According to John 16:7-8, the Holy Spirit was sent by Jesus to get the point across that “the prince of this world now stands condemned” (11), offering our world the chance to experience what it’s like “living free of the devil.”
As to how the Spirit gets that point across, it’s in the lives of those who believe that “The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the devil’s work,” 1 John 3:8, and that “anyone born of God….the evil one does not touch him,” 1 John 5:18. It would be seen for real in these people’s lives, therefore, that “living free of the devil” is not only possible, it also brings about some amazing differences in them too.
Can we know for certain what those differences are, then? Fortunately, John, being a practical chap, lists several differences in 1 John 5, the first of which he describes in verse 18 when he writes, “We know” – meaning we’ll know for certain all right – “that anyone born of God does not continue to sin.” In Greek it’s the present continuous tense, meaning “anyone born of God cannot continue on in sin,” or simply “cannot go on sinning.”
That’s a stunning difference, especially when compared to the life “we used to live,” Ephesians 2:2, where we just “drifted along on the stream of this world’s ideas like everyone else, unknowingly obeying the devil, the commander of the unseen world, instead of obeying God.”
But that old life came to an abrupt end when we found ourselves thinking, “I can’t live like that anymore. I can’t continue just allowing whatever my body and mind selfishly crave to rule my life” (3). And especially when it dawns of us that so much of what we see going on around us, and all over the world too, is being driven by that same spirit of helpless selfishness, resulting in so many people just living and dying without a thought as to what God created us for – or what he might think of the lives we’re living.
So we began a new life with a total change of attitude, of never wanting to disobey God again. In other words, a life of “I cannot go on sinning,” which is a great start to “living free of the devil,” because the devil is only “at work in those who are disobedient”(2).
So what brings about this remarkable change in a person’s life? John again gives us a clue back in 1 John 5:18 – it’s being “Born of God”….(next blog)
