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On the contrary, your notion of Calvary and forgiveness comes perilously close to saying we have permission to sin. Luther, right out of the box, said as much to Melanchthon. If, on the one hand, we all agree that Christ died on the cross for our sins, how can anyone dare say, on the other hand, that nothing is required on our part in avoidance of sin after initial repentance? yet that is what your position states. Nothing can be done anyway, since nothing, even after justification, can be merited. We continue to sin, to fall short of God's grace, even after justification. But nothing we can do matters. Therefore, our sins, post conversion, don't *really* matter, since they are "covered" by the blood of Christ. How is this not a de facto permission to sin? How does this not make a de facto mockery of the sacrifice of Calvary?

"On the contrary, your notion of Calvary and forgiveness comes perilously close to saying we have permission to sin"

We should all make a habit of reading Romans, becuase it has already dealt with your line of reasoning.

Romans 6
1 What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin so that grace may increase?
2 May it never be! How shall we who died to sin still live in it?

We have died to sin when we accept Christ as our Lord and Saviour. His sacrifice on the Cross paid the penalty for my sin. There was nothing that I did to earn my salvation, nor was there anything to deserve such a gift as eternal life through Christ's death on the Cross.

The work is finished. There was nothing I could do to earn salvation, and there is nothing I can do to lose it. It was secured for all eternity at Calvary. To say that I can lose my salvation through my actions is to say that Christ's work on the Cross was incomplete and no better than the sacrifice of a goat/sheep/heifer. Those sacrifices were temporary, because they had to be offered year after year, but Christ's sacrifice was eternal, being offered once for the sins of all those who have faith in Him.

The problem we have as Christians is that we have a hard time grasping the power of what happened on the Cross. We want to be involved in that work somehow. Before we put our faith in Him, we try to do it by our works, and after we put our faith in Him, we try to keep it by our works. We so earnestly seek to be perfected by the flesh, even when we were saved by faith. The work was done already. It was finished on the Cross.

We see Christ on the Cross and ourselves here. What we need to see, and in fact what has indeed happened, is to see ourselves on that Cross in Christ. When Christ died, I died. I died to the world and the world died to me. I died to sin. We so rarely see that and still try to do things in our own strength. We try to be good Christians in our own strength. We try to do good things in our strength. We died that day on Calvary and it is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. The moment we see that, the moment that fact becomes true in our hearts, than we can decrease and He can increase.

As Christians we should never sin. It is against our nature. Before, sin was our master, now we are slaves to righteousness. We must see ourselves as dead on that Cross. We must see ourselves as dead to sin, because that is what we are.

The book of Romans should be read over and over to reinforce this point. It is such a precious book.

JM