the Gospel gives us hope and consolation that our sins have been forgiven.
Yes,
and that they can be overcome, with the help of grace. “Your sins are forgiven; go, and sin no more.” John 8:11 God didn’t
create us to sin after all. The major point of the New Covenant is that “Apart from Me you do can nothing.” John 15:5, and, “With man this is impossible but not with God; with God all things are possible.” Mark 10:27
Man was meant for communion with God. Adam separated humankind from that communion. Without God man is lost, and, perhaps, even
prefers things that way if truth be known; man is in “hiding” from God. But without Him our moral integrity fails almost completely; we cannot be who we were created to be; we cannot be
ourselves, apart from God.
This other notion, that we don’t need to strive, to persevere, to choose rightly, to
will rightly, daily, to
do right, that we can’t resist grace, that we just can’t be good, or perfect, or holy, actually smacks of priggishness to me, a kind of false holiness of its own where we would sort of over-congratulate ourselves on our faith, on our trusting, on our helplessness, as if God is just so happy to be reminded of our continous acknowledgement of our totally depraved state. But I don’t buy it. God
wants our willing participation: this willingness, which He seeks to draw out of us, this alignment with His own will, which He won’t force, is one
aspect of our justice, in fact. It’s what He created us
for.
It’s a synergistic effort, where we work out our salvation together with He who works in us.
If you’re interested, I can give you a link to my church’s position on this matter: