Yes, that's why I tried to be careful to include the line "this week's mowing". IMHO, to add in extra facts is to change the story, and this is what I think might be happening to scripture when a second layer of "application" is added to what is in the text.
Again, the glib inadequate explanation is that God never changes because he's outside of time.
Yes, I would say that the Bible by itself is clear enough that God does not change, regardless of His being outside of time. For example:
Mal 3:6 : "I the Lord do not change. So you, O descendants of Jacob, are not destroyed.
Num 23:19 : God is not a man, that he should lie, nor a son of man, that he should change his mind. Does he speak and then not act? Does he promise and not fulfill?
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It is that which washes away original sin and it is that which restores the one who has done what John calls a deadly sin. The same act. The ONCE and for all act which can never and need never be repeated.
Respectfully, here again I see additions, or rather qualifications, being made to the text to change the story. In this case we have original sin and mortal sin. The text just says "sin". I'm not aware of the concept of venial sin in scripture because "the wages of sin is death". Plus, to say that Jesus died for mortal sins "once and for all" does not include the "application" proviso. So, there is no sense of completeness in the interpretation because there are strings attached.
God is like the pay master who looks through the book to find a way to give us a little more, as opposed to what we think of Him too often (even if we're not really aware that we think it) which is that he's the pay master who is intent on finding out how to hold back as much as possible.
Amen to that. While I know it's not the same experience that you have, I believe I know generally what you're talking about.
If a man sees his brother committing a sin which is not a deadly sin, he should pray to God for him, and he will grant him life -- that is when men are not guilty of deadly sin, There is such a thing as deadly sin, and I do not suggest that he should pray about that; but although all wrongdoing is sin, not all sin is deadly sin.I don't know if that is some supposed "proof text". (If so, it's a lousy one!) I just happened to be cruising around the Bible the other day and I came across it and said unto my self, "Well bless my soul, WHAT do THAT mean?"
Okay, with respectful diffidence, try this wild hare(hair?) of an idea. Jesus once for all did what He did. Is the whatever-it-is which we call being born again or awakened or whatever superfluous? It's an addition of some kind. It is a bestowal/appropriation on/by you of the once for all act? Yes it is cheifly an apprehension of the act of Christ and of its meaning for you, but it is also certainly a grace. so it's a now "re-present-ation" of Good Friday, etc. 33 AD.
I GUESS I'm conjecturing something like this: It is not the sacrifice which is repeated in the Mass, the confession, or the individual's coming to Jesus, it is all "application".
And in other news, while I'm running things up various flag-poles, let me offer my distinction between "Sin" as a state and "sins" as acts. The state of Sin would be opposed to the state of Grace but "sins" happen in both of them. And I GUESS the concept of mortal sin - which I doubt is exactly what John had in mind, is that it's a sin which reaches to the level of rejecting Grace. An inadvertent "Sumbidge!" slipping from my ruby lips especially when in the company of say, nuns, would indicate a persistent disorder in self-control, awareness, "recollection" like that - a truth about me which could indeed metastasize into a trip on the down escalator. Shooting a man in Reno, just to watch him die -- that's probably a good example of someone who "doan need (in his lost mind) no feelthy, steenkin grace" and therefore "mortal". And when he "comes to himself" then a certain "Father I have sinned before ...." might be required before the father interrupts and says,"NICE to SEE you! C'm'ere, let me hug you!"
Just trying here, not even to sell, but to depict as not unthinkable.