Pastor’s Corner is a weekly column from Pastor Wynter Sturtevant III of the Mariposa Reformed Baptist Church. The church is located in Mariposa, California at 4994 11th Street in the Seventh-day Adventist church building. Services are held at 10:00 A.M. on Sunday.
January 28, 2019 - There is an old theological phrase that I like to use that details an important Christian truth. The phrase is “simul justus et peccator”. This is not a typo but is Latin. The English translation is “simultaneous righteous and sinner”. The message being conveyed in what is called the Simul (Martin Luther) can be told in a very basic way while also being a theological doctrine that folks spend their lives to study. The message is that while we are made righteous by Christ, we also still struggle with the flesh. We’re simultaneously justified and a sinner.
Paul talks about this when he writes about his own struggle with sin. In Romans 7:22-25 we read, “For I delight in the law of God, in my inner being, but I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I myself serve the law of God with my mind, but with my flesh I serve the law of sin.” Part of the Christian life is one that is a struggle between indwelling sin and our want to obey the God who redeems us. What needs to be remembered Christian is that the reason God redeems us is because we are unable to fully overcome and vanquish sin. Take comfort in knowing that the Gospel of amazing grace is for we wretches, we who have faith in the Gospel truth that through Christ you are forgiven.
Wynter is an Elder at Mariposa Reformed Baptist Church. Find out more at www.mariposachurch.org or email him at wynter@mariposachurch.org.
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