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To: Springfield Reformer

So are you implying there’s no need of confession of sins for any christian?

Remember, both you and I have been quoting the same John.

And if one “believes in Him”, he will obey His commandments. Christ did not breath on everyone to forgive sins, did He?

Pax


929 posted on 01/16/2017 10:14:59 PM PST by ebb tide (We have a rogue curia in Rome)
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To: ebb tide
So are you implying there’s no need of confession of sins for any christian?

I'm not sure how you can have read my previous posts and come to that conclusion. Christians confess their sins to God and to the person or persons offended. We begin our walk of faith in Christ by confessing our sinfulness and our need for forgiveness in Him. We continue to confess our sins to each other, as Paul teaches, to build up the body of Christ in love. Though judgment is removed in Christ, we still are flawed beings, and confession is essential to overcoming our faults and becoming better people ever more in love with our brothers and sisters in Christ.

So I hope that clears that up.

Christ did not breath on everyone to forgive sins, did He?

Interesting conflation you've got going there. Jesus did NOT specifically 'breath the power to forgive.' Go back and read John 20. He breathed the Holy Spirit on them. During Jesus' earthly ministry, the Holy Spirit was not disbursed to all believers in the same way. But after Jesus left, every believer recieves the Holy Spirit, and Paul even says if you don't get the Holy Spirit, you don't belong to Christ. So while this special infusion of the Holy Spirit may have been limited to the apostles at the beginning, it's now the norm for everyone who belongs to the body of Christ.

This has huge consequences. By having the Holy Spirit, we believers really are empowered to tell people their sins are forgiven in Christ if they repent and believe. And I don't mean this is some general arm-waving way. I mean real, specific sins. I knew a woman who was troubled about the abortion she was forced into by her father. She was confident God would not forgive her. I was able to tell her confidently in the authority of Christ's name that if she was repentent (and she was), God absolutely would forgive her, because the pealty had already been paid in the death of Christ on the cross.

Your bigger problem is your missing priesthood. God shut it down. There is now just one mediator between man and God, the man Jesus Christ. Now anybody can go to God in the name of Christ with absolute confidence the Father will recieve him. This is not placing confidence in ourselves, but taking God as an honest dealer, who will do as He has promised. And that's exactly what faith is.

Peace,

SR
939 posted on 01/16/2017 10:49:40 PM PST by Springfield Reformer (Winston Churchill: No Peace Till Victory!)
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