Why do Christians still sin after being saved?

Question 6049.

Christians still sin after conversion, and the honest recognition of that fact is one of the more important things a new believer can be told early. Nobody is helped by a version of the gospel that promises what the New Testament does not.

The question is why, and the answer has to do with what salvation actually changed and what it did not change yet.

What conversion changed instantly

A great deal happened the moment you believed, and none of it is small. You were justified, declared righteous before God on the basis of what Jesus did. You were regenerated, given new life. You were adopted, indwelt by the Spirit, and transferred out of the domain of darkness.

None of those is a process. They are completed acts, and they do not fluctuate with performance. That is why the New Testament addresses failing congregations as saints without embarrassment.

So when Christians still sin, it is not evidence that the transaction failed. Standing before God and daily behaviour are two different things, and Scripture keeps them apart deliberately.

What conversion did not remove

What was not removed is the flesh, Paul’s term for the fallen inclination that remains and pulls against the Spirit. The desires of the flesh are against the Spirit, and the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh, for these are opposed to each other (Galatians 5:17).

Nor was the body redeemed yet. Paul says we groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. The appetite, the habit, the reflex and the memory all came with us through the door.

And the world and the enemy are still operating. Three pressures remain in place after conversion, and only one of them, the flesh, is internal.

Romans 7 and the war inside

Paul describes it from the inside: I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death (Romans 7:15-24)?

There is long debate about whether he is describing his pre conversion or post conversion experience. I take it as the believer, because the delight in the law of God according to the inner being is not the language of an unbeliever, and because it matches what every honest Christian knows.

The chapter ends not in despair but in thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord, and then Romans 8 opens with no condemnation. The war is real and the verdict is settled, and holding those two together is the whole art of the Christian life.

Positional and practical holiness

The New Testament uses sanctification in two ways. There is a definitive sense in which believers have already been sanctified, set apart, and a progressive sense in which we are being changed into the same image from one degree of glory to another.

Confusing the two produces either complacency or despair. If I think the progressive work is already complete, I will explain away my failures. If I think my standing depends on the progressive work, I will never have assurance.

Christians still sin because the second work is unfinished, and it is unfinished by design. There is more on this in the study on positional and practical sanctification.

Why God did not just remove it

It is a fair question. He could presumably have made converts sinless on the spot. The fact that He did not tells us something about what He is doing.

Much of Christian character is formed in the fight. Dependence, humility, compassion for other strugglers and a real knowledge of grace are not downloaded; they are learned under pressure. A believer who had never struggled would be useless to anyone who does.

It also keeps us looking to Jesus rather than to our own record. A Christian who had nothing left to fight would very quickly have a great deal to be proud of, and one reason Christians still sin is that pride would be a far more dangerous companion than the struggle we actually have.

Why it matters that Christians still sin abnormally

One thing has changed decisively even in the ongoing struggle. Sin is no longer the believer’s natural home. John writes that no one born of God makes a practice of sinning, using a tense that describes settled habitual lifestyle rather than individual acts.

In the same letter he says that if we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and that if anyone does sin we have an advocate with the Father (1 John 2:1). Both sentences are in the same short letter, which rules out perfectionism and complacency in one stroke.

So Christians still sin, and Christians are troubled by sinning. The trouble is itself a sign of life, because the dead do not object to the temperature.

Confession keeps the relationship clear

Sin in a believer does not affect sonship, which was settled at the cross, but it does affect fellowship, which is the daily experience of walking with God. A son can be out of sorts with his father without ceasing to be his son.

That is why John gives the remedy: if we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. Confession is the ordinary hygiene of the Christian life, not an emergency procedure.

Delay is what does the damage. Unconfessed sin thickens into something harder, which is exactly what Hebrews warns about. See also the article on confession.

The means God has given

Paul’s instruction is positive: walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. That is not passivity, and it is not gritted teeth either. It is deliberate, ongoing dependence, expressed in concrete choices.

Alongside it come the ordinary means: Scripture, prayer, the Lord’s Supper, the local church, honest friendships, and the willingness to remove what needs removing. None of these is impressive on its own, and together over years they change people.

Christians still sin, and Christians also genuinely change. Any pastoral counsel that admits the first and denies the second has stopped believing the New Testament.

Assurance in the middle of failure

Some believers conclude from their ongoing failure that they were never saved. That conclusion is understandable and usually wrong, and it comes from grounding assurance in performance rather than in what God has promised.

Eternal security rests on the faithfulness of God, not on the consistency of the believer. He who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ (Philippians 1:6), and the one who began it is the one who finishes it.

That is not a licence to relax. It is the only foundation stable enough to fight from. More on this in the article on eternal security.

The war has an end date

This is temporary. When Jesus appears we shall be like Him, because we shall see Him as He is, and the flesh will have no place in a resurrection body. The struggle every believer knows has a terminus, and it is not decades away in the sense that matters.

That hope is meant to be used now. John says that everyone who thus hopes in Him purifies himself as He is pure, which makes the future a present motivation rather than a distant consolation.

Until then the pattern is falling and rising, and the rising is what defines you. There is more in the article on mortification of sin.

Two errors to avoid

The first is perfectionism, the teaching that a believer may reach a state in which sin no longer occurs. It has appeared in various forms across church history and it always ends the same way, either in redefining sin until the claim can be sustained, or in the quiet despair of people who cannot sustain it.

The second is the opposite, a shrug that treats ongoing failure as inevitable and therefore unimportant. Christians still sin, but Paul’s response to that reality is never a shrug. It is by no means, and then a set of concrete instructions.

Both errors come from the same mistake, which is treating sanctification as a single event rather than a settled status followed by a lifetime of change.

What progress actually looks like

People expect the graph to run smoothly upwards and are discouraged when it does not. In practice growth tends to look like a long plateau, a sudden drop, a slow recovery, and a level slightly higher than before, repeated over decades.

It also shows up in unexpected places. A believer may still lose his temper and yet apologise within the hour, when ten years ago he would have sulked for a fortnight. That is real progress, and it is invisible on any scoreboard he is keeping.

Ask the people who live with you whether you have changed. They will give you a more accurate answer than your own sense of it, and Christians still sin while genuinely becoming different, which is exactly what Scripture leads us to expect.

So, now what?

Stop being surprised. Christians still sin, and a believer who expects perfection this side of glory will spend his life oscillating between pretence and despair.

Then take the struggle seriously rather than fatalistically. Christians still sin, and that is not the same as saying nothing can be done. Name the specific thing, deal with the access, tell someone, and expect slow progress rather than instant deliverance.

And keep your assurance where the New Testament puts it, in what God has done rather than in how your week went. What would this month look like if you fought from acceptance instead of for it?

My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin. But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous.

1 John 2:1 (ESV)