All your progress to date could disappear and you might end with a bigger problem than when you started. That’s an encouraging thought!

So, why bother reading the book at all? Because, if you practice what it says, it will fulfil some of your fondest dreams. You will see sin as God sees it, not as preachers have spelled it out to you. It will release you from the interminable lists of thou-shalts and thou-shalt-nots governing your life. It will give you the means of destroying your sinfulness, and that will bring you into intimate fellowship with God. You will realise Jesus’ dream for you — . . . I have come that [you] may have life, and have it to the full. [John 10:10]

If those things interest you, and you’re tired of battling the same old things and getting nowhere, prepare for progress. If changing the way you think about and deal with sin isn’t for you read no further. Be warned. This book is dangerous. It will shatter your illusions and pet theories and expose you to God’s gaze as never before. Do you want that? If so, continue. If not, close the book now and put it out of sight. Read no further. If you do happen to read further, make sure you do nothing about what you discover. That’s the safest way to handle this book.

You might not agree with everything that is written here. That’s all right. Disagreement is part of the learning process. I have often found that disagreement spurs me on to find out the truth. Sometimes I find that I am wrong and what I disagree with is right. Then I must change what I think. At other times, I find that I am right to disagree, but by finding out the truth I at least know why I disagree. How can you find out if you are right or wrong? Simple. Sincerely ask Jesus to tell you the truth. Don’t balk at his answer if it’s not what you want. After all, he knows best because he is the truth.

I believe in what is written here. I guarantee that these principles will work if applied. However, enough of the preamble. Let’s get started.

Introduction

What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? [Romans 7:24 — NIV]

How often have you identified with this heart cry of the Apostle Paul? You have repented of your sin, placed your faith in Christ’s atoning death, and been born again. Now you look forward to living sinlessly. You start your new life with great enthusiasm and joy. That joy soon dims when you realise you have fallen into sin again. You repent, gird up your loins, and determine not to fall into the sin trap next time. Just when you’re congratulating yourself on doing well, you fall again. Never again, you say and clamp your teeth even harder than last time. However, that only works for a while. Soon you’re back repenting for the same sin. What a sinful person I am! I want to live free from sin but I can’t. Isn’t there any way out of this sinfulness?

Every believer for the past 2000 years has felt the same way you do. All have struggled repeatedly with their sinfulness. Some have overcome it and gone on to become examples of Christian virtue and grace. Far more either give up and go back to sinfulness or they compromise with their sin. They give up trying to overcome it and live as cleanly as they can, hoping that will be good enough.

Can you live free from sin? Yes. Jesus is the proof. He was the first to do it and left us an example to follow. Paul once said: . . . I no longer live, but Christ lives in me . . .. [Galatians 2:20 — NIV] If Christ lives in us also, we have the potential to live as free from sin as he did. If he could live his life through us, we would live sinlessly. He could not live any other life through us.

If Jesus lives in us and we have the potential to live sin-free, then why don’t we? We don’t because we don’t understand sin and how it works. What we don’t understand we fear, and sometimes we hide those things away because we’re afraid to look at them. We’re not nearly so afraid of what we understand.

Computers once mystified me and I wouldn’t have anything to do with them. One day my old typewriter died and a friend persuaded me to get a small home computer to replace it. At first, I used the computer ineptly, but I got better and more proficient as I understood how it worked. After a year, my first computer wasn’t adequate and I needed a bigger one. Now that I understand how computers work, I find mine my most valuable tool after my Bible. Understanding changed my attitude.

My own struggle with sin has gone on for almost 45 years. For much of that time my pattern was the same as that outlined earlier — joy-sin-despondency-repentance-determination-sin-repentance-more determination, and so on. I, too, have cried out countless times to be delivered from my sinfulness. I often wished God would wave a wand and take it all away, but I also realised that he doesn’t do that. Gradually I came to understand some truths about sin and these helped me make progress in overcoming it. Like Paul, I don’t claim to have reached perfection, but what I have learned might help you.

That’s the purpose of this book. I have written it to help you understand sin, and I hope that understanding it will let you find freedom. Jesus said: . . . you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free. [John 8:32 — NIV] I assume that if you are reading this book you have a problem with sin. If anything written here helps you to be freer than you are now the book will have done its work.

It’s not a doctrinal examination of sin. Rather it is a handbook or manual that explains principles. You will need to apply them to your own life if they are to have any value. Some of the things covered will seem obvious, and you might be tempted to skip parts to get to the bits you think you need. Please resist that temptation. I have often found that the most obvious things cause the biggest problems. I go looking for complex solutions and miss the simple answer I need. A small mistake in a navigational calculation can result in a big error by its end! You might have large sin problems caused by a small error in basic understanding. I know what that’s like.

So, read with an open mind and heart. Ask God to show you what you need to know, then respond to what he does show you, and you will find yourself moving forwards instead of backwards. I promise it.

Part One – God’s ambition

Chapter 1 – Basic attitudes

A good friend of mine always asks me whether I want the good news first or the bad news. I always ask for the good news first and hold on to that while hearing the bad news. Jesus had a similar attitude — . . . who for the joy set before him endured the cross, . . .. [Hebrews 12:2] The good news of what waited for him after the cross gave him the strength to go through the crucifixion. The writer of Proverbs agrees: Where there is no vision, the people perish: . . .. [Proverbs 29:18 — KJV] Paul had a similar attitude: Do you not know that those who run in a race all run, but only one receives the prize? Run in such a way that you may win. [1 Corinthians 9:24] Those who understand God’s purposes are more likely to gain them than those who don’t. That’s why we will take time at the beginning of this book to look ahead to God’s purposes before studying how to eradicate sin.

If we don’t gain that clear understanding now we might stop short of going the whole distance. When the going gets tough we will opt out and rest on the sideline. After twenty years of ministry, that’s now familiar to me. Countless times I’ve seen believers start their new life with zeal and enthusiasm only to fall away or come to a dead stop after months or years. My heart has often ached at seeing promising beginners fail. Why do so many start and so few finish?

I believe that part of the answer lies in misunderstandings about two basic things — what God wants to achieve in dealing with sin, and the commitment needed to reach the finishing line. In the next few chapters, we will look at what God wants to achieve. I hope that this will set before you a joy, or hope, that will help you to endure the cross God wants to bring into your life. Jesus is our pattern. As he passed through crucifixion and death to gain a resurrection, so must we. Nor can that be just a symbolic act. Jesus’ death was real and ours must be, too. There is no room for pretence in these matters.

To start with, let’s look at the basic attitudes we must develop to become sin-free. We could easily list many possibilities but will confine ourselves to four. If we develop these four attitudes and put our whole heart, mind, and strength into them our chances of success are excellent. Others will be added as the book develops but these attitudes are our starting-point. Without these, other attitudes are useless.

1. Committed to destruction

Why did God send Jesus to earth? There are several answers to that question but only one will serve our purpose here [others will be examined in later chapters]. In his first letter, John says, . . . The Son of God appeared for this purpose, that He might destroy the works of the devil. [1 John 3:8] Sin is one of the devil’s works. God never intended men to know the terrible effects of a sinful nature and way of life. At the beginning of the Bible story, Satan tempted Adam and Eve to grasp at equality with God. By getting them to do that, he injected the human race with the deadly venom of sin. Sin didn’t only affect men and women. Creation itself became corrupted and now groans to be free [Romans 8:19-23]. Angels, too, were led astray and fell into sinfulness. Sin tainted not only people but also the physical and spiritual realms.

Now, if we jump ahead to the end of the Bible story we find that God has destroyed everything tainted by sin. Satan, his unholy angels, and every unrighteous soul find their end in the Lake of Fire. The old heavens and earth are gone, too, devoured by flame. In their place are new sets. No trace of sin remains. Nothing less than the total destruction of sin and its effects will satisfy God.

That’s why Jesus came to earth. His mandate was to start destroying the devil’s works. That destruction began at the cross, where he became the sin nature and took its full judgement on himself. He provided a way for God to destroy sin in people’s lives. Now he reigns in heaven and continues his task of destroying the devil’s works. Jesus is the central figure of The Revelation, overseeing God’s Final Solution for sin.

Now we can understand God’s attitude towards sin. He is committed to its destruction. Nothing less satisfies him. If even one spot of sin remains, he will direct his destructive force against it. He plans to stamp it out, eradicate it, annihilate it, and leave not one smidgen un-dealt-with. That’s his attitude towards sin in our lives. God will not rest until he removes every trace of sin’s stain and we are pure and spotless. One day we will be the Bride of Christ, and he will not tolerate a dirty partner for his Son. If we won’t let him destroy sin’s effects in our lives, if we willfully hold on to those things he wants to get rid of, we can disqualify ourselves from his salvation offer.

What, then, should our response be to that? We must develop God’s attitude towards sin. We must be bent on its destruction. Any other attitude leaves us in danger. God will not tolerate sin in his new creation and neither must we. No matter what the cost, every trace of sin must go. Anything less than 100 percent commitment to that course is dangerous. Without that attitude we will tolerate sin’s presence and only live a half-life of God-likeness. That’s not good enough. John says this about God: " . . . God is