These minor sins are like the dirt that accumulates on the feet of one walking barefoot. The feet must be washed regularly. Once when Jesus was with His disciples He poured water in a basin and began to wash the disciple’s feet and dry them with a towel. Peter, feeling so inferior to Christ resisted. Jesus said that if He didn’t do it Peter would have no part with Him. So Peter said in Jn. 13.9, “not only my feet, but my hands and my head as well!” To this, Jesus’s reply is very important, ”10Jesus told him, “Whoever has already bathed needs only to wash his feet, and he will be completely clean.”⎯ thereby making the clear distinction between being thoroughly cleansed by the bold of the Lamb at salvation and the need for continues cleansing of minor sins.

Romans 8.9-11 is a most powerful passage of Scripture. Here, it is the self-same Spirit, who is also referred to as the Spirit of God, and also the Spirit of Christ, and ultimately as Christ. Whatever the title, the most gripping truth of all three Bible passages presented here, Acts 2.38-39, Jn. 14.16-18, and Rm. 8.9-11 is the fact that He dwells in you! What was then received at baptism is now present in your daily life, and will also be present at your coming death and resurrection; this great mystery is revealed, Col. 1.27, “Christ in you the hope of glory.” “In you” mind you, not in your midst, not in heaven, not surrounding you, not in the temple or church building, but within you, the Spirit of Christ now in union with your own spirit. Just as the fertilized seed in a women needs the environment of the womb to nourish, protect, and give growth to the fetus, this Holy Spirit receives the deposit of the seed of Christ in the heart of the believer, nurtures it, protects it, and gives it growth into becoming a new man.

Our focus here is on the distinction between sin as an evil act and sin as a power or force, as a compulsion to act in its own behalf. The power of sin like gravity, is ever present at work to corrupt the inner nature of man; and when given into, man commits sins by his outward actions. The simple sentence, “I sin,” is a complete sentence because it has a noun “I” and the verb “sin” that implies the action of committing sins. If however, as Paul writes, “…the law of sin in my members,” (Rm. 7.23) here the word sin is a noun, not indicating the action of sinning but of a present power of sin. I believe the word “sin” appears over forty-one times in Romans 5-8, forty times as a noun, which identifies a thing present, such as a power, and only once as a verb, indicating the act of sinning. This is an important fact to remember.