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| PentecostalTheology.com
SAINT OR SINNER? – Ray E Horton
Some believers are not open to the truth of God’s Word or interpretations different than there’s. A brother in Christ posted that he was the chief of sinners, echoing Paul’s statement (which I believe was referring to pre-salvation.
My response to him follows, but he deleted it. I believe it was a good response to some wrong thinking that many have, so I’ll repeat it here:
Identity is in spirit realm
When you were saved, your spirit is what was instantly sanctified, perfected and united with Christ and sealed by Holy Spirit. That makes your identity to be a saint
It’s a matter of knowing your identity in Christ. You are foremost spirit. God’s image in you is spirit. That’s where your identity lies. And when you were saved, that is what was instantly sanctified, perfected and united with Christ and sealed by Holy Spirit. That makes your identity to be a saint.
Now your soul, as distinct from your spirit, is the part of your inner man that you are most aware of, your mind, will and emotions. “For the word of God is alive, and active, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the division of soul and spirit, of joints and marrow…” (Hebrews4:12).
Unlike your spirit, your soul is in a lifelong process of sanctification. That is where Christians still occasionally fall into sin because of the unrenewed mind, and its old wrong attitudes, thinking and habits, which fall off only gradually. It happens as you renew your mind in the Word to who you actually now are in Christ, a saint with a perfect spirit. As Paul tells us, the old man of sin is dead and gone.
“Knowing this, that our old man has been crucified with Him, so that the body of sin might be destroyed, and we should no longer be slaves to sin” (Romans 6:6).
He sees a new creation in you
When God looks at you, He looks at who you really are, a new creation with perfected spirit made right with Him, and not the sins of the soul which had been put upon Jesus and are not the real you.
“Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new” (2 Corinthians 5:17).
Therefore, even though you sometimes still sin, you are no longer a sinner but a saint. Knowing that gives great confidence and encouragement to press on with the race.
