Do you realize that there is nowhere in the Bible where it says that the Holy Spirit’s ministry is to convict Christians of sin? Does the Holy Spirit expose our sin? Of course, He does, but He does that by convicting us of our righteousness. He is always exposing to us our new true identity in Christ, and in doing that, the darkness that we have surrendered to is revealed. Take a look at these verses from John 16. “And He, when He comes, will convict the world concerning sin, and righteousness, and judgment; concerning sin, because they do not believe in Me; and concerning righteousness, because I go to the Father, and you no longer behold Me; and concerning judgment, because the ruler of this world has been judged.” Notice that it is the world the Holy Spirit convicts of sin. The only judgment the Holy Spirit decrees and declares, again and again, is the judgment of the cross that was exacted against the kingdom of darkness and the reign of sin.
The conviction of righteousness is speaking about the believer after Jesus goes to the Father, and the Holy Spirit is poured out into the Christian, creating our union with Jesus and His righteousness.
In Luke 15:17, we are told that the prodigal son had finally come to the end of the road in his life of self-centeredness and squalor. After filling himself with the pods that the swine were eating because no one was giving him anything else to eat, it says in verse 17 that he came to his senses and began to remember his Father’s house. When it says “he came to his senses,” it should actually have been translated “he came to himself.” He remembered who he was and where his true home was, which caused him to rise up and be restored to his position of honor and abundance before his father. The Holy Spirit re-orients us whenever we sin by reminding us, or convincing us of who we really are as the righteousness of God in Christ, and in doing that He causes us to be haunted by the sweet nostalgia of abiding in Christ that we had laid aside briefly. The conviction of righteousness causes us to see the foolishness of our sin and an awakened longing for the honor and abundance that ours in Christ in the house of the Father.
In the Song of Solomon, the cedars of Lebanon metaphorically and type speak of the “New Creation.” In the last chapter, the Shulamite speaks to Jesus about a younger believer in the Lord who is wandering in immaturity, and the Shulamite is asking Jesus what can be done to help her “little sister.” Jesus tells the Shulamite that there are two options to help the little sister to accelerate in her spiritual growth. “If she is a wall, we shall build on her a battlement of silver.” Without getting into a long explanation in this particular forum, Jesus is simply saying that if her heart is really set apart for the things of God then we will teach her how to walk out the victory Christ is won for her so that she can stand triumphantly as an overcomer in this world of spiritual warfare. He then said, “if she is a door, we shall barricade her with planks of cedar.” The door meaning that she goes in and out of the world because her surrender is inconsistent then we will wall up that open door with planks of cedar. In other words, we will remind her of her true identity as a new creation in Christ and call her forth into the life more abundant that is her inheritance. When it comes to sin in our lives, the Holy Spirit’s first priority is to remind us of who we are, calling forth the New Creation.
When those Christians around us that we’ve been given stewardship over fail, do we try to play the role the Holy Spirit by convicting them of their sin. If we do then we are not partnering with the Holy Spirit at all. Instead, we should speak first of them about who they really are in Christ, and the fact that they are the righteousness of God in Christ. We should remind them of the abundant life with all of its wonders that is theirs. Having done that then we can expose their sin in contrast the darkness the joy of walking in the line. People want to walk away from sin just because you tell them they should; the walk away because they catch fresh vision of walking into something much more glorious than the sin that they been splashing around in.