Some more idle musings on sin in believers

I frequently have people complain that I am teaching a gospel of works by saying that believers don't have to sin. Now, if I taught that we could do it ourselves, I would concur. But, that is most assuredly not what I believe. I believe—probably more avidly than most Calvinists!—that we can do nothing but sin by the power of our own will. I believe in total depravity—the total inability of us by our own power to please God. But, I also believe in free grace—the empowering presence of God in the form of the Holy Spirit, living within the believer. This presence of God is what enables the believer to live free from sin.

Even Augustine believed this. In his disputes with Pelagius, touching on the power of a believer to be free from sin, he makes this observation:

"Let Pelagius confess that it is possible for man to be without sin than in no other way than by the grace of Christ, and we will be at peace with him."

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Maybe I should compile a list of saints through the ages who believed this. But, if you aren't able to believe the testimony of scripture, what good would the quotations from the saints of the church do? Unless, of course, sola scriptura isn't really what Protestants believe! Unfortunately, I'm becoming more convinced of that everyday; we have the cult of leadership, consisting of near blind obedience to a charismatic leader. We have the “papacy of the popular paperback,” as I once heard a preacher call it, which simply grabs theology from whatever is selling well right now. We have the unthinking adherence to tradition in our interpretations. Where is scripture in these?

What ever happened to the call of the Reformers: Ecclesia Reformata, Semper Reformanda The church, having been reformed, always must be reformed? Five hundred years, give or take a few, after the Reformation, the Protestant churches are just a fully enslaved to tradition as the Roman church was enslaved to it and the will of the Pope. The difference is that we don't adhere to the word of the Pope, we just adhere to the word of our tradition.
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