And if both true, then 1) being born of God does grant us a new nature with a power over sin we did not have before, but 2) we also continue to have fights with our old nature, and we can lose those fights. This fits perfectly with the teaching of Paul in Romans 6-7 concerning our old nature, which he links to our mortal flesh. We have many deficiencies. Even the universe itself is in a state of decay due to the curse.
The hard truth is, many scars of our spiritual disease remain and will remain until the renewal of creation at the end of this age. We are free from the root cause of death, yet we still die. We are free from the root cause of all disease, and God sometimes heals us, sometimes even raises Lazarus from death. But we still get sick. Lazarus, as far as anyone knows, died a second time.
We have been redeemed judicially. Christ died for our sin. Satan was defeated. Death was defeated. But the Lord means to build His church, to grow his saints, to teach us His ways, to deepen our faith, and raise our aspirations. And so we are also being redeemed daily from our sins, made cleaner and cleaner each step of the way.
Therefore John is right of course, when he says that those born of God cannot remain in continuous, open sin (that is the sense of the Greek). God’s spirit within a believer will never settle for spiritual stagnancy. A homosexual who believes they can continue in that sin and also abide in Christ is sadly mistaken. Or a person who believes they can continue coveting other people’s goods, or murdering unborn children, or carrying hatred in their heart toward some person or group of persons, or worshiping a multiplicity of gods or worshipping a false Christ, and everything will still turn out fine with God, is just kidding themselves. These are all examples of delusion. We are all called to repent and do what is right and believe what is right.
But just as Jeremiah saw the unfathomable deceitfulness of the human heart, so also King David, a man after God’s own heart, was worried about sins he sinned without even realizing it:
Psa 19:12 Who can understand his errors? cleanse thou me from secret faults.
Jesus gets to these kinds of sins in the sermon on the mount. They are not measured by your own sense of happiness or self-satisfaction, Fabian. It doesn’t matter how good or bad you feel about yourself. John says sin is the transgression of God’s law, and Jesus makes it clear that such sin comes from deep within the heart. Merely looking too long at a racy image on an FR thread can beget the sin of lust. Merely calling someone “dummy” can reflect the sin of pride. Merely applying a double standard will bring a charge of hypocrisy (BTW, in light of the Polycarp quote, will you admit your error regarding the deity of Christ being taught by the early church?).
But there is hope:
1Jn 1:9 If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
This is a present tense process. It happens every day. It needs to happen every day. Jesus illustrated it with Peter:
Joh 13:8 Peter saith unto him, Thou shalt never wash my feet. Jesus answered him, If I wash thee not, thou hast no part with me. [9] Simon Peter saith unto him, Lord, not my feet only, but also my hands and my head. [10] Jesus saith to him, He that is washed needeth not save to wash his feet, but is clean every whit: and ye are clean, but not all.
If we are forgiven of our sins in the death of Christ, we are clean before God. But while we live in these mortal bodies, we walk in the dust of the world, and carry about our old memories and our old nature, and every day our feet collect that dust of daily living, and daily we need to be washed. And he is only too happy to wash us. But only if we admit the need of it.
Peace,
SR
Of course!
It is irrelevant to him; since he has progressed into the level of sinlessness on earth.
The REST of you will just have to wait until Heaven to attain this state.
--Obermeister_Wanna_Be(Can't you just Be Still® like Fabian has learned?)
they are not about avoiding sin...they show that we are FREE of sin with Jesus! You missed it again....
And yes, you guys are good at quoting, although often out of contexts, the bible. But you have made the deadly mistake of learning God and Jesus, and not really being blessed by them. It is like because you can quote and know in your head the passages of very blessed people, then you are like those people..not! You all have made a critical mistake and now defend it with your dear ego lives.