Indwelling Sin as Enmity
By John Fast
In our last two studies we identified five attitudes and behaviors toward indwelling sin which make it obvious whether a person is a child of God or is still a child of the devil (1 Jn 3:10). Nothing can be more clear than that Jesus came into the world to redeem sinners (1 Tm 1:15), and that which He redeems sinners from is sin; “…it is He who will save His people from their sins” (Mt 1:21). All who are redeemed by Jesus Christ are saved from sin, not just its guilt, but also its power, so that sin no longer reigns “in your mortal body, that you should obey its lusts” (Rm 6:12). We have been taught by Jesus to believe that anyone who does not know and feel themselves to be sinful has no need for a Redeemer any more than a healthy person has need of a physician (Mk 2:17). Sin is still their master. They are still “enslaved to various lusts and pleasures” (Tit 3:3).
The Bible is equally clear that the seat or home of sin is the heart. All sin has its source and origin in the human heart; “For from within, out of the heart of men, proceed the evil thoughts, fornications, thefts, murders, adulteries, deeds of coveting and wickedness, as well as deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride, and foolishness. All these evil things proceed from within and defile the man” (Mk 7:21-23). Despite the popular belief to the contrary, the human heart by its very nature is “more deceitful than all else and is desperately (i.e. “incurably”) sick; who can understand it” (Jer 17:9)?
It is these properties of the heart – its deceitfulness, its being incurably sick, and its unknowableness – which gives power to the law of indwelling sin (see study number five). One particular attribute of indwelling sin which contributes to the heart’s deceitfulness, incurableness, and unknowableness, and which allows indwelling sin to be at home in the heart, is one expressed by Paul in Romans 8:7, …”because the mind set on the flesh is hostile toward God”. “Hostile” translates the Greek word echthra which describes a hatred, hostility, and enmity as an inward disposition which leads a person to oppose the object of their hostility. This may be hostility between nations, or between persons, or between man and God. A person’s hatred toward God is expressed by their being friend’s with the things of this world (Jm 4:4) – its purposes, principles, philosophies, priorities, values, thinking, attainments, and standards. The mind set on the things of this world rather than on the things above (Col 3:2) is a carnal and worldly mind that is hostile toward God. In examining the hostility which indwelling sin has against God, we will consider five features of this hostility,
- The Reason for Hostility
- The Incurableness of Hostility
- The Object of Hostility
- The Extent of Hostility
- The Persistence of Hostility
The Reason for Hostility
Why is the mind naturally hostile toward God? It is because “it does not subject itself to the law of God,” (Rm 8:7). It has a hatred for and is opposed to all things God, especially His law. This is why those who hate God only pretend to love and obey Him; “Those who hate the Lord would pretend obedience to Him; (Ps 81:15). The law of indwelling sin is not just an enemy to God, but enmity and hostility itself to all things God. Enemies might be reconciled to each other, but hatred will accept no terms of peace. The only way to reconcile enemies is to destroy the hostility and hatred between them. So it was with Herod and Pilate, “Now Herod and Pilate became friends with one another that very day; for before they had been at enmity with each other” (Lk 23:12). Because they were at enmity they could not be friends, but were enemies.
Paul wrote in Romans 5:10, “For while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son,” (cf. 2 Cor 5:17, 18). In Colossians Paul wrote, “And although you were formerly alienated and hostile in mind, engaged in evil deeds, yet He has now reconciled you in His fleshly body through death,” (Col 1:21, 22). Thus by the blood of Jesus Christ, God reconciled His greatest enemy – sinful man – to Himself. Not only did God reconcile His enemies, but He also destroyed the enmity, “abolishing in His flesh the enmity” (Eph 2:15). Hostility must be destroyed before enemies can be reconciled.
The reason for this hostility and enmity is because the unbeliever refuses to subject themselves to God as lawgiver (Rm 8:7). The hostility of the law of sin is against God’s holiness and sovereignty. It decries the constraints, limitations, and standards of God’s word and government. The carnal, natural, worldly heart still protests, “We do not want this man to reign over us” (Lk 19:14). It hates God’s absolute sovereignty over His creation because that includes us. It is the nature of sin to be hostile toward God as God, and this is the root of every sin; “For even though they knew God, they did not honor Him as God” (Rm 1:21). It is an opposition to God as God, a rejection of His authority, and a severing of the dependence which the creature should have on the Creator. Job identified what fills the heart of sinners. “And they say to God, ‘Depart from us! We do not even desire the knowledge of Your ways. Who is the Almighty, that we should serve Him, and what would we gain if we entreated Him?’ (Job 21:14, 15).
The Incurableness of Hostility
Hostility cannot be cured, it can only be destroyed. The least bit of hatred that remains will poison and corrupt all. As long as the least bit of hostility remains, there is still enmity. Just as the least bit of virus is still a virus, and the least bit of infection is still infection, so the least bit of enmity is still enmity. It will infect all. The smallest fire is still fire and will still burn. The smallest acting of enmity is still enmity. Hostility cloaked in Christian terminology and religious activity is still hostility. Any means and attempts to be reconciled to God other than the one He has provided in Jesus Christ will never remove the heart’s natural enmity toward God. Our old, fallen nature is “desperately (“incurably”) sick” (Jer 17:9), therefore we need a new nature that is not hostile toward God. In fact, it is because of this natural hatred for God’s terms that mankind invents their own terms for salvation. If sinful people cannot have God and salvation on their terms then they will invent a god more agreeable to their terms and their nature.
Even in a true Christian, remnants of this natural enmity remain, because we still have our old nature. Salvation imparts to us a new nature, and sanctification will reduce the old nature’s strength and influence, but they do not change the nature of enmity. The new birth changes the Christian’s nature, but not the nature of sin. Because hostility is part of the nature of sin, it is always there, and we carry it with us to one degree or another all our earthly days. One day it will be destroyed completely, but it is never cured in this life.
Where there is enmity nothing can be expected but continual fighting, struggle, and opposition. On a temporal level we need only look at the perennial fighting between Israel and its neighboring countries. Between nations or persons there may be a truce, but there is no peace as long as there is enmity. With indwelling sin, because of its enmity toward God, there can be no truce or peace. If it is not overcome, subdued, and destroyed, it will destroy the soul. God has equipped every Christian with spiritual weapons for resisting and killing sin in our life. This is a war which knows no neutrality. It is carried on in the soul of every single person. We are either fighting with God against sin, or with sin against God. There is no third option. “The whole world lies in the power of the evil one” (1 Jn 5:19), and is under the dominion of sin. Real Christian holiness is never obtained or maintained without a constant struggle against sin.
Sadly, many today think they can make peace with sin. The deceitfulness of their own heart has convinced them that sin can be tolerated, condoned, and indulged without suffering any of sin’s consequences or without any harm to their soul. They think it is harmless to be entertained by sin; that they can sow to their own sinful flesh, but not reap its corruptions (Gal 5:7, 8). They think the world can be incorporated into the life and practice of the church without corrupting and polluting both its worship and doctrine. They believe that sin and Christ can peacefully coexist in the same heart. There are two types of false peace; peace in sin, and peace with sin. Both are the result of a gross ignorance of the nature and power of indwelling sin and the holiness of God. They forget the warning of God, “There is no peace”, says my God, “for the wicked” (Is 57:21); “They have made their paths crooked; whoever treads on them does not know peace” (Is 59:8).
Herein lies a great part of the power of indwelling sin, it will never accept any truce or any terms of peace. Just as it was the desire of sin to master Cain (Gn 4:7), so it still strives to make us its slave; “for by what a man is overcome, by this he is enslaved” (2 Pt 2:19). This enemy is never dormant, it is never conquered, and we can never have any truce or any peace in or with it. It is vain and futile for anyone to expect they can negotiate a truce or have any rest or peace from indwelling sin in this life as long as hostility to God is a part of the nature of sin.
Some, in a futile attempt to subdue the raging of some lust, try to pacify and quiet it by working to gratify it. They make a provision for their flesh in regard to its lusts (Rm 13:14). The drunkard seeks to curb his lust with another drink. The greedy person pacifies their greed by getting more money and things. The lover of pleasure indulges the sensuous and entertaining. The self-absorbed person seeks more attention. Trying to satisfy sin by sinning is like trying to put out a fire by dowsing it with gasoline. The more you pour on it the worse it gets. This fuels sin, not subdues sin. It inflames, increases, and spreads sin. You cannot make a truce with fire as to how much of your house it will burn down. The only way to stop it is to extinguish it.
Sin can never bring peace, happiness, contentment, or comfort; “the way of the treacherous is hard” (Pv 13:15). It will never accept any terms of peace. It will not stop when and where you want it to stop. Enmity is never satisfied, but wants it all. If sin had any other nature than hostility, some peace may be found by something other than in its destruction, but as it is, no peace can be had with it, in it, or from it. A person may bargain with an enemy, but not with enmity. It can never be cured or satisfied, but only destroyed. The only relief is in its destruction.
The Object of Hostility
Not only is indwelling sin incurably hostile, but it is “hostile toward God” (Rm 8:7). Its hostility is specifically directed against God – His nature, His law, His promises, His warnings, His sovereignty, His Son, His salvation, His worship, His government, His work – all that is God is the target of sin’s hostility. Sin has indeed chosen a formidable and unassailable Being for its enemy. Sin’s hostility is primarily directed toward the work of God in His people. Its hostility to the work of God in the world is secondary. Fleshly lusts wage war against our soul to destroy them (1 Pt 2:11). Indwelling sin sets its desire against the work of the Spirit within us to thwart and conquer it (Gal 5:17).
The primary hostility of sin toward the work of God in us is in His work as a lawgiver, by His writing His law on our hearts as an inward and dominating principle to guide and govern us (Jer 31:33, 34); instilling the fear of Him in our hearts (Jer 32:40); in conforming us more to the image of Christ (Rm 8:29). Its hostility is directed toward God’s grace; toward God as holy, just, and righteous; towards Jesus as Savior and Lord. It is hostile to the gospel of Jesus Christ and seeks to corrupt it with a false gospel of works, human effort, ability, and merit, or by turning God’s grace into a cloak and covering for sin (Jude 4). Jonathan Edwards, in the preface of his Treatise Concerning Religious Affections wrote,
“It is by the mixture of counterfeit religion with true, not discerned and distinguished, that the devil has had his greatest advantage against the cause and kingdom of Christ…By this he hurt the cause of Christianity, in and after the apostolic age, much more than all the persecutions of both Jews and heathens. The apostles, in all their epistles, show themselves much more concerned with the former mischief, than the latter….And so it is likely ever to be in the church…till we have learned well to distinguish between true and false religion, between saving affections and experiences, and those manifold fair shows, and glistening appearances, by which they are counterfeited; the consequences of which, when they are not distinguished, are often inexpressibly dreadful.”
All of sin’s hostility is aimed and directed against God. This is the reason for all of sin’s opposition to good, to truth, to right, to holiness, to morality, to faith, to trust, and to God’s word. Sin is not hostile to religion per se, or to counterfeit Christianity, but to true Christianity. It is not hostile to false doctrine, but to true. It is not hostile to cults, Roman Catholicism, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, or the myriad of other false religions invented by man. It is not opposed to philanthropy, benevolence, humanitarianism, prosperity, or ingenuity. Sin is not opposed to a mere profession of Christianity or to a cultural, formal, nominal, ritualistic, superficial, external Christianity. Simply quote a Bible verse that disproves and exposes someone’s conception of God, Jesus, and salvation to be false, and this hostility against God will become self-evident (cf Mt. 22:41-46).
This is why mere forms of godliness are so popular; it is because there is so little, if any, of God in them. The carnal mind has virtually no opposition to them. They are easy. This is why there is such a conspicuous and strong dislike for dogmatic, pointed doctrine and preaching, and an affinity for teaching that tickles the ears and is as smooth as a billiard ball (2 Tim 4:3). The carnal, worldly mind is naturally drawn to a carnal, worldly, and self-centered conception and worship of God. You can be certain that a Christianity that is popular with the masses is one that is devoid of anything truly God. The more of God there is in anything, the more hostile sin’s opposition to it will be.
The law of sin is only hostile to what is of God; His work, His truth rightly taught, proclaimed, and lived. Its nature is to oppose God which includes opposing what is His will. This is why, even in a true Christian, opposition will arise whenever we set ourselves to do anything that is God’s will and is spiritually good. To be involved in religious activity that garners the praise and admiration of man, or that gratifies personal preferences, or that glorifies self and fulfills personal ambition, and that involves little self-denial, will face very little opposition from the law of sin, because God is not in it.
This hostility infects the mind, the will, and the affections against God’s revealed and declared will. It expresses itself by offering all sorts of excuses, extenuations, and justifications to assuage the conscience. It will propose all sorts of seemingly noble, patriotic, humanitarian, worthy, and spiritual causes and projects, all done in the name of Jesus (Mt 7:22), to distract us and eat up our time and resources. It will insinuate all sorts of dangers, risks, and hazards to our lives, reputations, freedoms, and security to frighten us away from doing God’s will. This should awaken every Christian to a diligent watchfulness over their own heart and to frequent self-examination, not by comparing themselves with themselves or with others, but against the rules and principles of God’s word. No carnal heart will tolerate having itself and its practices examined by God’s word and His principles.
The Extent of Hostility
The enmity which the law of sin has against God is absolute and universal. Some hostility is focused on particular things or characteristics of a person or object, but not on the person or thing as a whole. Some may hate some particular thing about their house, but still love their home. This is not the case with sin’s hatred of God. Its hostility is absolute and universal. It is against God as God, just as a person’s hatred of snakes is against snakes as snakes. This type of hostility is against the whole kind of which it consists. The law of sin is hostile to God as God, therefore to all of God – His nature, His attributes, His word, His justice – everything that makes God what He is. To deny any part of God, any attribute of God, is to fashion a god of one’s own imagination. If there were anything of God, any obligation imposed by Him, any law, principle, attribute, worship, or gospel against which sin had no enmity and opposition, then the soul might find rest and shelter in that one thing and sin would offer no opposition to it. But the hostility of the law of sin is against God as God and all of God, not just some things about God. That which has the most of God will have the most opposition.
Most professing Christians have no objection to Jesus being their savior and securing for them a happy hereafter, but if He must also be their Lord and Sovereign and Judge who governs every area of their life, who defines right and wrong, and dictates His terms for salvation and how He is to be worshiped – in short, if He is to be their lawgiver – then the hostility burns against Him. This is why most will worship a god of their own imagination and fashion a Jesus to their own liking. They think they can do with Christ and His gospel as they do with their house; renovate and update it.
Because the god they worship is a god of their own creation, and their worship is a worship of their own invention, there is no enmity or opposition to it by the law of sin. The greatest opposition is against the gospel of Jesus Christ, “and with the doctrine conforming to godliness” (1 Tm 6:3), because it displays so much of God’s nature as well as exposes our absolute helplessness and inability, and condemns all our religious self-effort and good works as utterly worthless and useless. It crushes our self-righteousness, our pride, and our independence, and demands that we deny ourselves and our sin, that we forsake everything else, take up a cross, and obey only Him.
The natural mind has an absolute and universal hostility to the demands of the gospel of Jesus Christ, which is why we must “be renewed in the spirit of your mind” (Eph 4:23). The Jews did not object to Jesus healing the sick or feeding the multitudes, but to His exposing all their religion and self-righteousness as false and declaring Himself to be God, thereby inciting their natural hostility against God, “For a good work we do not stone You, but for blasphemy; and because You, being a man, make Yourself out to be God” (Jn 10:33). They refused to honor the Son, thereby dishonoring and displaying their hostility against the Father; “He who does not honor the Son does not honor the Father who sent Him” (Jn 5:23). They did not honor God as God.
Not only is the law of sin’s hostility absolute toward all of God, but it is absolute to all of the heart, mind, will, and affections of mankind. No part of man is less hostile to God than any other part. The law of sin has pervaded the entire mind, will, and affections with an inbred hostility against all that is God. If any single faculty had been free from this hostility, there would be no necessity for us to have a new nature, but rather a correction of the deficiencies of the old nature would suffice to overcome any aversion to God. If any part of us were not hostile against God, that part might make a stand against sin’s hostility and drive it out from all the other parts, but it is universal and wars against all that is God with all of our being.
Every part, being filled with hostility to God, has its own enmity to wrestle with. The mind has its own darkness, the will has its own obstinacy, and the affections have their own aversion and coldness from God. This is why we must be transformed by the renewing of our mind (Rm 12:2), our will made to delight in His will (Ps 40:8), and our affections inflamed with a love and desire for God as God so as to forsake all else for Him (1 Pt 1:8). A genuine Christianity which is the product of a new birth must direct the mind, lead the will, and dominate the affections. It must influence our choices and decisions, and guide our tastes, or it is a false faith.
The reason a believer’s knowledge is imperfect, our obedience is inconsistent, our love is weak, our fear mixed, our trust not absolute, and our delight not pure, is because of the hostility of indwelling sin which remains in us. Jesus said that “unless one is born again, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God”, and that, “you must be born again” (Jn 3:3, 7), plainly indicating that what is required is a new, not a renovated nature, which is no longer hostile to God as God. Those who still have hostility toward God express this by bartering for another God, “The sorrows of those who have bartered for another god will be multiplied” (Ps 16:4).
A Persistent Hostility
The hostility of the law of sin has no intention of ever abating, or yielding, or wavering, or going away, even in the face of powerful opposition from God’s law and the gospel. We constantly carry around this enmity within us. It is constantly opposing the work of God in us. It is constantly seeking an opportunity to oppose God, not just in this or that thing, but in all that God has revealed Himself to be, and to be His will. It persistently opposes God as Creator who created in six literal days; it opposes God as absolute Sovereign over His creation; it opposes God as lawgiver, as Savior, as Judge, and as provider. It opposes His word as divinely inspired, inerrant, sufficient, and authoritative. It opposes His rules for parenting, gender roles, marriage, human government, spiritual leadership, the church, and for His worship. It opposes the true gospel with a false gospel.
Today we see so many who profess to have a great love and respect for the “gospel”, while at the same time they are inflicting on it the worst misrepresentations and, for all practical purposes, doing it the greatest harm. They make the gospel therapeutic, or humanitarian, or social, thereby obscuring the true nature of the gospel as redemptive, not of society, but of the individual, and ignoring the necessity, the nature, and the fruits of a new birth. In this “gospel”, everything is true and nothing is false. Everyone is right, and no one is wrong. Everyone is saved, and no one is condemned. Their “gospel” makes no one more holy, humble, or selfless. The state of the church and our nation renders this self-evident.
Those who do not see and feel this hostility to be true in themselves are in a sad way. Those who say that they do not find this to be true in themselves – that they have reached a point where they feel no enmity against God, no hostility toward His commands, no dislike of His restrictions, and no aversion to His demand to forsake all for Him – these simply show they have bartered for another god, have made a peace with sin, and are under its dominion. They are only fooling themselves and the truth is not in them (1 Jn 1:8).
Many enter into Christianity with a desire to be forgiven of their sin, but not to be free from their sin. They have a desire to go to heaven, but not to forsake their sin. They want others to regard them as Christians without any regard to what it means to be a Christian. They want the promised happiness, but unwilling to persevere and endure the hardships, trials, scorn, ridicule, and hostility which make up the road to happiness. This is why there are so many professing Christians, but so few true Christians. They are reluctant to completely forsake heaven, but even more reluctant to have it at the price of their sin and worldly comfort, reputation, and interests. They want the reward of a Christian without the life of a Christian.
How blessed are those who feel this hostility to be true in themselves, that we constantly carry around in us this persistent hostility against God, and not just in this or that particular thing, but for all that is God, and who mourn over it (Mt 5:8). How blessed are those who feel sin’s power weakened, and their love for God, His word, and His ways stronger, and their lives more holy. How blessed are those who see this hostility of the law of sin being overruled by a new, stronger, and inward principle of “the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus” (Rm 8:2).
In our next study we will examine two ways in which this hostility, which is part of the nature of the law of indwelling sin, manifests itself and operates; first in dislike or aversion, and secondly, in opposition.