The Scripture testimony is that _the man himself is the root of sin_. Sin springs from _him_. Our Lord said that out of the heart proceed evil thoughts and deeds that defile the man. He was not speaking of the heart as a physical or spiritual entity _in the man_, but showing the Pharisees that righteousness or evil did not consist in the outward acts or observances, but proceeded _from the man himself_. For the heart is the man. This natural man, who is himself the root of his sin, must be born again. It is the man himself who is born again, made a new creature in Christ Jesus. The heart, that is, the man himself, is purified by faith, through the miracle work of the Holy Spirit. This new man, who in the moment of regeneration has the fruit of the Spirit, his heart filled with love, continues to have victory in Christ as he continues to abide in Christ. “As therefore ye received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in him” (Col. 2:6). This is God’s plan. It is because Christians have not continued so walking, or perhaps because they have not known clearly and fully the normal New Testament experience that should result from “receiving” Christ Jesus, that there is need of a crisis in the life, a decision to get back where we belong in the place of abiding. * * * * * But why is it possible for this new creature to sin after he has so received Christ? It has been assumed that there must be some root of sin in the Christian that makes it possible for him to sin. It is strange that this should be thought a necessity when we know that Satan sinned, and Adam sinned, when they were sinless and had never been tainted with any impurity. If it were _not_ possible for this new creature to sin, he would be a machine; his very humanity would need to be destroyed. If we accept as the alternative of this kind of Christian a Christian who is provided with something in him which causes the sin, we arrive at exactly the same conclusion with this difference: we have a machine which cannot do anything except sin. Let it be understood clearly that if a man in this body and in this life in the midst of temptation is not able to sin then he is not able to be good. He can sin for the same reason that he can be good, because he is a free moral agent. That is the way God made him, and it is of the essence of his humanity. Everywhere in Scripture the Christian is appealed to as one who is responsible to choose. The reason that a Christian can sin is because he still has his free will. And when he sins, it is not a root of sin in him that sins. It is he who sins. That first sin (which need not occur) after a man is made a new creature in Christ, or after he has understood and taken Christ as his Victory, is always a tragedy. Sin should always be a tragedy. It is not an accident nor an incident. But if the man is not responsible, but has something in him that makes sin necessary, then he cannot regard sin as a preventable tragedy.