Two Trees
From our own experience we know that Scripture is true when it says that all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God (Romans 3: 23). That means that we are all under condemnation because of a broken relationship to God our Creator and can’t save ourselves from the results and the penalty of our sins. Only one man is different – Jesus Christ. When He was on earth, He was without any sin, the perfect, obedient Son of God. Now He lives his resurrected and perfect human life in God’s presence.
Those who are united to Jesus through the regenerating work of the Holy Spirit, have the life of this perfect human person planted in them. This new life (also called the Spirit of Jesus) competes with the old sinful nature and leads the individual to crucify it; the child of God makes a deliberate choice to honour and obey the Lord Jesus and to stop ruling his/her own life. Jesus the Saviour is also Jesus the King.
According to Jesus in Matthew 5: 12 there are two types of people: those who are part of the good tree bearing only good fruit (the Jesus-tree) and those who are part of the bad tree that bears only bad fruit (the Adam-tree). In essence, sin is hostility against God; it is the life directed away from God to self. Sin is a broken relationship between man and God; sins are the fruit of this attitude – the thoughts, the words and deeds that shows mankind’s self-deification.
In this sense the person changed by the Spirit of God does not sin anymore (1 John 3: 9); his or her attitude is neither enmity nor self-idolatry. The true christian does however, still commit sins of disobedience against God, especially sins of omission (1 John 2: 1). Although it is still dishonouring to God, it comes from the heart of a weak but growing child. God knows that we long to be perfect, but cannot yet attain it.
On the other hand, when the Spirit of Christ lives in a believer, there can’t be continuing indifference to God and to obedience – at some stage there will be an awareness of sin and a return to the Father. The more we come to realise how great and wonderful our God is – how glorious his majesty is, the more we become obedient and refrain from that which we know is not according to his will.