Sin Inevitable, Righteousness Inevitable, or Relational Freedom?

Note: Throughout this site, sin is defined as lovelessness (1 John 3:4), and love as the fulfillment of righteousness (Romans 13:10). The teachings of Jesus are the sum of love. And love does no harm to anyone.

Christians hold three main views on whether believers can live free from sin in this life:

Position A - "Sin Inevitable for Christians" (Augustinian):
Sin is inevitable for believers in this life due to remaining sinful nature. Abiding in love and Christ is transient at best and complete freedom from sin is not possible even by the Spirit until death (glorification).

Position B - "Relational Freedom: sin and righteousness are possibilities not inevitabilities" (Early Church - Disciples of the Disciples):
Sin is a real possibility for believers, but so is walking in righteousness by abiding in Christ through the Spirit. Believers can, by God's grace and power, really abide in Christ and live in obedience and love. Though if we do sin there is mercy upon confession and repentance. Love and righteousness by the Spirit are expected as normative and sin is not expected, it's seen as a rare anomaly (not daily or weekly expected occurrences). Considering ourselves dead to sin and actual slaves of righteousness (meaning we actually love and live righteously persistently). Walking with clear consciences always and maintaining goodwill in our heart to all - at all times.

1 John 5:2-4 ESV
2 By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and obey his commandments. 3 For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments. And his commandments are not burdensome. 4 For everyone who has been born of God overcomes the world. And this is the victory that has overcome the world—our faith.

Position C - "Righteousness inevitable for Christians" (Sinless perfectionism):
Upon conversion, sin becomes impossible for the regenerate; the Spirit overrides human agency making believers incapable of sinning. Christians who sin even once post conversion prove they are not born again.

I hold very strongly to Position B and have come to believe this is an essential doctrine of early apostolic christianity. Position A and C actualy have more in common with each other than position B as they are fatalistic, nature determines action positions. Position B is volitional in that persons act through their natures (natures dont act through persons).

Let me restate this through the lense of love (to God supremely and treating others as we would like to be treated). This is the essence of righteousness and its absence results in sin:

• Position A: Love is impossible to sustain
• Position B: Love is possible by abiding in Christ
• Position C: Love becomes automatic/robotic

Position A is the default position of much Western Christianity due to Augustine's influence on Luther, Calvin, and subsequent Reformed theology. Position C is rare but does exist in some holiness movements. Position B was the standard view of the early church (as evidenced in writings of Clement, Polycarp, Ignatius, and Irenaeus) and was later recovered in part by Wesley and the holiness movement. All of my other writings on this site defend and articulate Position B from Scripture, Christology, and early church testimony.

Position A, teaching that sin is inevitable and daily in the Christian life, emerged with Augustine in the 4th-5th century and represented a significant departure from the previous 300 years of Christian teaching. Augustine was the first major theologian to interpret Romans 7 as describing normal Christian experience rather than pre-Christian struggle! This broke with the standard interpretation of his day and introduced anthropological pessimism foreign to the apostolic fathers. His pessimistic faithless views are crystallised in the Westminster shorter catechism which teaches we daily fall short of God's standards and sin:

The Westminster Shorter Catechism
Q. 82. Is any man able perfectly to keep the commandments of God?
A. No mere man, since the fall, is able, in this life, perfectly to keep the commandments of God; but doth daily break them, in thought, word and deed.

This stems from a faulty anthropology(beliefs about human nature) and logically flows necessarily from sin nature theology. They are houses built on Augustines speculations about Adam and the fall rather on the rock of Christ, the only foundation of theology and true revelation of anthropology - whom shared humanity with us but never sinned through it. Start wrong, end wrong.

Sin is not inevitable post conversion any more than Righteousness is because both are volitional things - decisions. Jesus did not confess sin daily, for he wasn't sinning, he was abiding. The belief of inevitable sin post conversion is anchored in faulty anthropological(human nature) assumptions chalked up by Augustine off a mistranslation of Romans 5 (faulty Latin translations) that if parsed out deny that Christ came in our exact nature, something Hebrews 2 and Romans 8 flatly rebukes.

People who hold position A think heaven will result in us all becoming position C "sinless robots". The truth is agency will always exist (position B) now and into eternity. Thus those who are faithful in what is little will be faithful with much as the Lord spoke. The holy angels are not position C, they are B - abiding in the Lord. They don't want to rebel against Him like Satan and the fallen watchers.

The difference between these positions profoundly shapes how we counsel those struggling with sin (are they victims of their nature, or rebels against love who need reconciling through repentant faith?), what we expect from Christians, how we pray, how we interpret scripture, and most critically our hope. Position A removes hope by teaching that abiding in Christ is impossible in this life. It sets a stumbling block before those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, whom Christ promised would be filled.

1 John 3:6-7 ESV
6 No one who abides in him keeps on sinning; no one who keeps on sinning has either seen him or known him. 7 Little children, let no one deceive you. Whoever practices righteousness is righteous, as he is righteous.

1 John 5:18 ESV
18 We know that everyone who has been born of God does not keep on sinning, but he who was born of God protects him, and the evil one does not touch him.

Romans 8:2-4 ESV
2 For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death. 3 For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh, 4 in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.

Romans 8:12-14 ESV
12 So then, brothers, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh. 13 For if you live according to the flesh you will die, but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live. 14 For all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God.

John 15:9-10 ESV
9 As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Abide in my love. 10 If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father's commandments and abide in his love.

Christ became identical to us in human nature without exception or asterisk. He took on our exact flesh (Romans 8:3), experienced our exact temptations (Hebrews 4:15), and was made like us "in every respect" (Hebrews 2:17). Yet He never sinned, not because He had a different nature than us, but because He abided in the Father by the Spirit. What Christ did, we can do - not in our own strength, but by the same Spirit He has given us. This is not sinless perfectionism (Position C), because we retain genuine agency and the possibility of stumbling. But it is the confident expectation that through abiding in Christ, we can walk as He walked (1 John 2:6). He became what we are so that by grace, through the Spirit, we might actually live as He lived!

He became one of us in our exact human nature we lived in sin in (without exception or asterisk) and through abiding in the Father and walking by the Holy Spirit, He never sinned showing us the narrow way to follow in. This is Dyoenergism confessed at the 6th ecumenical council (Constantinople 3) using chalcedonian christological logic - Jesus Christ lived concurrently as the Logos within whom creation "lives moves and has its being" and within creation he assumed genuine manhood identical to us born of a virgin. Post conversion we share his exact condition, reconciled to the Father, filled with the Spirit and empowered to abide in Him to live righteously.

Let me restate this for laymen: This truth was affirmed by the early church councils. Jesus had a truly human will that operated by the Spirit, not by divine 'cheat codes.' He conquered sin in our exact human nature, experiencing life just as we experience it. He conquered in our substance by the Spirit and was given a name high above all others because of this, being the only man to never have transgressed the Father. He did this distinctly from His Divinity, which He concurrenlty lived through upholding creation.

This is why I write against the assumption of the inevitability of, and normalisation of sin, which Christs incarnation in our nature and blameless life rebukes. The incarnation was statement not an exception.

The earliest church fathers uniformly taught Position B. Here is Irenaeus (disciple of Polycarp, who was disciple of the apostle John), summarizing the apostolic faith in the 2nd century:

Irenaeus, A Demonstration of the Apostolic Preaching (c. 180 AD) - disciple of Polycarp who was a disciple of the apostle John.

(41)..."His disciples, the witnesses of all His good deeds, and of His teachings and His sufferings and death and resurrection, and of His ascension into heaven after His bodily resurrection—these were the apostles, who after (receiving) the power of the Holy Spirit were sent forth by Him into all the world, and wrought the calling of the Gentiles, showing to mankind the way of life, to turn them from idols and fornication and covetousness, cleansing their souls and bodies by the baptism of water and of the Holy Spirit; which Holy Spirit they had received of the Lord, and they distributed and imparted It to them that believed; and thus they ordered and established the Churches. By faith and love and hope they established that which was foretold by the prophets, the calling of the Gentiles, according to the mercy of God which was extended to them; bringing it to light through the ministration of their service, and admitting them to the promise of the fathers: to wit, that to those who thus believed in and loved the Lord, and continued in holiness and righteousness and patient endurance, the God of all had promised to grant eternal life by the resurrection of the dead; through Him who died and rose again, Jesus Christ, to whom He has delivered over the kingdom of all existing things, and, the rule of quick and dead, and also the judgment. And they counseled them by the word of truth to keep their flesh undefiled unto the resurrection and their soul unstained.

(42) For such is the state of those who have believed, since in them continually abides the Holy Spirit, who was given by Him in baptism, and is retained by the receiver, if he walks in truth and holiness and righteousness and patient endurance. For this soul has a resurrection in them that believe, the body receiving the soul again, and along with it, by the power of the Holy Spirit, being raised up and entering into the kingdom of God.

Note: Irenaeus expects Christians to keep their flesh undefiled and soul unstained through the power of the Holy Spirit. This is Position B, not Position A.

Ignatius to the Ephesians (35 AD - 107 AD) - A martyr and disciple of the apostle John.

Chapter 14
None of these things is hid from you, if you perfectly possess that faith and love towards Christ Jesus which are the beginning and the end of life. For the beginning is faith, and the end is love. Now these two, being inseparably connected together, are of God, while all other things which are requisite for a holy life follow after them. No man (truly) making a profession of faith sins; nor does he that possesses love hate any one. The tree is made manifest by its fruit; so those that profess themselves to be Christians shall be recognised by their conduct. For there is not now a demand for mere profession, but that a man be found continuing in the power of faith to the end.

Polycarp (69 AD - 155 AD) - A martyr and disciple of the apostle John.
The Epistle of Polycarp to the Philippians

Chapter 2
“Wherefore, girding up your loins,” “serve the Lord in fear” and truth, as those who have forsaken the vain, empty talk and error of the multitude, and “believed in Him who raised up our Lord Jesus Christ from the dead, and gave Him glory,” and a throne at His right hand. To Him all things in heaven and on earth are subject. Him every spirit serves. He comes as the Judge of the living and the dead. His blood will God require of those who do not believe in Him. But He who raised Him up from the dead will raise up us also, if we do His will, and walk in His commandments, and love what He loved, keeping ourselves from all unrighteousness, covetousness, love of money, evil speaking, false witness; “not rendering evil for evil, or railing for railing,” or blow for blow, or cursing for cursing, but being mindful of what the Lord said in His teaching: “Judge not, that ye be not judged; forgive, and it shall be forgiven unto you; be merciful, that ye may obtain mercy; with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again;” and once more, “Blessed are the poor, and those that are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of God.”

Chapter 3
These things, brethren, I write to you concerning righteousness, not because I take anything upon myself, but because ye have invited me to do so. For neither I, nor any other such one, can come up to the wisdom of the blessed and glorified Paul. He, when among you, accurately and steadfastly taught the word of truth in the presence of those who were then alive. And when absent from you, he wrote you a letter,which, if you carefully study, you will find to be the means of building you up in that faith which has been given you, and which, being followed by hope, and preceded by love towards God, and Christ, and our neighbour, “is the mother of us all.”For if any one be inwardly possessed of these graces, he hath fulfilled the command of righteousness, since he that hath love is far from all sin.

As Paul says according to the law "Every charge must be established by the evidence of two or three witnesses" (2 Cor 13:1). These are the men to read who heard the apostolic preaching directly or one generation removed:

• Clement of Rome was a disciple of Paul and Peter and became the bishop of Rome in the first century.
• Polycarp lived under the preaching of the apostle John for 20 years.
• Irenaeus grew up in a Christian household with access to people who spoke to the disciples and sat under the preaching of Polycarp.
• Ignatius wrote 7 letters on the way to martyrdom and learned directly from John also.

These mens testimony matters more than literally anyone who came after them because of their first and secondhand nature of witness and writing and speaking koine greek which the New Testament was penned in (unlike Augustine who admitted not being good at greek at all and relied on latin translations instead and lived some 300 years later, was a gnostic manichean for 10 years and a neoplatonist after that prior to his conversion which undoubtedly coloured his thinking).

If you have been taught Position A your entire life, I understand this sounds radical or even heretical. I simply ask that you read Scripture with fresh eyes, especially 1 John and Romans 6-8, read the early church fathers (freely available online), and consider whether your current theology makes room for what Scripture actually promises. Ask yourself: Does my theology give hope to those hungering for righteousness, or does it place the stumbling block of "inevitable sin" before them?

The question is not whether we are capable of obedience in our own strength (we are not, Jesus said apart from Him we can do nothing), but whether the Holy Spirit is capable of empowering us to walk as Christ walked (for we are no longer separated from God). Position A answers "no, not in this life." Position B answers "yes, if we abide in Him."

I believe Position B is the faith once delivered to the saints. Everything else is a deception that denies reality, making excuses for ongoing sin. Something Christs incarnation in our nature and blameless life through the Spirit rebukes in full (Romans 8:3 - By coming in the likeness of sinful flesh He condemned sin in the flesh). Christ proved to us sin isn't necessary in our present state which he assumed, once we are united to Him by the Spirit and if we daily abide in Him.

John said what he meant and meant what he said. 1 million scholars could argue to the contrary and I would follow the plain testimony of John and his disciples any day over them. For they all build on Augustine as their foundation, and Christs incarnation proved Augustine wrong. Humanity united with God can live perpetual loving and righteous lives by His Spirit, His grace and transformative power. I invite you to abide and walk as your older brother Jesus Christ walked. He called us brother and sister and mother if we actually obey His teachings.

Go abide, go love, go obey! Go and sin no more!

Mark 3:33-34 ESV
33 And he answered them, “Who are my mother and my brothers?” 34 And looking about at those who sat around him, he said, “Here are my mother and my brothers! 35 For whoever does the will of God, he is my brother and sister and mother.”