Trying to do good is the worst sin of the believer.

Many Christians do not have a correct understanding of the new man. Both the wrong and right use has to be learned. Have we got it clear? We are no longer talking about the "old man", corrupt according to the deceitful lusts. But the "new man" has to be understood, for it is either the seat of all our troubles, or the zestful warrior of faith. The famous "new man" chapter, where its mistaken uses are exposed, is Romans 7. Here it is not the old man trying to do evil, but the new man trying to do good: "when I would do good" (7:21): and we have to learn that trying to do good is the worst sin of the believer. The old man went out in Rom. 6; the real new man (Christ in us) is in action in Rom. 8; the pseudo-new man is active in Rom. 7. It is the three categories of natural, carnal, and spiritual which Paul speaks of in 1 Cor. 2:14 and 3:1. Only natural and spiritual are possible permanencies for a human being; they only are the two natures available to humanity, the natural man having the satanic nature (Eph. 2:2, 3), and the spiritual man the divine nature (2 Pet. 1:4). Carnality is a temporary lapse of the spiritual man: a visit out of Rom. 8 into Rom. 7, whether long or short. Somehow or other the midday sun of revelation has to come out of the clouds and shine in us-that we really are only containers. I am convinced that there are thousands of God's people, redeemed, knowing Christ in them, often having the terminology and something of the experience of the victorious life; but this last bridge has not been crossed, when it dawns on them that Christ is really living His life in them, and that's the end of everything for them. For time and eternity He will express Himself exactly as He pleases by them, and live where and how He pleases in them.

As long as we falsely think that we are capable in ourselves of keeping the law's many demands, we are not free from sin, for sin shall have power over us. It is shocking when we understand that "the strength of sin is the law" (I Cor. 15:56b). As long as we see ourselves as an independent-self, separate from God, when the law shouts at us we will try to respond. We actually rise up, as though we are not crucified with Christ, and try to fulfill the law by self-effort. The more we try the more bound up we are. Satan keeps tricking us into believing a lie and then sin once again gets its grip on us. Around and around we go, caught in the trap of trying and failing, as sin reigns in our bodily members. Paul experienced this tremendous struggle with relentlessly defeating consequences while believing that same lie in his Romans 7 struggle.

Romans 6 promises us that sin shall not have dominion over us, for "You are not under the law, but under grace." This promise has opposite implications as well. If you are under the law, sin shall have dominion over you. The law can show us what we ought to be and what we are not; but it cannot save or deliver us. The law actually propagates sin. Most think that the law is meant to show us "how to" be righteous. But to our surprise, it is meant to do the opposite: "Moreover, the law entered, that the offence might abound" (Rom. 5:20). God is actually saying that he wants sin to be multiplied in us so that we might once and for all see its hidden cause. Unless we are delivered from its impossible demands, we will never know true liberty or freedom from the power of sin.

"For he that is dead is freed from sin" (Rom. 6:7). The way to be free from sin is to be dead. What does it mean to be dead? Just think of it, a dead person cannot keep the law. The law may shout at us, but a dead person cannot respond to its demands. A dead person cannot perform at all. He has no plans for the future, no regrets for the past, nothing to do in the present. A dead person cannot do good deeds or be moral. He has no ability to fix himself, nor anyone else. A dead person doesn't need improvement. A dead person doesn't need to recommit himself to God. And last of all, a dead person doesn't have any needs at all (Col. 3:3-4).

This is all very subtle because it seems good and it seems right. Yet I don't believe that Satan himself was not trying to be evil when he said, "I will be like the most High God" (Isa. 14:14). He didn't know what evil was since he himself was the author of it. His only model for being God was heavenly goodness and he was trying to be good like God. The problem was that only God is good, and He will not share His glory with any. The creature cannot become like the Creator, only God is God. Satan was so full of pride that he deceived himself, although he obviously knew he was in rebellion against God because he wanted to take God's place. What he didn't know is that when a creature separates himself from God and strives to be equal with God, he commits iniquity as well as unredeemable sin. Thus this great rebellion is the essence of all evil.

Now, see how we Christians are trying to be what only God is? We are not trying to take God's place as Satan did; however, we are striving to be like Jesus, or trying to be good like God. That is why Paul said in Romans 7:21, "When I would do good, evil is present with me." So, trying to be good becomes our evil.

The unknown factor in the Christian is that the human is and always has been the instrument of someone else. In Romans 7, the one manipulating Paul is Satan. "The evil which I would not, that I do; Oh wretched man that I am, who will deliver me from this body of death" (Rom. 7:19, 24). Our problem is that we have not yet discovered the secret concerning our weak, powerless, humanity. And the way to discover it is through the roller coaster dilemma of trying and failing. I was asked "How do I stop trying?" I said, "Try until you can't anymore." He wanted to strangle me, but he didn't. He was outraged because he wanted a formula and I wouldn't give him one.

All our God-given human faculties are misused by Satan as long as we operate from the lie of a performing-self. This is the basic reason that we mistakenly hate ourselves so much. When we can see that this performing self is really Satan disguised as me, and he is the one actually doing the sinning, we realize that "It is no more I that do it, but Sin that dwells in me" (Rom. 7:17, 20). Sin is another power, other than me, illegally operating in me disguised as me. It is a deceiving spirit that fools us into trying harder to be like God. When we see it, then by the Body Death of Christ on the Cross, we are set free from Satan's hold on our precious humanity.

Paul was enlightened when he, by revelation, understood that the root of his sinning came from self¬effort (trying to improve himself), which is shockingly an expression of Satan (Rom. 7:17). Satan deceived Paul; however, God always uses Satan's delusions for our good (Isa. 66:4). God used Satan's negative delusion to propel Paul into leaping by faith into the real truth; to finally discover and know that at the Cross he is: 1) dead to sin/Satan (Rom. 6:2) and the law (Rom. 7:4); and 2) alive to Christ. At the Cross, "God sent His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, for sin, and condemned Sin in the flesh."

Man has to be broken under the bondage of Satan's outer demands because he must comprehend the one simple fact that he is only a vessel. In Romans 7, Paul is being controlled by Satan, when he is actually a child of God. What opposites: heaven and hell in the same body! I tell you, it is the most radical situation any man can be in. The self is shattered into a million pieces. All the false idols of "I can do it" crumble. The false pride that is built on the foundation of false goodness falls on its face before the commandment of "Thou shall have no other gods before me." We must be naked and stripped of all vain ideas of self-improvement; then we will finally see our total helplessness.

Before I was a Christian I had to see myself utterly hopeless without Christ, and now I have to see myself utterly helpless and weak as a born-again person. Hopeless sinners and helpless saints--both are necessary!

Weak humanity is always and only a vessel, a simple clay pot, nothing more than a helpless container of someone else. The Christian cannot really know oneness to her true husband, Christ, while still halfway thinking she is able to do some good. The truth is that we (the human) have never been able to produce one ounce of good, nor one ounce of evil apart from our husband and mate. For the human (the female) is a neutral container and not the producer of her own content.

Then how do we walk in the Spirit and live the victorious Christian life, free from sin? The answer to the walk of faith as Spirit sons is presented in Romans 8. As we walk in the Spirit, there is therefore no condemnation and Christ lives our lives. It is only as Christ lives our life that we are freed from Sin's dominion and power. How do we do that? Always, by faith. This is what you say--"It is already true"-- because it is God's promise and His divine Spiritual truth.

John writes in his first epistle, "I write unto you that you sin not" (I John 2:1). So the union message and experience of sanctification is all about deliverance from sin's nature and sin's power, but not its presence nor its temptations. As long as we are in this fallen body, we will be within calling distance to sins, Satan's presence, and temptations, and we can be drawn away by temptation with occasional slips into sins. The "blood" is always our available provision whenever that rarely happens. We will not be free from Satan's temptations until we get our new bodies.

Temptation is good for us Spirit people, for it provides us with a good practice of faith. Our temptations, when rightly used by God, can be generated into redemptive words of faith furthering the Kingdom of God. I always call our temptations "God's calling card," calling us to creative faith for ourselves as well as for others.

I am not saying that doing good is evil, but trying to do good by self-effort is where the real evil lies hidden, posing itself as Christian goodness. Self-effort is an expression of Satan.

Walking in the flesh is temporarily revisiting Romans 7 by falling into the trap of believing "I should," or "I ought" to try to somehow improve myself, defend myself, or keep myself from evil. The illusionary "I" has reappeared and this "I" is subject to the outer law that it cannot keep. We are always being tempted downward with assaults that pull us back to self-effort: be more patient, don't lose your temper, get rid of your evil thoughts, struggle against your lust, improve yourself, and try to fix others. "I am a needy self so I have to DO, DO, DO in order to save myself." This is a lie! But because I am so used to taking charge of my own life and trying to control myself, I easily slip back into the try-and-fail dilemma of Romans 7.

God puts us through a painful process of learning how to walk in the Spirit. The way to walk in the Spirit is always by faith. That means we must always go back to what the truth is about us since the same Spirit that raised Jesus from the grave dwells in you: He, the Holy Spirit, will quicken your mortal flesh! For you are not really a flesh being, you are a Spirit being (Rom. 8: 9-11). Flesh cannot and does not master flesh, but Spirit masters flesh. Someone once said, "We all think we are human beings on a spiritual journey, but in fact we are really Spirit beings on a human journey."

The truth is that the Law of Spirit and Life (Christ living His life in us) has set us free from the law of sin and death (Satan's bondage in our flesh level). It is already done. For what we could not do for ourselves, Christ did by "condemning sin in our flesh" (Rom. 8:3), thereby freeing us to be joined to our true mate, Christ, who fulfills the "righteousness of the law in us" (Rom. 8:4).

The Cross defeated the whole satanic reign in our flesh by condemning Satan and putting him behind prison bars, rendering him powerless. Satan is bound but not gagged. For he can still shout accusations at us behind prison bars, which he does constantly (Rev. 12:10). This is why we have to learn how to walk in the Spirit truth and not in Satan's accusing lies.

James 2:14-26New American Standard Bible (NASB)

Faith and Works
14 What use is it, my brethren, if someone says he has faith but he has no works? Can [a]that faith save him? 15 If a brother or sister is without clothing and in need of daily food, 16 and one of you says to them, "Go in peace, [b]be warmed and be filled,” and yet you do not give them what is necessary for their body, what use is that? 17 Even so faith, if it has no works, is [c]dead, being by itself.
18 But someone [d]may well say, "You have faith and I have works; show me your faith without the works, and I will show you my faith by my works.” 19 You believe that [e]God is one. You do well; the demons also believe, and shudder. 20 But are you willing to recognize, you foolish fellow, that faith without works is useless? 21 Was not Abraham our father justified by works when he offered up Isaac his son on the altar? 22 You see that faith was working with his works, and [f]as a result of the works, faith was [g]perfected; 23 and the Scripture was fulfilled which says, "And Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned to him as righteousness,” and he was called the friend of God. 24 You see that a man is justified by works and not by faith alone. 25 In the same way, was not Rahab the harlot also justified by works when she received the messengers and sent them out by another way? 26 For just as the body without the spirit is dead, so also faith without works is dead

Thought I would post the above verses for thoightful discussion.

We work in harmony and agreement with God to do good. To work apart from God is not in keeping with how Christ did good and therefore what is not of Christ is sin. Simple as that.

All Christians are told that we should be like Jesus. Consider how Jesus, the perfect pattern of a human vessel, functioned by faith in His Father. In the book of John there are numerous scriptures that show his human vessel-hood. Here are a few of them:

John 5:19,30. "The Son can do nothing of himself, and of my own self I can do nothing." The human Jesus had no power of his own.

John 5:31-33. "If I bear witness of myself, my witness is not true." Jesus didn't bear his own witness.

John 5:43. "I am come in my Father's name." Jesus did not come in his own name.

John 6:38. "I came not to do my own will." He did not do his own will.

John 6:57. "I live by the Father." He didn't have his own life.

John 7:16. "My doctrine is not mine." Jesus didn't have a doctrine or teaching of his own.

John 7:28. "I am not come of myself." The Father sent him.

John 8:16. "If I judge, my judgment is true; for I am not alone, but I and the Father that sent me." His judgment was not his own.

John 8:28-29. "That I do nothing of myself, but as my Father hath taught me, I speak these things." He didn't learn from himself, and he didn't teach himself.

John 8:50. "I seek not mine own glory." His glory is not His.

John 8:54. "If I honor myself, my honor is nothing." He doesn't honor himself.

John 12:49. "I have not spoken of myself." Jesus didn't speak his own words.

John 14:10. "I speak not of myself, but the Father that dwelleth in me He doeth the works." His works were not his works.

Somehow, we Christians think that we are better than Jesus. This is how we think: "I know that You say we can't live the life on our own, Jesus; but I can, and I will." Do you see the foolish pride of Christians who think "we can do it" when even the Son of God didn't live as if He were separate from his Father?

Yes

It is HIS LIFE inside us. He is our King and we are now the Righteousness of God in Christ.

Rom 14:17 For the kingdom of God is not meat and drink; but righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost.

These are not just things but Christ Himself living, dwelling and abiding in us.