God made it clear that we do sin after salvation and that the provision for that sin is Christ in heaven as our advocate.
1 John 2:1
"My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin. And if anyone sins, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous;"
Christ testifies on our behalf that we belong to Him. The Father looks at us and sees His Son in us.
John 10:28
"and I give eternal life to them, and they will never perish; and no one will snatch them out of My hand."
Romans 8:1-11
"8:1 Therefore there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.
2 For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and of death.
3 For what the Law could not do, weak as it was through the flesh, God did: sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and as an offering for sin, He condemned sin in the flesh,
4 so that the requirement of the Law might be fulfilled in us, who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.
5 For those who are according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who are according to the Spirit, the things of the Spirit.
6 For the mind set on the flesh is death, but the mind set on the Spirit is life and peace,
7 because the mind set on the flesh is hostile toward God; for it does not subject itself to the law of God, for it is not even able to do so,
8. and those who are in the flesh cannot please God.
9 However, you are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you. But if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Him. 10 If Christ is in you, though the body is dead because of sin, yet the spirit is alive because of righteousness.
11 But if the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit who dwells in you"
God cannot look upon sin, that's why Christ came to live in us, to be for us what we cannot be for ourselves and that is sinless. Christ is our sinlessness in our spirit, but we still dwell in this body of death. Our flesh is still sinful.
When we go to heaven to be with the Father after we die, our body is left behind because it is corrupted by sin. When our body is resurrected at the rapture, it will be changed into a new body so that it can be with our uncorrupted Christlike spirit.
God cannot look upon sin, the reason that He turned away when Christ was on the cross bearing our sins for us. He could not look upon His own Son. How much less could the Father look at us in our sin.
Nothing corrupted can go in the presence of God, that's why Christ is our propitiation. He is our righteousness in our spirit. Too many people are more focused on the physical trappings of actions that they miss that our righteousness is not in our body but in our spirit.
When we focus on Christ our actions come more in line with our spirit. Sometimes we take our eyes off Christ like Peter did when he was walking on water, then is when we fall, but Christ reaches out to lift us up and remind us Who we belong to.
Christ also disciplines those that belong to Him. There would be no need for discipline if we did not sin.
Hebrews 12:4-8
"4 You have not yet resisted to the point of shedding blood in your striving against sin;
5 and you have forgotten the exhortation which is addressed to you as sons,
“My son, do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord, Nor faint when you are reproved by Him;
6 For those whom the Lord loves He disciplines, And He scourges every son whom He receives.”
7 It is for discipline that you endure; God deals with you as with sons; for what son is there whom his father does not discipline?
8 But if you are without discipline, of which all have become partakers, then you are illegitimate children and not sons."
Those who deny that they sin after they have been saved are denying the Word of God that proclaims the truths in the mentioned verses. They are also lying themselves while calling God a liar.
1 John 1:10
"If we say that we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us."
God was speaking to believers when He wrote these words. We do not avoid sin to gain heaven, because salvation is not dependent on our lack of sin, it is dependent on what Christ did on that cross.
When we were changed into a new creation our heart was changed, we hate sin, even when we find ourselves in it, even in the slightest thought or word, we hate sin. When we sin we feel ashamed and desire for the Lord to cleanse us from that sin.
Our cleansing, the Bible calls "sanctification", is life long. We are being directed by the Holy Spirit, when we obey, we have joy and peace, when we disobey we experience lack of peace and God's discipline to be able to grow in holiness.
For the non-believer, they are on their way to hell, not because of their sin, but because they have not trusted Christ for the payment of their sin, after which God changes us into a new creation.
For the believer our sin leads us to spiritual turmoil and discipline for the purpose of bringing us back into fellowship with Christ and for our spiritual growth.
We grow in direct proportions to how much we seek the Lord, pray and obey what He tells us.
I am running into people who are accusing believers of being unsaved because they believe that Christ paid it all on the cross and that we cannot keep our salvation by good works any more than we can earn it by good works.
Christ works in us sort of like the bit in a donkeys mouth. When we go the wrong way He pulls the reigns to bring us back to the path. Some people are more stubborn than others, needing many consequences to show them their need to confess their sin and return to the narrow path. Others have such a strong desire to please the Lord that they are easily turned by circumstances and consequences.
I fear for those who believe there is no sin in their lives, if they never confess their sin then there will be little growth and perhaps they have never been born again, thinking that they effected their own salvation by good works, which is no salvation at all.
