SUNDAY STUDY: The Disposition of Sin
Compiled from the writings of Oswald Chambers "Devotions for a Deeper Life"
“And He is the propitiation for our sins: and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world” 1 John 2:2.
Sin is not merely immorality. Sin is deeper, more massive, more awful.
Sin reflects a disposition that refuses to let God rule.
We are playing fools around the Cross of Christ to think that Jesus came just to challenge us to set our wrongs right. He did not. He became sin so that he might destroy sin in us. The Christian’s mission is not to change other people’s sin. Jesus Christ is the substitute for the sin of the world. May God the Holy Spirit convict us of sin, and destroy the so-called “Christian experience” some of us have.
SIN IS UNIVERSAL. Yet, the Cross of Jesus can destroy the disposition of sin. The Cross can give us a clean heart; its power can invade and indwell us.
The salvation of Jesus is not just for “an experience.” An absolute surrender must be made to God – we must yield ourselves to a full invasion of God. There is no deliverance from sin until we seek the Cross of Jesus Christ, who became sin for us.
SIN IS BLINDNESS. We are contented with easy satisfaction in our spiritual lives. The important thing is not what others think of me, what I would like to be, or what I think I am, but what I really am in the sight of God.
I am ruled by my disposition [tendency, inclination, what you are prone to do]. Not my human nature nor my personality, but my disposition is the principle that rules my personality. And disposition is what the atonement of Jesus Christ radically alters. That disposition is called “the old man”, “the body of sin”, or “original sin.’ And it is something quite apart from human nature.
Sin is not the essence of your mortal body. Sin is the disposition that rules it, and it is what Jesus Christ cleanses through the atonement.
In his first epistle, John wrote to Christians that those who say there is no such thing as a disposition to sin, that if you think you have no sin, you deceive yourself (1 John 1:8).
The disposition of sin is enmity with God (James 4:4) and cannot be reconciled to God. There is only one thing to do with it. You must enter into the death of Jesus and have the “old man” crucified with Christ.
We must deal with this disposition of sin, a principle that rules nature.
“If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.” 1 John 1:9