Resisting Temptation and Responding to the Accuser

Russell Moore:

Gospel freedom is the most important aspect of resisting temptation.
Remember that Satan’s power over you is first and foremost the power of accusation and threatened death.
In Christ, though, you have already been indicted, judged, executed, and resurrected.
You are “dead to sin” and “alive to God in Christ Jesus” (Rom. 6:11).
Regardless of whether you support or oppose the death penalty, you’d probably wince to hear about a state that executed a murderer and then had a public flogging of his corpse. Your discomfort there wouldn’t be because you’re soft on murder but because that act would be insanely beside the point. After all, an executed corpse can’t be punished anymore. It’s over.
Likewise, you’ve been to hell, in the cross of Christ.
You’ve been buried beneath the judgment of God, turned over to the Devil, and you are gone.
Now you stand in Christ, hidden in his identity, and thus free from any accusation.
Knowing that truth doesn’t lead you to yield to temptation but instead to fly from it.
You’re not hiding from God anymore.

—Tempted and Tried: Temptation and the Triumph of Christ, p. 170.
Justin Taylor