Sabbath, 12/31/05, 9:13 AM EST USA
It cannot be made more clear - we must receive victory over sin in order to have the assurance that is described in the epistles. Otherwise we are only talking the talk... I continue to sin. Granted we are to aim for perfect meaning that we cannot achieve it here (of course not since only in Heaven is one made perfect before God) but nonetheless, it seems to me that all Chrisitans (I) should be less of a sinner and more of a Christian.

Romans 6

1. What shall we say, then? Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase?
2. By no means! We died to sin; how can we live in it any longer?
3. Or don't you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death?
4. We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life.
5. If we have been united with him like this in his death, we will certainly also be united with him in his resurrection.
6. For we know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin —
7. because anyone who has died has been freed from sin.
8. Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him.
9. For we know that since Christ was raised from the dead, he cannot die again; death no longer has mastery over him.
10. The death he died, he died to sin once for all; but the life he lives, he lives to God.
11. In the same way, count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus.
12. Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its evil desires.
13. Do not offer the parts of your body to sin, as instruments of wickedness, but rather offer yourselves to God, as those who have been brought from death to life; and offer the parts of your body to him as instruments of righteousness.
14. For sin shall not be your master, because you are not under law, but under grace.

Sabbath, 12/31/05, 9:34 AM EST USA
I have got to comment on 'may' in v.4: Paul was saying that we MAY live a new life. As it says in Ecc. 9:1-4, "no one knows whether love or hate awaits them." (See my page on 'hope'.)

Romans 7:14-25

14. We know that the law is spiritual; but I am unspiritual, sold as a slave to sin.
15. I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do.
16. And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good.
17. As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me.
18. I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out.
19. For what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing.
20. Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it.
21. So I find this law at work: When I want to do good, evil is right there with me.
22. For in my inner being I delight in God's law;
23. but I see another law at work in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within my members.
24. What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death?
25. Thanks be to God—through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I myself in my mind am a slave to God's law, but in the sinful nature a slave to the law of sin.

Monday, 03/10/09, 11:37 PM EST USA
sinning
I just had a thought to do a search for "sinning" through out the entire Bible. I forgot and thought it would return a few thousand hits. In reality it was only a countable many. Here they are... and if you want to know the bottom line - if I continue to sin then I am born of the world and not of the Spirit.

sinning.