Sin Remains but Does Not Reign

For the flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh: and these are contrary the one to the other: so that ye cannot do the things that ye would. GALATIANS 5:17

Every new believer eventually meets the same bewildering discovery. The joy of forgiveness was real, the change was real, and for a while it seemed that sin itself had gone. Then it comes back: pride, anger, impatience, the old desires stirring again. Is the change not real after all? Was I deceived? Wesley met this question in thousands of people, and he answered it in two sermons that belong together: On Sin in Believers and The Repentance of Believers. They are among the most pastorally useful things he wrote, and they are essential for reading his teaching on perfection rightly.

The mistake of the young convert

Wesley describes the experience exactly in The Scripture Way of Salvation. Those who have been born again easily imagine that all sin is gone. They reason: I feel no sin, therefore I have none; it does not stir, therefore it does not exist. But it is seldom long before they are undeceived. Temptations return and sin revives, showing that it was only stunned, not dead. They now feel two principles in themselves, plainly contrary to each other: the flesh lusting against the Spirit.

A new doctrine resisted

That doctrine was the teaching, associated with the Moravian leader Count Zinzendorf and adopted by some in England, that true believers are delivered not only from the dominion of sin but from its very being, so that no sin at all remains in them from the moment they are justified. Wesley owed the Moravians a great deal; it was they who had shown him the way of faith. But on this point he opposed them firmly.

He appeals first to the whole body of ancient Christian writers, who with one voice declare that believers must still wrestle with an evil nature. He appeals to the Ninth Article of the Church of England, which says that the infection of nature remains even in the regenerate. And he appeals above all to Scripture, and particularly to Paul’s letters, where the grand point that there are two contrary principles in believers, the flesh and the Spirit, runs through them all.

And I, brethren, could not speak unto you as unto spiritual, but as unto carnal, even as unto babes in Christ. 1 CORINTHIANS 3:1

Wesley notices that Paul calls the Corinthians both carnal and babes in Christ in the same breath. They were believers, and yet in a degree they were carnal.

Guilt, power and being

The key to Wesley’s answer is a simple distinction. There is the guilt of sin, there is the power of sin, and there is the being of sin. “The guilt is one thing, the power another, and the being yet another.” Believers, he says, are delivered from the guilt and power of sin; they are not yet delivered from its being.

In the moment we are reconciled to God, the corruption of nature is put under our feet, and the flesh has no more dominion over us. But it still exists, though it does not reign. His summary line has become one of his best known: every babe in Christ is holy, and yet not altogether so. “It remains, though it does not reign.”

Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, that ye should obey it in the lusts thereof. ROMANS 6:12

Why it matters

Wesley saw two dangers in the opposite teaching. The first was despair. If a believer is told that no sin can remain in the regenerate, then the first time he feels pride or anger he will conclude that he was never born again, and he may cast away his confidence altogether. Wesley was protecting the weak.

The second danger was subtler. A believer who thinks there is no sin in him will see no need for continued repentance, and without repentance there is no way forward in holiness. In The Scripture Way of Salvation Wesley calls this the extreme mischievousness of a seemingly innocent opinion: by preventing repentance, it quite blocks up the way to sanctification.

The repentance of believers

This brings us to the second sermon. Most people think of repentance as something that happens at the start of the Christian life. Wesley agrees that there is a repentance that comes before faith. But he insists that there is also a repentance, and a faith, needed after we have believed, in every stage of our Christian course.

This later repentance is different from the first. It carries no sense of condemnation or fear of wrath. It is, he says, a conviction wrought by the Holy Spirit of the sin that still remains in the heart: a heart bent to backsliding, a propensity to pride, self-will, anger, love of the world. It is a conviction of the sin that still clings to our words and actions, even our best ones, which are mixed with evil in their spirit, matter or manner. And it is a conviction of our utter helplessness. We cannot, by all the grace we have, drive out the pride and self-will that remain in us.

O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death? I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord. ROMANS 7:24–25

And the faith that answers it

But Wesley does not leave believers there. To this repentance answers a faith: the conviction that Christ is able to save to the uttermost, and that He will cleanse the heart from all sin. The believer who knows his own helplessness is exactly the one ready to receive what God has promised.

Wherefore he is able also to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by him, seeing he ever liveth to make intercession for them. HEBREWS 7:25

This is where Wesley’s teaching on perfection begins. It does not begin with a claim that believers are already sinless. It begins with an honest admission that they are not, a repentance that feels the remaining sin keenly, and a faith that looks to Christ to do what we cannot.

Reading this well

These two sermons are a gift to anyone discouraged by the persistence of sin after conversion. They say plainly: this is normal. Sin remaining in you is not proof that you are not a Christian. What matters is whether it reigns. Is it fought, confessed and hated, or is it served?

At the same time, they are a challenge to complacency. Wesley did not want believers to settle into a comfortable truce with remaining sin. He wanted them to repent of it daily, to feel their helplessness, and to trust Christ for more. The next chapters follow him along that road.

FOR REFLECTION AND ACTION

1. Have you been troubled by the return of old sins after conversion? Take comfort from Wesley: sin may remain where it does not reign.

2. Ask honestly whether any sin is reigning in your life — obeyed rather than resisted. Bring it to Christ today.

3. Practise the repentance of believers: ask the Spirit to show you one wrong temper still remaining in your heart.

4. Look at one of your best actions this week and notice what mixture of motive was in it. Confess it without despair.

5. Read Hebrews 7:25 and ask Christ, who is able to save to the uttermost, to do in you what you cannot do yourself.

A PRAYER

Lord Jesus, You have delivered me from the guilt of sin and broken its dominion. Yet I still find in myself pride, self-will and a heart bent to backsliding.

Keep me from despair when I feel it, and keep me from making peace with it.

Give me the repentance of a believer, a clear sight of what remains, and a deep sense of my own helplessness.

And give me faith to trust You, who are able to save to the uttermost, to cleanse what I cannot cleanse. Amen.